Schools White Paper
John Pugh Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome. At the start of every Parliament somebody suggests that, before political capital is exhausted, there should be an attempt to restructure a major public service, with the hopeful, if naive, expectation that delivery will somehow be improved.
In 2010, the health service was turned upside down for reasons that people have now largely forgotten. Well, that all turned out so well! In 2016, it is the turn of the school and education sector. To be fair, the radical change started in 2010 with the introduction of the Academies Act 2010. That Act was rushed through the Commons before the ink was dry on the coalition agreement. Even then, there was hostility to parental involvement. I moved an amendment to guarantee a parental ballot if governors were undecided on conversion to academy status. It was voted down on 26 July 2010. It was supported, incidentally, by Ed Balls and the Labour party, but by too few of my own party, who at that stage had a misplaced faith in the good intentions of their coalition colleagues.
To be fair to the Government, they are entirely serious in their attempt to raise standards and equalise life chances. I want to give them credit for that. However, they seem to have forgotten that all the research shows that the really decisive factor in a child’s educational outcome is having the parents onside, empowered and involved. They seem to have forgotten that the evidence on the benefits of academisation is at best equivocal. They seem to have forgotten that money used on the process of academisation cannot also be used for revising the school formula—it cannot be allocated and spent twice. They also seem to have forgotten their own legislation on coasting schools, because they are actually abolishing schools in name. They seem to have forgotten the painful progress we have all made on the national curriculum, because it simply will not apply.
I am struggling to explain such selective amnesia, such bewitchment of minds. I have decided that two irrational forces are at play. One is a magical belief in the benefits of renaming schools and altering their governance. Whatever the educational problem—slow progress, poor behaviour, low aspiration—the answer, the universal magic, is academisation. The second irrational force that has to be acknowledged is the active distrust, positive dislike and contempt in current Conservative and Government culture for local councils. My local primaries are high achieving. They are happy with their LEA relationship. They are busy, hard-pressed and fun to be at. To them, this change is disruptive, unwelcome and—by any measure—utterly pointless.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Pugh Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Edward Timpson
The national teaching service has been an important innovation in trying to ensure that we have a strong teaching workforce in all parts of the country, including my hon. Friend’s constituency. That is why we have made significant investment in those areas where recruitment has been more difficult in the past, such as in STEM subjects, among others. It is also why we continue to ensure that we pay the pupil premium to those schools so that, through the virtual school heads and other support, they are getting the standard of teaching they deserve.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Will the Minister explain further how the new proposed national curriculum will cater for the needs of disadvantaged pupils? In particular, can he explain the following sentence in today’s written statement:
“For pupils with high needs, the local authority remains the right level at which to distribute funding”?
Education and Adoption Bill
John Pugh Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Gibb
I am pleased to welcome the Education and Adoption Bill back to the House for consideration of amendments made in the other place. As a result of the careful scrutiny of both Houses and the strong advocacy of my noble Friend Lord Nash, the Bill returns to the House in good shape and with the potential to ensure that many more children and young people have the opportunity to realise their full potential.
Since 2010, educational standards in England have risen rapidly, and 1.4 million more pupils are now taught in schools that are judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding. More than 80% of our schools are now good or better. Further improvements are required, however; 1.5 million pupils are still taught in schools that Ofsted judges to be less than good. To deliver educational excellence in every part of the country, we need a school system that consistently delivers high academic standards. This Bill brings forward important reforms to raise standards across the country. It will speed up the process by which failing maintained schools become sponsored academies, introduce new measures to allow us to intervene in coasting schools for the first time and ensure that we have consistent powers to take swift and decisive action when academies underperform.
Alongside reforms to improve school standards, the Bill introduces a reform of the adoption system so that more of our most vulnerable children can find stable, loving homes without delay. The way the sector has embraced the challenge of regional adoption agencies has been impressive, and my hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families has recently announced that future funding will be available to support the sector during the transition. The move to regional adoption agencies is a widely supported manifesto commitment, and I have been delighted to see the support from across the House and in the other place for the Government’s vision. I am pleased to confirm that the adoption clause, clause 13, stands unchanged from when the Bill was first introduced.
