Core School Budget Allocations

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The figures published in July were indicative figures. They are used by local authorities. Once the October census comes out with the pupil numbers, they then apply their local formula to those figures. That is the allocation that schools use for their budgeting, and that happens around December.

Over the period between 2021-22 and 2024-25, school funding has increased by 20%, so there has been a very significant increase. I agree with the hon. Member about the importance of cultural activities in schools, which is why we have a cultural education plan that is being worked on at the moment.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

One reason why this Minister has been in his post so long is that successive Prime Ministers have judged him to be rather good at his job. For the benefit of the House, can he confirm that the civil servants who discovered the mistake made it known to Ministers at the first possible opportunity, and that Ministers made it known to the public at the first possible opportunity? Does that not reflect credit on our parliamentary democratic system?

[Nick Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his kind comments. He is absolutely right: as soon as we knew about the error, I wanted to make sure that we were doing everything we could to rectify it and find a solution to the problem that officials and the Department had caused. That was my approach, and that is why we recalculated the whole of the national funding formula notional allocations as soon as we could and published that detail on 6 October.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

If and when parents get sight of what their children are being taught about relationships and sex education, will they have the right to withdraw their children from such lessons if they deem the materials to be inappropriate?

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point about the appropriateness of materials being used in schools to teach relationships, health and sex education. We have been concerned about reports on that, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to all schools to remind them of their duty to share teaching materials with parents, and why we brought forward the review of the RHSE guidance. There is no right to withdraw children from relationships education, but there is a right for parents to withdraw their children from sex education in the RHSE curriculum.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

We have been conducting some of the biggest surveys of the fabric of school buildings in this country, which is why we are able to identify risks in our schools. Whenever we are informed about a risk to a school, we take immediate action, which can mean that certain buildings in a school are no longer used. We then send in surveyors, specialists and experts, and remedial action is put in place. We take these issues extremely seriously.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Is there a danger that the Government’s proposed legislation on freedom of speech in universities could be weakened or undermined by a requirement first to exhaust internal processes of appeal, which can be protracted?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We are committed to arts education. The proportion of those who are taking at least one GCSE in an arts subject has remained broadly stable over the past 10 years. We are also committed to very significant funding for arts and music projects, with £620 million over the past three years, including £79 million for the 119 music education hubs and £148 million for the music and dance scheme. We are very committed to the arts and to drama in our schools.[Official Report, 7 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 2MC.]

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State kindly speak to the Secretary of State for the Home Department about getting visas for the 12 at-risk Afghan scholars—some still in hiding, some in Pakistan—who have been awarded sponsored places by high-quality British universities and who need the visas to take them up?

Political Neutrality in Schools

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to debate yet again under your careful and, if I may say so, unbiased stewardship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) for raising this important issue and the excellent way in which he opened the debate. He is right to warn about the coarsening of political debate in the country, which concerns many of us in this House. He is also right that young people should be encouraged to be passionate but not coercive in political debate and how they engage in it.

One of the most important principles that we want to uphold in education is political neutrality, in relation to both the knowledge taught through the school curriculum and the professional conduct of teachers in how they support pupils in and out of the classroom. Political education is an important part of a broad and balanced education that prepares young people for adult life, and we want young people to be informed and engaged citizens. To ensure that they receive such an education in an unbiased way, all state-funded schools must meet duties regarding impartiality and balanced treatment of political issues in the classroom.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) correctly said, that is provided for in legislation. Section 406 of the Education Act 1996 requires teachers to provide a balanced political view in relation to the direct teaching of pupils by forbidding

“the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject”.

Teachers may express their personal views, which can sometimes be useful in prompting debate and discussion within the classroom, but in doing so they must have regard to the teacher standards governing professional competence and conduct to ensure that they show tolerance of and respect for the rights and views of others.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I am grateful to the Minister for confirming that the 1986 amendment was carried forward in subsequent legislation. Does he agree that, as the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) said, it is perfectly normal for politicians to go and talk about politics in their local schools? However, when I put forward a view—I speak for myself and I hope for her and most other hon. Members—I always emphasise that there are other politicians who would put forward a contrary view. That is perfectly allowed, is it not, by the legislation?

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend is right, and I try to do the same thing. One piece of advice in the legislation is that, when teachers teach about political issues, they do not express their views in a way that would exploit pupils’ vulnerability or undermine fundamental British values. When I speak to young people, I always bear that in mind and point out that although I am a passionate supporter of the free market, which I think creates and helps spread wealth in the most effective way across society, there are others who believe that a planned economy and more regulation is a fairer and better way of running an economy. I try to make those points before saying that my personal view is the former. I am delighted to hear that he takes a similar approach.

