Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Jonathan Davies Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Damian Hinds
I am grateful to Labour colleagues for their interventions, and for telling this House and the country what they need to know. All these successful schools and trusts have been doing exactly that. They have brought new talent into the profession, and they have helped to improve retention, but no, they are not the right people to make that decision, are they? No, Labour MPs and Labour Ministers should be making that decision for them.
The vast majority of schools follow the national curriculum, but some innovate. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with adding something on top of the national curriculum? In any case, every school is statutorily required to deliver a balanced and broadly focused curriculum, and they are checked on that by Ofsted.
Finally, there is the power for councils to prevent good, popular schools from expanding. What could that possibly achieve, except creating more disappointed families, children and parents? The one thing these four measures will achieve is ticking one more union demand.
This Bill cannot be seen in isolation. Look at the Government’s broader proposals: scrapping the Latin excellence programme; scrapping the expansion of the cadets programme in state schools; making Ofsted judgments less transparent; and taxing independent sector education for the first time in our country’s history, and almost uniquely in the world, in a way that will fill more of the most popular state schools and make it harder for families to get their child into the state school of their choice.
Potentially the biggest thing of all is the curriculum review. This Bill says that schools must follow the national curriculum, before the new national curriculum is set out. It pre-empts the review. We do not know what will be in the review, and we have to keep an open mind and see what comes forward, but I remind colleagues that the Government are not forced to adopt what the independent reviewers come up with, nor are they obliged to stop where the independent reviewers do.
In this country, since the start of the national curriculum, we have always taken the approach of not specifying exactly what kids will learn in sensitive subjects such as history, English literature and religious education. People often misunderstand this, but it is not a list of the things pupils learn in school. Having a broad framework has helped to guard against the politicisation, or the over-politicisation, of education. It would be very dangerous if, instead, Ministers came up with a more prescriptive approach to the national curriculum, especially if this Bill removes the safety valve of schools being able to deviate somewhat.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I am listening with interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s points about the national curriculum, which we know academies currently do not have to follow. I note that 42% of schools across the country no longer enter any pupils for GCSE music, and the figure is 41% for drama and 84% for dance. Does he think that is a factor in this debate?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman should have added the GCSE numbers to the numbers for technical and vocational qualifications, otherwise it is misleading. We all want kids to study the subjects they wish to study, and the subjects from which they will benefit. I am not sure how what the hon. Gentleman says negates what I just said, which is how we normally debate.
The curriculum review is also an assessment review, and we have heard much less about what that means. We know that the Labour party had form on this when it was last in government, with its target-rich—I might say target-obsessed—approach to achieving five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, including English and maths. On the face of it, that is a perfectly good target, but when I was on the Education Committee back in 2012, when it was chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), we had an inquiry on grade inflation. I counted 11 different ways in which the figures were massaged, such that it looked like things were getting better every year but, when the OECD numbers came out, we were tumbling down the international table. It was naive, because what gets measured gets mangled, and I worry that is about to happen all over again. It does children no favours.
Also on international rankings, at the end of Labour’s last term in Government, we were the only country in the developed world where the literacy and numeracy of young adults was poorer than that of the generation about to retire. At least in the new Labour era, Labour Members believed they were pursuing academic excellence, but I am afraid that has now gone out of fashion. The progressive phrases we hear from Labour Members sound good—“accessibility”, “relevance”, “modernity”—but though they are beguiling, those things rarely actually help the children they are thought to help.
The pursuit of true excellence in state education is not elitist. It is the opposite of elitist; it levels the playing field, and it means that people from all backgrounds can be up with those elites. Whatever attacks Labour makes on the independent sector, or to try to take down top-performing state schools, the advantage and the privilege will always lie with children, wherever they are, whose parents are actively involved and engaged. They will always do well. It was not they who needed our reforms—it was everyone else. Under this Bill, it will be everyone else who suffers.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
Giving children the very best start in life—a safe start where they have every opportunity to achieve their full potential—is vital. This Bill supports that. It introduces more robust measures to help keep children safe and it raises standards and opportunities in schools, so that children receive a high-quality, holistic education. It covers a huge number of areas—more than I could meaningly address in the short time I have available—so I will focus on the national curriculum.
Introduced in 1988 by Kenneth Baker, the national curriculum is one of a handful of significant and progressive education reforms of the 1980s. Opposition Members should be more proud of it. It provides the statutory standard for school subjects, lesson content and attainment levels for state schools in England. However, it is not compulsory for academies. That made sense when academies were introduced in the early noughties, because in communities where there were significant levels of unmet need and low aspiration, it allowed school leaders the freedom to devise programmes of learning that helped to address the acute and embedded challenges that young people in those communities faced, after the decline and lack of investment in schools during the ’80s and early ’90s.
By May 2010, when the last Labour Government left office, there were 203 of those academies. Now, there are over 10,000, following a significant expansion of the programme. I support the concept of academies—
Jonathan Davies
I do support the concept of academies; they are a great legacy of the previous Government. But because those schools do not have to follow the national curriculum, some are gaming the system by not teaching a full, holistic programme of subjects. There has been a massive decline—over 50%—in the number of arts entries at GCSE since 2010. Some schools offer no art subjects at all at GCSE level. That matters for our economy and the UK’s standing around the world, and for who we are as individuals, how we understand the world and how we interact with each other. I welcome the Bill’s measures to provide a more holistic education to children.
I also want to speak briefly about breakfast clubs. They will be very welcome in Derbyshire, because Derbyshire county council increased the cost of school dinners by £1 last year—£150 a year—on top of what they already cost for parents. That will help with the cost of living crisis. But I ask that the Minister make sure that, as we implement this legislation—providing it goes through—we have the right checks and balances in place to ensure that local authorities such as Derbyshire, where Ofsted found serious issues with SEND, are fulfilling their statutory obligations to ensure that children who rely on home-to-school transport can access breakfast clubs.
Children’s Social Care
Jonathan Davies Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend is right to identify the urgent need to do more to support care leavers at the point when they move through the system and throughout their lives. That is why I am working with the Deputy Prime Minister and other Government colleagues so that we all pull together and do much more to deliver better life chances for care leavers. We will roll out the Staying Close programme nationally to ensure that all young people leaving care have the support they need. We are also setting out corporate parenting proposals to ensure that all of us pull together to listen to the views and experiences of young people. I am sure that, like me, she has heard directly from care leavers about how badly they feel failed by a system that has not properly reflected their needs and experiences, and it is vital that we put the needs of care-experienced young people front and centre in our discussions.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I welcome the statement and the robust steps the Government are taking for our children and young people. I was disappointed to read a report by Ofsted last week into the special educational needs and disabilities provision in Derbyshire, which found there to be “systemic failings” and that the provision was inadequate. Our children and young people deserve so much better. Has the Secretary of State made an assessment of how the previous Government’s failure to deal with SEND has fuelled problems in children’s social care? Does she agree that more integration is needed between education, healthcare, local authorities and providers, including through integrated care boards and partnerships, to deliver long-lasting and sustained outcomes for our young people?