There are eight Lords amendments to the education provisions for the consideration of the House, and the Labour party has proposed changes to two of the Lords amendments. All eight of the Lords amendments were either Government amendments or amendments that were supported by the Government, and each was accepted by all sides in the other place without a Division. I hope that we will be able to reach the same conclusion today.
Lords amendments 1 to 5 relate to coasting schools. I want to speak to the most substantive amendment in the group first, Lords amendment 5, regarding parliamentary scrutiny of the coasting regulations. The Government recognise the importance of Parliament scrutinising the detail of the coasting definition. Lords amendment 5 therefore requires that coasting regulations to be made under the Bill will be subject to the affirmative procedure the first time they are laid. Subject to parliamentary timetabling, we hope that that will take place once the 2016 performance data have been published and before any school is formally identified as coasting for the first time. In making the change, the Government have listened carefully to the concerns raised in both this House and the other place regarding appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of the coasting definition.
Subjecting the regulations to the affirmative procedure when they are laid for the first time represents the most proportionate approach. It will allow both Houses to scrutinise and approve the detail of the final coasting regulations without creating an ongoing burden on parliamentary time. Minor and technical changes could be required to the regulations following the publication of school performance data, which currently takes place twice each year, or as a result of changes to the layout or content of performance tables. Such changes would of course be uncontroversial, but if the regulations were subject to the affirmative resolution procedure each time we made such changes, they would require a full debate in both Houses. Under the negative procedure, Members of both Houses can still call a debate should they have any concerns about the changes proposed.
Lords amendment 1 seeks to improve the drafting of the Bill and to remove any unintentional element of subjectivity that could be read into its original wording. The original text states that a school will be eligible for intervention when it has been notified that the Secretary of State “considers” it to be coasting. We have been clear from the outset that we want schools to be certain about whether or not they meet the coasting definition. That is why our proposed definition is firmly based on school performance data. To ensure that schools are not left in any doubt about this, Lords amendment 1 proposes to revise the wording of clause 1 to remove the term “considers”. In doing so, it clarifies that whether or not a school is coasting is based on the absolute terms of the definition.
Lords amendment 2 provides the Secretary of State with the power to disapply the coasting clause of the Bill from certain types of schools. As currently drafted, the Bill would apply to all maintained schools, as defined in the Education and Inspections Act 2006, including special schools and maintained nursery schools. We have no intention of applying the coasting definition to some of those schools, such as maintained nursery schools, which is why we have proposed this change.
Lords amendment 3 would change the Bill’s wording to ensure the Secretary of State must make regulations to define coasting. Amendments seeking this change were tabled by the Labour party in this House, and the Government supported the amendment when it was brought forward in the other place. It has always been our intention that coasting regulations be made, and this Lords amendment will remove any doubt.
The final amendment to the coasting schools clause, Lords amendment 4, is consequential to Lords amendment 1, and is a technical change to ensure correct cross-referencing within the clause. Lords amendment 6 is also a consequential and technical amendment to make explicit two further sections of the Education and Inspections Act. I will not go into any further detail about that.
Lords amendment 7 will ensure that parents are kept informed when their child’s school is causing concern. Their ability to understand the action that is being taken to bring about improvements has been an important issue throughout the passage of the Bill. In response, the Government brought forward Lords amendment 7, which we hope will provide assurance that parents will always be kept informed when underperforming maintained schools are becoming sponsored academies.
Every parent wants their child to attend a good school. It is right that they demand quick, effective action when concerns arise. We are clear that becoming a sponsored academy will always be the solution for a maintained school that is judged inadequate by Ofsted. The Bill delivers on our manifesto commitment in that respect.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Minister mentions parents. Does the balance of the Bill not concern him in that it gives at least seven new powers to the Secretary of State, but not one new power to parents?
Mr Gibb
The amendments we are debating give parents an additional entitlement to receive communication from the new sponsor of an academy while the process is being undertaken. We are unapologetic about the powers we are taking in the Bill, because we want to tackle all failing schools from day one when they become failing. That was in our manifesto, so this Bill is helping us deliver yet another manifesto achievement.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Pugh Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
1. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that the British automotive industry is able to develop and benefit from evolving technologies.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)
The UK automotive industry is already a great success, but we want to make sure that it stays at the cutting edge. We are committing almost £l billion to help develop next-generation technologies. This will make the UK the go-to location for connected and autonomous vehicles, for example, and it will facilitate automotive research and development.