Section 407 of the 1996 Act requires that where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils, they are offered

“a balanced presentation of opposing views.”

Balanced in that context means fair and dispassionate. The law does not require teaching staff to adopt a position of neutrality between views that accord with the great majority of scientific opinion and those that do not. Therefore, if a particular theory represents mainstream opinion, there is nothing to prevent a school indicating a strong preference for that theory while making minimal but dispassionate reference to the minority view. However, many of the issues to which my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend refer are not in that category but those where large sections of society take opposing views.

My hon. Friend raised the reporting of Stormzy’s visit to a primary school. Schools remain responsible for what is taught and we expect them to have in place robust safeguarding policies that should set out clear protocols ensuring that visiting speakers are suitably supervised. The school should have a clear understanding of why the speaker was chosen and make guests aware of the school’s expectations, such as: abiding by its equality commitments; there must be no statements that might cause offence to others or otherwise undermine tolerance of other faiths or beliefs; and there must be no extremist material.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to do more to equip children to question and evaluate the information they are presented with, whether that is in newspapers, on television or online. Apart from how teachers present political or any sensitive or controversial subject, the content of the curriculum they teach is vital. Schools have a role to play in teaching children to be savvy consumers of media and information. The best way to do that is by providing them with the fundamental knowledge they need to be able to make informed decisions and critical judgments. That is why we reformed the curriculum to provide the core knowledge that children need to understand the world.

Daniel Willingham, the American academic, author of “Why Don’t Students Like School?”—I highly recommend that book to anyone interested in the education debate—and proponent of the use of scientific knowledge in the classroom, says that processes of thinking are intertwined with the content of thought—that is, domain or subject knowledge. Therefore, if a student is reminded to look at an issue from multiple perspectives often enough, he or she will learn that they ought to do so, but if they do not know much about an issue, they cannot think about it from multiple perspectives. We can teach students maxims about how they ought to think, but without background knowledge and practice they will probably not be able to implement the advice they have been asked to memorise. Therefore, just as it makes no sense to try to teach students factual content without giving them opportunities to practise using it, it also makes no sense to try to teach critical thinking devoid of factual content.

The national curriculum we inherited in 2010 had been stripped of too much knowledge, with a heavier focus on the skills of learning. The Government therefore embarked on significant reforms to the national curriculum with the aim of restoring the importance of subject knowledge in all its complexity and fascination. In 2014 the new, more ambitious and knowledge-rich national curriculum came into force in England, and from 2015 we introduced more rigorous GCSEs. That is the most efficacious approach to helping young people to be more discerning and challenging of the views expressed online and in wider society.

The reformed national curriculum sets out a core body of knowledge that should form part of a school’s curriculum, giving schools the autonomy to decide how to teach it to maximise pupil understanding and address their misconceptions. The 12 national curriculum programmes of study not only avoid political bias by focusing on core subject knowledge, but enable teachers to consider how pupils can better evaluate and challenge fake news or misleading information, which can often be presented to them in social media as facts.

My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend referred to guidance. We issued amended guidance in summer 2018 to remind schools of their responsibilities. The online staffing and employment advice for all schools was updated to say:

“All staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act appropriately in terms of their behaviour, the views they express (in particular political views) and the use of school resources at all times, and should not use school resources for party political purposes.”

I hope that provides my hon. Friend with some reassurance that we take these issues extremely seriously.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The circumstances of 1986, which led to the legislation, were that some people were advocating the introduction of anti-imperialist studies in schools, and peace studies—anti-nuclear propaganda—was also being spread. It was those paradigm cases that led Parliament to legislate, and I am grateful to the Minister for his clear utterance that such legislation still holds good today.

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That legislation is still in force. Being from the same era as him, I too recall the debates that took place at that time.

The Government have actively supported teachers in developing their school curriculums beyond the national curriculum. Most relevant to this debate is the Government’s educate against hate website, which hosts resources for schools to support the promotion of democracy, including those on media literacy. Between September and November 2019, the website was visited over 80,000 times.

Schools do many other things across the curriculum to ensure that pupils are equipped to question and challenge what they read, watch and listen to. An online piece written by the headteacher of Passmores Academy in Harlow on the topic of fake news comments on how vital it is to teach young people to check their own facts. The head of English at that school organised activities including students learning the truth behind the scaling of maps in geography, how propaganda has been used throughout history, diet myths, the manipulation of statistics, and the role of computer-generated imagery in the creation of fake news. Additionally, media bias was debated, leading to extended pieces of writing being produced on the subject.

Online safety is an important component of the new relationships, sex and health education. From September 2020 it will be mandatory for schools to teach those subjects. They are about empowering pupils with the knowledge that will support their current and future relationships and health, enabling them to become active and positive members of society. Pupils will be taught about online relationships, the implications of sharing private or personal data online, harmful content and contact, cyber-bullying and where to get help and support.

In Ofsted’s new inspection framework, the personal development judgment focuses on the development of pupils’ character, their confidence, resilience, independence and knowledge. It includes matters such as pupils’ ability to recognise and respond to online and offline risks to their wellbeing.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil for securing this debate. He has raised important concerns, shared by other hon. Members, as we have heard. I hope that he is reassured that there is legislation and support for schools in place, to mitigate the threat of political bias in our school system and to help young people be resilient to the concept of fake news.

A-level Archaeology

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate. The Minister is showing that of course he is not a Visigoth, or a Goth of any sort. If any Minister can be relied on to protect an important subject, albeit a minority one, it is he. Therefore, and in the light of concerns expressed by people such as the staff, parents and students of Brockenhurst College in my constituency, where archaeology is taught extremely well, will he do his very best to redouble his efforts to persuade another board to take up that important subject?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s kind comments. I suspect that his school, Brockenhurst, must therefore be a major contributor to the 26 A-level archaeology entries of 2016, and I congratulate it on its wide-ranging curriculum. I assure him that I left no stone unturned in my encouragement of other exam boards to adopt the subject, as with the languages with small cohorts—we were successful in persuading Pearson to take up those subjects, too.

It remains open for any board to produce a specification or an offer to take forward archaeology. We published the content because we want the subject to continue. We remain open to any exam boards wanting to set an archaeology A-level.

The changes we have made to the national curriculum will help to provide students with a greater understanding of the subjects that they study, feeding their enthusiasm for further study. In history, students are now required to have greater chronological understanding through the study of a wider range of historical periods, including more than one ancient civilisation. Enrichment activities, such as battlefield tours of the western front, in which 1,400 schools have participated to date, have enabled students to gain a deeper understanding of, and develop an interest in, significant historical periods.

Many universities will expect students to arrive already having had work or volunteering experience in museums or heritage sites, or having had practical experience in the field, where possible. Organisations such as the Council for British Archaeology, which runs almost 70 Young Archaeologists’ Club branches all over the UK, and industry magazines such as Current Archaeology offer a wealth of volunteering opportunities around the country.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham that the Government are fully committed—

Lidice Massacre

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello)on securing this debate, on doing the House a huge service by reminding us of the true horror of what happened in Lidice in 1942 and on illuminating for us the links with Stoke-on-Trent and the huge sum of money raised from miners to rebuild the village. We heard about the 3,000 miners who attended the public meeting called by one of the hon. Gentleman’s predecessors, Sir Barnett Stross. It is good to be reminded of these important parts of our history and European history, and he has done that at an appropriate time, with last Friday being Holocaust memorial day.

Holocaust memorial day gives us the opportunity to remember the victims of this most evil of periods in the world’s history, along with subsequent victims of genocide—as the hon. Gentleman reminded us, such evil does not go away—and atrocities during the war, such as the terrible massacre at Lidice. It also gives us time to reflect on the lessons of the past: genocide does not occur overnight; it is a gradual process and begins when the differences between us are used as a reason to exclude or marginalise, leading to prejudice and hate. We need to learn the lessons of the holocaust, so that future generations do not repeat the mistakes of the past. That is why it is important that young people are taught about the holocaust—to ensure that prejudice and discrimination are not allowed to take root in our society.

The Government firmly support holocaust education, which is why we have allocated £1.8 million this year to promote young people’s understanding of this period of history. About £1.5 million of this funding is for the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project, in which I understand the hon. Gentleman has participated. I add my tribute to his for the work of the trust.

The Lessons from Auschwitz project gives the opportunity for two sixth formers in every school in the country to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau to learn the lessons of the holocaust, but the course is more than just a one-day visit to the former concentration camp, as students take part in seminars and hear first hand from a holocaust survivor. They not only deepen their knowledge of the holocaust, but learn what can happen when prejudice and racism gain a foothold in society. So far, more than 8,000 students and more than 2,000 teachers have taken part in the project in England. Crucially, when those students return to school, they are expected to pass on what they have learned to their peers at school and to their communities.

Effective teacher training is also fundamental to teaching about the holocaust. The Government recognise this, which is why as part of our £1.8 million for holocaust education funding we have allocated £250,000 for the Institute of Education’s holocaust education development programme. This programme helps to ensure that teachers are equipped with the training and resources they need to deliver effective holocaust education. The Lidice massacre is included in the teaching materials for this programme.