Sajid Javid
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of driverless cars. Britain already leads in that area, and yesterday I announced some £20 million of awards. Green energy and greener cars are also important. That is why, in the spending review recently, we announced more funding for research from Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Mr Gibb
As the Secretary of State has said, we are determined to tackle the historic unfairness of the funding formula. The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), will be consulting on that in the new year.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Recent Government figures show that there is a 50% recruitment shortfall in design and technology. Is not there a case for urgent and special attention?
Mr Gibb
We continue to offer bursaries for graduates coming into teaching design and technology. We have also revised the curriculum, which we believe has made it a more attractive and rigorous qualification. The number of students taking it at GCSE and A-level has been falling over a number of years, and to tackle that we have improved the qualifications in that subject. That should follow through into more people becoming graduates in those subjects and moving into teaching.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)
Last week my Department published a call for evidence to help broaden our understanding of out-of-school education settings and the potential scope of the system of oversight announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last month. We are committed to safeguarding all children and protecting them from the risk of harm and extremism, including in out-of-school settings, many of which provide valuable learning opportunities. I would ask all interested parties to make a contribution before 11 January.
Nicky Morgan
It is very nice to hear the hon. Gentleman, who I believe is his party’s education spokesman, although we have not heard much from him on education since he took up that position. He will be aware that these matters were explored fully by the Education Committee in the previous Parliament. We want Ofsted to inspect individual schools and the support they get. It is able to question multi-academy trusts and chains as part of those inspections.
Further Education
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
It is just as well that our Scottish nationalist colleagues have left us at this point and are no longer interested in the development of the debate.
One has to feel sorry for the FE sector in the UK. This is a country—Tomlinson notwithstanding—that does not really value technical education. Technical is normally seen as the opposite to academic, and being academic is not seen to require any technical skill. You are either a classicist or a plumber and you simply cannot be both. At the end of the day, the country is run by people who have received an academic education and who fundamentally have a patrician view. That is why it is so difficult to get parity in this field. It is almost the destiny of FE to be messed around again and again largely by those who neither understand nor rate it. I would suggest that that has happened in some form or another.
Most of the sector started life as local colleges training local students in local crafts and disciplines allied to them, and was strategically—and, I think, helpfully—controlled by local authorities. They then added to the mix general studies of wider cultural interest and opportunities to retake school-based exams. That is where they started, but successive Governments—I include the previous Government—weakened the local link and made them autonomous, with corporate providers alongside other providers outside the public sector. The colleges ended up chasing down perplexing streams of funding from an ever varying set of quangos and outside bodies. The theory, which I suppose is quite sound, was that it would make them sensitive to the needs of the market. It did not do that: it made them sensitive to student demand and funding streams. Frankly, much game-changing technical education bit the dust at that point, to be replaced by courses of lesser value. We had more performing arts, and less gas fitting and all the other things we really need.
Feeling that something was wrong, the previous Labour Government under Gordon Brown decided to endow the colleges with new buildings under the Building Schools for the Future programme, which, I think we can all recall, crashed and burned. It either left colleges with severe financial liabilities they had not expected—the National Audit Office report illustrates that—or severely disappointed, because promises were not delivered on. I have very vivid memories of watching Siôn Simon, the Minister at the time, sitting hollowed out, worn out and punch drunk in Portcullis House after the latest Adjournment debate in which Labour Members had tasked him with not having delivered what had been promised.
Under the coalition Government, I have to say that things did improve under the wise guidance of Vince Cable. Further education was charged to make up for the deficiencies of British industry by providing ever more apprenticeships, and to make up for the deficiencies of schools by giving people an opportunity to retake English and maths. Laudably, colleges were allowed to develop links with universities. All of that was done against a declining budgetary environment. Now, however, we are going to cull them to save money. I take that to be the basic premise of the area-based reviews. They have to reach a bottom line and that bottom line has to be less than the current bottom line.
I suggest that there is a better way forward. We need to integrate FE colleges better with local industry and business, integrate them better with local schools and communities, and give them a proper strategic role. That is not happening, or, if it is happening, it is not happening everywhere. Colleges, particularly on Merseyside, have no tools to intervene or assist downstream with school and academy failure, but they are expected to sweep up after them when children finish those schools without GCSEs in English and maths. Communities are not being empowered to address the skill deficiencies they face.