To date, some 550 teachers have benefited from this professional development programme, with two full days of workshops and online activities. A further 2,000 teachers have benefited from other forms of professional development on the holocaust, while a pilot group of 36 teachers has completed the country’s first taught master’s module in holocaust education. The level of teaching expertise in England’s schools on the holocaust is now higher than ever before—a welcome fact.

As the hon. Gentleman may know, the second world war and the holocaust are compulsory parts of the history curriculum at key stage 3. Schools can teach pupils about the Lidice massacre as part of their history curriculum, but they are free to design their own curriculums that will best meet the needs of their pupils. I hope we can all agree about the fundamental need for a greater emphasis on knowledge and content in the current national school curriculum, which was our reason for launching a review of the curriculum.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for giving me an opportunity not only to express my admiration for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for raising this subject, but to mention that I was at school myself when I read a remarkable book called “Seven Men at Daybreak” by Alan Burgess. It told the story of the seven Czech and Slovak parachutists who assassinated Heydrich, and, at the end, what happened to Lidice afterwards. I do not know what the copyright position is now, given that the book was written so long ago, but I think that, in the context of the educational project that both the hon. Gentleman and the Minister have in mind, a reprint of that book would probably have as profound an effect on the schoolchildren of the 21st century as it had on me some 40 or 50 years ago.

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing his own personal history, and that book, to the attention of the House. I shall look into what he has said.

The new national curriculum will be based on a body of essential knowledge that children should be expected to acquire in key subjects during their school careers. It will embody, for all children, their cultural and scientific inheritance, will enhance their understanding of the world around them, and will expose them to the best that has been thought and written.

Our commitment to the importance of history is clear from its inclusion in the English baccalaureate. The national curriculum review will consider the extent to which history should be compulsory, and at which key stages. We are considering the recommendations of the expert panel, and will also listen to the views of others before making final decisions. If we conclude that history should remain a national curriculum subject, we will expect the programme of study to continue to include teaching about the second world war and the holocaust. Every young person needs to understand it, along with the lessons that it teaches and how it shaped the modern world.

It is of concern that some subjects, such as history, have been less popular choices at GCSE in recent years. For example, in 1995 more than 223,000 students, representing nearly 40% of pupils in schools, were taking history GCSE. By 2010 the figure had dropped by over 25,000, and only 31% of pupils—just under a third—are now taking the subject. The Government want to encourage more children to take up history beyond the age of 14. We introduced the English baccalaureate—which recognises the work of pupils who achieve a GCSE grade between A* and C GCSE in history or geography, as well as maths, English, science and a language—to encourage a more widespread take-up of a core of subjects that provide a sound basis for academic progress. The baccalaureate has already had a significant impact on the take-up of history. According to an independent survey of nearly 700 schools, 39% of pupils sitting GCSEs in 2013 will be taking history. That represents a rise of eight percentage points, and a return to the 1995 level. If more children study history for longer, that can only be a good thing, as it will give them a good grasp of the narrative of history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

That is not our policy. Teachers in academies are generally paid more. What we are doing is reviewing the performance management regulations to make it easier for head teachers to tackle underperformance in our schools and to bring the employment regulations in schools in line with employment practices in other professions and industries.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Minister feel, as I do, that the quality of teaching is adversely affected by the recently reported high number of false complaints made by children against teachers? If so, what sort of protection can the Government give innocent teachers who are put in that situation?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue. For a teacher to have an accusation made against them by a pupil, which ultimately turns out to be false, can have a devastating impact on not only their career but their private life. We are therefore determined to do all we can to protect teachers, to enable them to maintain discipline and improve behaviour in our schools. That is why the Education Bill, which is currently going through another place, has a provision giving school teachers anonymity in the reporting of such accusations in the press.

Financial Support (Students)

Debate between Julian Lewis and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

The economy would have suffered as a result.

EMA costs £560 million a year. As we heard, it has been in existence for about six years; it was rolled out nationally in 2004, following a pilot. It was successful in raising participation rates among 16-year-olds from 87% in 2004 to 96% this year. As a consequence, attitudes among 16-year-olds to staying on in education have changed. When the National Foundation for Educational Research questioned recipients of EMA, it found that 90% would have stayed on in education regardless of whether they received EMA.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he accept that the two strands of the allowance are becoming intermixed? There is the role of the allowance in persuading people to stay on, and there is the role of the allowance in enabling people to stay on who might otherwise not be able to afford to do so.

A briefing from the Conservative Councillors’ Association points out that the staying-on age will be raised, but that will not happen until 2015. What worries people such as the principal of Brockenhurst college in my constituency is that the EMA will stop in September 2011. In the limited time that remains, I hope that my hon. Friend will focus on the transition arrangements, which are of great concern to us all.