The Liverpool city region deal has recently been concluded. The councils bid for control over the skills budget but did not get it, owing, I would suggest, to resistance from the Minister’s Department. Nothing has been a more intractable problem for Liverpool and the Merseyside area than the skills gap and nothing would be more effective in addressing it than giving local power over the needs we have, but local further education colleges are not even on the skills committee of the local enterprise partnership. Their budgets are not devolved to the city region and they simply await the axe of the area review. They wonder why it is they, and not the academies and schools, that are in the frame.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Life Sciences (George Freeman)
My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. I was yesterday in Brussels with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to convene a summit with European leaders on biosciences. We are pushing for an enlightened regulatory framework to support EU and UK leadership in the fields of food, medicine and energy for global benefit.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
May I ask the Minister why his Department is keeping further education and skills out of the Liverpool city region deal? They are crucial to the Liverpool city region.
Nick Boles
I am not directly responsible for city deals, but there are many such deals around the country that have specifically majored on the inclusion of skills—Manchester and elsewhere. I am happy to look into it, but I am sure it was not because we resisted. Frankly, we are very keen for local authorities and local enterprise partnerships to take a bigger role.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Nicky Morgan
I think that I can therefore welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the principle of fairer funding. As he will know, we are of course looking at all elements of funding as part of the forthcoming spending review, but we have made it clear that we are protecting per pupil funding in this Parliament, which means that the amount going to schools will go up as the number of pupils goes up.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
With due respect to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), I must say, as one of the “wicked Liberal Democrats”, that equitable funding requests do not always seem to sit happily with the pupil premium policy. Has the Secretary of State any thoughts on either revising or reviewing that policy?
Nicky Morgan
I think that we can all agree that pupil premium funding has been hugely successful. It is absolutely right that over £2.5 billion is given to schools for additional funding to help those who are most disadvantaged, and schools, by and large, are spending it extremely effectively. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that obviously the school funding formula reflects both deprivation funding and pupil premium funding, which has since been introduced, but we absolutely want to ensure that the same pupils with the same needs attract the same funding. I reiterate that pupil premium funding has been very successful.
Term-time Leave
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this important debate, which is not entirely about tourism in Cornwall—it goes much wider than that.
I declare an interest. I never took any of my four children out of school during term time. That probably had something to do with the fact that I was a teacher. My employer would have regarded it rather dimly.
There is a legitimate debate to be had about how much time a pupil needs to spend in school and how valuable that time is. In life, there is always a trade-off between quantity and quality. The Minister can point to the fact that the Chinese spend more time in school than we do and make progress rapidly. We reach the same point, but they get to it somewhat earlier. University technical colleges have longer school days and their pupils make more rapid progress, although I do not know whether they get further in the long run. Against that we can set the example of the great public schools of England, which sometimes have ridiculously long summer holidays. If a pupil is in the cricket team, they are hardly in during the summer term anyway. Their results appear to be quite commendable, so we cannot draw general conclusions.
I am rather sad at the general perception that it is ultimately damaging to take children out of school at all times and on all occasions, except in very exceptional circumstances, which certainly do not include holidays. Most parents accept that school is valuable and important and want their child to be there. If they put in a request to take their child out for a time, they do so reluctantly. The Government struggle with this, but I think most parents are reasonably good judges of their own child’s interests and that most requests are put in only at the margins of the school year. These days, pretty much all parents juggle their working life with school time. If their children are at multiple schools with holidays at different times, they find the task formidable.
What is to be done if a parent feels that it would be desirable and not too damaging if their child was out of school during term time? I suggest that the answer for the school and for parents is simply to allow flexibility, which was the generally agreed answer until quite recently. There are exceptional circumstances, which will sometimes involve holidays or other events of family importance. That, however, does not appear to be the view of the Department for Education and Ofsted, which seem to take the rather Gradgrind approach that a child should never miss an hour in school, otherwise the consequences might be fatal.
As I said, I was a teacher. I have not taught for 14 years now, but I had a fairly long teaching career. I have to say that not every hour in school is that educational. Towards the end of the summer term, when exams are done and people are tired, and when the days are hot and the pupils sleepy and looking forward to the summer, one cannot always say that time in school is absolutely precious and could never be forfeited under any circumstances. Equally, most holidays are educationally very productive. After all, that is why so many schools organise holidays. Strangely enough, they sometimes start such holidays towards the end of school time because they recognise the benefits they bring to pupils.
Children improve on holidays. They certainly improve faster on holiday than they do in the last few weeks of school. I recently had the benefit of taking all five of my grandchildren on a holiday to France for two weeks. We did not go around museums, nor did I lecture them about things such as French literature or test their maths, but they came back far more developed after two weeks away than they had after the previous term. I could actually see the difference. They are small children and the development that took place was there for all to see.
The Minister will undoubtedly say that there is an anxiety that for some children there will be some sort of tail-off in the summer. There is a tail-off among certain groups because of the long summer holidays, which some people see as something of an anachronism. Real holidays, subject to the headteacher deciding that that is what is taking place, are life-enhancing and educational. How would we distinguish between real holidays and school-shirking or lesson-skipping, which the Minister would legitimately fear? I do not have a clear answer to that, but I am certain that if we want to make that sort of judgment, it should be done not through the DFE or Ofsted, but based on local information. Local schools should be allowed to make their decisions. We certainly must not poison the relationship between the school, the parents and the child by imposing fines.
A common-sense solution is being urged, through the petition and eloquently by the Members who have spoken so far. I hope that the Minister, having seen some of the errors that the Government have made through their Gradgrind approach, will review the legislation and commend a more sensible regime to schools.
Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for securing this debate and for raising the issue of the petition. I commend my other hon. Friends and hon. Members who have spoken for their thoughtful contributions. There have been a number of contributions, and the issues and arguments appear to me to be as follows.
Several points were made about the guidance given to headteachers on how to implement the regulations. Hon. Members discussed the potential impact on tourism and the seasonality of work—in Cornwall, in particular, but also in other areas of the country with a tourist trade. Hon. Members mentioned the potential impact on public sector workers who may have their leave cancelled during those periods. Although that is certainly true during the summer holiday period, other holiday periods are available to public sector workers—I speak from experience. Hon. Members also spoke about the issue of affordability and the effect that inflated holiday prices during school holidays can have on certain families.
I want to talk about the educational case that underpins the current regulations. Although there are clearly concerns about the regulations, I will talk about why they are in place and outline some of the issues at stake. Fundamentally, they are about doing the right thing by children. There is clear evidence that absence from school is detrimental to school performance and leads to lower levels of attainment. Absence data from the academic year 2012-13 and previous years indicate that pupils with no absence from school during key stage 4 were nearly three times as likely to achieve five A*, A, B or C grades at GCSE. Even a small amount of absence from school can reduce performance. Indeed, 44% of children with no absence at key stage 4 achieve the English baccalaureate, which is the gold standard package of GCSE qualifications including English, maths and science. That figure falls by a quarter to 31.7% for pupils who miss up to 14 days of lessons over the two years that they study for their GCSEs—that equates to about one week per year.
There is therefore clear and well-established evidence that missing lessons equals lower achievement in schools, and that is why the policy is in place. The policy is well intended and is there to ensure that all children have a good education.
John Pugh
The hon. Gentleman is talking about absence generically, but the evidence clearly includes two sorts of absence: the occasional absence, which people talk about and has extenuating circumstances, such as holiday absence; and systematic, regular absence. Do the data show any difference? The data will show clearly—I am only guessing; he may correct me if I am wrong—that children who are underperforming because of absence are not those who are taking the odd week off in exceptional circumstances because their parents have asked, but children who are repeatedly absent for one reason or another throughout the term and the year.
Dr Poulter
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The data are generic—we know that there is a link between absence rates for all reasons and lower attainment at school. Of course we would expect pupils who are missing school regularly and not turning up for reasons such as truancy to do less well at school than those who attend regularly—there is other evidence to support that. That is the hon. Gentleman’s point, but my understanding of the data is that, generally, higher rates of absence equal lower levels of attainment.
When putting regulations in place—perfect ones are difficult, but they are there for the right reasons—we need to look at something the Minister alluded to in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay. Were we to facilitate routinely two weeks of holiday for pupils during term time, over a pupil’s school career that would represent about 24 weeks of extra holiday in school time—almost half a year of extra holiday and of lost learning time being facilitated by law. That is not something that anyone ought to want to facilitate in Government regulation. Such a situation would clearly be detrimental to a child’s development, future life chances and chances at school.
Regulations are difficult to make, but there is a reason why they are in place. We have failed to discuss the level of discretion available to headteachers at the moment and I will come on to that. It is right to have given discretion to headteachers, who may look at the circumstances involved, but there might be an issue to do with refreshing some of the guidance. Perhaps the Minister will talk about that in his response.
The background to the legislation is that parents are not now able directly to authorise absence themselves; they must do so with facilitation from the headteacher. The initial framework of the regulations was put in place by the then Labour Government in 2006 and changed by the coalition Government in 2013. Under the new regulations, headteachers may not grant leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The matter is therefore one for the headteacher. A fine for an unauthorised absence is possible, but discretion has been given to the headteacher to look at the circumstances, and they have done so in a number of cases. Clearly, in our increasingly multicultural country—something we celebrate—different religions have certain celebrations at different times of the year. Certain schools and headteachers recognise that and use those exceptional circumstances of religious celebration to exercise their discretion.
We need to look at what we want in regulation—a duty that is in effect permissive, allowing such absence, or one that allows the headteacher to look at the circumstances, making it the rule that leave should not be given without exceptional circumstances. A permissive duty would in effect allow an extra half year of holiday and missed school in pupils’ lives, so the legislation has probably come down on the right side of the argument: in support of the headteacher’s having discretion.
Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)
I echo the gratitude expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for introducing a debate that carries the British public with it. There is considerable support for his opinion among my constituents —the issue cropped up regularly on doorsteps during the election and has reached me subsequently in correspondence and in surgeries.
The existing situation is simply not fair. The changes in September allow headteachers to have discretion over emergency circumstances, but the term is subjective, so different schools judge those circumstances differently. One family in my constituency who had been through a traumatic time requested two weeks away together to get over their personal loss. They were not given that. In fact, they were fined, despite the fact that they promised, and did, keep up with their children’s primary school education while away. In other areas, I hear of cases where children were granted permission in similar circumstances. That seems unjust; it seems that in effect we have created a postcode lottery situation.
I have two primary concerns. First, why is so much money and administration being used to fine those parents who are not really neglecting their children’s education or enabling truancy? Should we not be targeting those resources on those actually abusing the system and damaging their children’s education and chances?
Secondly, the policy punishes servicemen such as those who work at MOD Corsham. They often work inflexibly and can be deployed during school holiday time; their leave periods may not align with the school holidays. It also punishes the hard-working families whom we were elected to represent, especially those on low incomes who simply cannot afford to go away during the holidays.
The Department stated that it is not denying any family a holiday, but the reality is different, because poorer families are denied that chance. For what? To stop them from travelling? We must not underestimate the value of travel. Different places, cultures, customs, activities and people all enrich and enhance a child’s education. They also enable children to be more tolerant and help produce well rounded individuals. We must ask ourselves whether that is also an educational objective. The issue is not just about grades.
I question the key argument the Department gave in its formal response to the petition, which was that taking children out of school during term time lowers attainment levels. That is true, but the figures used in the response were based on children who were absent for 15% to 20% of the time, or primary schoolchildren absent for 31 days. The petition does not suggest 15% to 20% absence; it discusses a period of just two weeks.
The figures indicate that less than two weeks’ absence can affect GCSE students, so surely it would be best to introduce changes just for primary schoolchildren. That would ensure that no time was taken during exam periods and when work is harder to catch up on. Primary school work can be done easily while away—it is easier to keep up. I do not suggest that children should be allowed to take two weeks off without parents ensuring that they keep up to date with their work, but I would like to see a much more flexible system.
To make our education system less rigid and more understanding would enhance the relationship with parents. Education relies on parents and guardians—in fact, they are vital. The current law creates a “them and us” mentality, which is the polar opposite of the ethos of “from school to home”, a partnership between parents and teachers. There needs to be much more trust and flexibility. We can introduce a change that is logical and fair, which could be just for primary school level. However, what we must not do is continue with a system that punishes hard-working families and alienates parents.
We must not also forget that this concept can easily be blown out of proportion. We are talking about two weeks to offer children, especially those from poorer backgrounds, an opportunity to have time with their families and be enriched.
John Pugh
The hon. Lady made a good point about 15% to 20% absence. Is she familiar with the DFE report that said:
“The proportions of pupils achieving the expected level stay relatively similar for increasing levels of absence due to authorised family holidays, religious observance and study leave”?
In other words, leave makes precious little difference when we are not talking about 15% to 20% absence.
Michelle Donelan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. We need further studies on the value of travel and family time. We need to look at the reason for absence.
We must not blow the petition out of proportion. It is only about two weeks’ absence. That is two weeks to offer children, especially from poorer backgrounds, the opportunity to have time with their family and be enriched. As a member of the party that stands for hard-working families and opportunities, I see that proposal as not only the best thing to do, but the right thing to do.
Steve Double
I will say a few brief words. First, I thank everyone who signed the public petition that led to this debate—all 120,000 of them. I am grateful for all the encouragement that I have received from many members of the public since saying that I wanted to lead this debate. I thank all the members of the public who came and sat through this debate, particularly those representing Parents Want a Say, the Family Holiday Association and whoever else is here—sorry, but I cannot remember all of them. I am grateful for their interest and support.
I am sure that one thing on which we all agree is that children across our nation should have the very best opportunities in life. Education is clearly at the centre of that, but so are parents. Every parent I know wants the very best for their child. I am disappointed that we do not seem to have persuaded the Minister to reconsider the policy. I still believe that, as well intended as the policy was when it was introduced—I support and agree with the aim of getting as many children into school as possible, and with the social justice motive behind that—the introduction of the measure has had unintended consequences. The impact on our economy and on wider family life was not foreseen.
I have considered some of the proposals for addressing term-time leave. Personally, I do not believe that staggering term times in the way the Minister suggests is the way to achieve that. The feedback I have received from various sources is that many people agree that such a proposal is not workable.
John Pugh
The Minister said towards the end of his contribution that the policy is all about helping disadvantaged children, but the burden of the debate did not suggest that the parents of disadvantaged children are particularly the parents who are having difficulty with the regulation.
Education and Adoption Bill
John Pugh Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Neil Carmichael
According to the “Member’s explanatory statement”, amendment 12 would
“remove the clause that establishes that ‘coasting’ schools shall be eligible for intervention.”
That is what I read, and I do not think that that should be the direction of travel. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about its connection to new clause 1.
The important point to make about amendment 13 is that if a school is in trouble, appeals from the governing body, which is probably responsible for a large part of those difficulties, ought to be put into perspective. Instead, a governing body should recognise that it has a duty and responsibility to participate in improving the school.
The Bill has a lot going for it. We need to address the issue of school leadership. In my judgment, we need more multi-academy trusts because they provide the right framework for schools to help each other and pursue self-improvement. It is critical that we focus on coasting schools and use powers to ensure that they stop coasting and, instead, do what they are supposed to be doing, which is raising the standard of delivery for pupils.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I rise in support of new clauses 3 and 9, and to make a few remarks about amendment 11.
What bothers me about this legislation is the issue of consultation, which was alluded to by the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), and parental consultation in particular. That is a long-term anxiety for me, because I am aware of local schools in my constituency that have been subjected to horrific bullying by academy brokers to convert to academies, and I would not wish that replicated anywhere else.
Mr Graham Brady
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman on that last point, as I am sure would most Members who take an interest in education, but may I bring him to the precise point of the amendment? As an agnostic on structures, does he accept that if the population distribution changes in an area that is selective, an additional grammar might be needed to maintain the existing balance of selection and not drive existing grammar schools to become more selective?
John Pugh
I will consider the hon. Gentleman’s comments carefully. I am certainly happy with the idea of local decision making—I just wish the Government were more comfortable with it—and I think that we as politicians can do little to improve the educational landscape. We can change structures all the time, but they are not what makes a substantial difference: what makes a difference are the things that we normally cannot control or create but which, if we introduce the wrong kind of legislation, we can certainly frustrate.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I rise to speak in favour of my new clauses 4 and 5 and the new clauses and amendments in the names of my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and of my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).
We need to make a wealth of important changes to the Bill. It is a great honour to follow excellent contributions from hon. Members who are clearly passionate about educational standards. I do not doubt that the Government share that passion, but the problem is that none of the measures in the Bill will improve those standards. The Bill is based on an overriding assumption that academisation will automatically drive up standards and that the centralisation of power is the way to deliver it. Unfortunately, the Government have been simply unable to evidence that assumption at any stage of this Bill.
As such, the Bill before us today is a missed opportunity—a missed opportunity to address the profound teacher recruitment and retention crisis, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan)outlined, that is predicated on a demoralised, overstretched workforce and a burgeoning young population. It is a missed opportunity to drive up standards in academies where underperformance stubbornly persists—an issue that the Bill inexplicably excludes. It is a missed opportunity to put parents, teachers, assistants and the local school community at the heart of the agenda. That is why Labour Members were disappointed that the Minister refused to take up any of our sensible amendments in Committee, which would have demonstrated a cross-party willingness to drive up educational standards.
Let me explain the contrasting principles behind my new clauses 4 and 5. First, school improvement simply cannot take place without the consultation and involvement of parents, teachers and the school community. Secondly, we must strengthen the accountability system that is, even in its current form, all too lacking, particularly for academy chains.
New clause 5 would place a new duty on the chief inspector of Ofsted to inspect the overall performance of any academy chain to ascertain whether it is carrying out its functions appropriately; and it would give the Secretary of State power to direct the chief inspector to inspect any academy chain and specify which areas need inspecting. That is particularly important for financial stability, where several academy chains such as E-ACT have come unstuck. The new clause, supported by the chief inspector of Ofsted, will go some way towards opening up the accountability system for academy sponsors, which has not caught up with the rapid expansion of academies generally.
The speed at which schools converted into academies or joined multi-academy trusts has increased at a dramatic rate over the past three years. In 2012-13, the Department opened three times as many sponsored academies as in 2011-12, and by December 2014, 3,062 schools had converted to academy status—far in excess of expectations. This, of course, will continue apace under the Bill, as regional school commissioners scrabble to find sponsors in pursuit of centrally set targets.
It is therefore reasonable for systems of accountability to keep pace. That is all the more important because, as we have heard, performance levels among chains still suffer from significant variation. The Sutton Trust concluded in its recent report that the very poor results for pupils of some chains are of urgent concern. These concerns are about what happens not just in the classroom, but in the boardroom. The National Audit Office warned that the inability of Ofsted to inspect academy chains means that there is no independent source of information about the quality of their work, and called on the Government to ensure that the Department has an independent source of information for assessing the quality, capacity and performance of academy sponsors.
The lack of accountability and oversight by an independent body has its consequences—finance, audit and governance systems will suffer without rigorous independent inspections, and in some cases may not exist at all. In particular, the funding arrangements have been found to be open to abuse and conflicts of interests.
Mr Gibb
As I said in Committee, these figures are significantly higher than the school system as a whole, which shows that these schools are raising standards. I can give some examples. Individual schools across the country have benefited from becoming sponsored academies. For example, Bramford primary school, which Ofsted placed in special measures in 2012, but which, having joined Griffin Schools Trust in 2013, has made huge improvements. In April 2015, Ofsted judged the school to be good, with Ofsted attributing that to the sponsor trust’s “good leadership and management.”
The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) quoted Sir Dan Moynihan and his evidence to our proceedings, but he did not quote him when he said:
“Local authorities often do not use the freedoms that they have. There is nothing that we have done in any of our schools that were failing that a local authority could not have done. In every case, the local authority simply did not do it and it had to have someone else take it over and make it better.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 18, Q38.]
Those are the words of a highly successful chief executive of a highly successful academy chain.
When a school is failing, we need the academy conversion process to be swift. Every day’s delay is a day of weak education for the pupils at a failing school, which was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) in his contribution to our debate.
Mr Gibb
It is because for too long they have been languishing as underperforming schools. The authorities and governing bodies that were overseeing them have had their opportunity to improve them over many years. We feel that pupils should not have to waste a single day more in those schools. They need new leadership and new governance, and they need them now.