Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend for his very helpful intervention. That point justifies the free schools programme, which is all about bringing in choice and making sure that parents and staff can make decisions about their school, including about having a school of that type.

On that point, the shadow Minister quite rightly referred to what the New Schools Network has said about parent involvement. I have written about that in the past, and I am pleased that the idea has now been given more traction. On the particular proposal of empowering parents to take action about the leadership of a school, I would say that they should do so only if the very highest threshold is met.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments about parents. Is he at all concerned about the way in which the Bill sweeps away the right of parents to have a say on the future of their local schools?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it goes to the heart of the Bill. The Bill is largely about schools in which action needs to be taken to get them to a better place. Such action has to be taken urgently, it must be about leadership and governance and, where necessary, it must take the form of intervention. As I have said, the principal focus should be on whether pupils benefit from delay or from action to take their school to a better place.

I do not want to say that parents should not be consulted, because I think they should. For example, there is a strong role for parent teacher associations to play in the interface with the community about a school’s future. I spoke to the chief executive of PTA UK just a few days ago, and I was struck by the role that PTAs can play in such dialogue. When a school is failing, however, we must take action. That is implicit in the Bill. Action is absolutely necessary for any failing school.

[Neil Carmichael]

It is absolutely right for there to be engagement, but I think that we are confusing two different things. I would have thought that PTA UK was talking about engagement with the school more generally. I am referring to the issues in the Bill and the specific question of whether intervention should be swift and effective, and the degree of consultation that should be involved.

Of course there should be consultation and the Bill makes clear the role of regional schools commissioners, who should consult fairly widely. The Education Committee will look into the role and capacity of the regional schools commissioners. One question that we will ask is how that consultation process is undertaken. I do not think that that point is at variance with the spirit of the Bill.

On amendment 12, we cannot have coasting schools and when we see them we must act. In the last Parliament, the chief inspector produced a powerful report about the long tail of underachievement, which detailed the problem that many schools carry on coasting without being noticed. It is striking that many of those schools are in rural and coastal areas. That tells us that the mechanism is not in place to properly check what a coasting school is doing. I therefore believe that amendment 12 would take us in the wrong direction.

A coasting school is a very bad place to be. If a school is coasting along then, even if everybody thinks it is doing okay, it is not doing its job properly. It is therefore a real challenge for the teachers and governors to move it forward. Of course, we need to discuss in some detail the definition of a coasting school, but if the teachers and governors of a coasting school are not moving it forward, we must act. I therefore do not believe that amendment 12 is appropriate.

[Kevin Brennan]

Just for clarity, amendment 12 is consequential to new clause 1, which would replace the Government’s version of a coasting school with the Opposition’s provision. The amendment would not sweep away the need for action to be taken when schools have problems of that kind.

[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.

Examination Reform

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael]

First, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on beliefs and experience. We all have beliefs and some of us have had experience as well. One of my sharpest experiences was that of marking examinations taken by undergraduates who displayed an innate intelligence but not necessarily a huge ability to communicate. We should all think about that during the course of this debate, because it is important that communication skills and mathematics should be embedded as early as possible.

My second point is that there is much more continuity between those on the two Front Benches than might first be supposed. That came to my attention when I was reading Lord Adonis’s recent book on education. He has paved the way for some of the changes that we are continuing—

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, but Lord Adonis does not support this one.

[Neil Carmichael]

I am not suggesting that Lord Adonis supports everything that we are doing; I am saying that there is some continuity. That is good, because we need more continuity in education policy. A lot of the measures that we are introducing will be useful, in that they will make things better and build on some of the achievements of the previous Government. That needs to be said.

My third point is that I am a firm believer in the Ebacc, as I stated when the Education Select Committee looked into that subject. In fact, that was the only time I ever voted against the publication of a report. I did so because I believe it is important that the Ebacc should be promoted. One of the myths that needs to be completely debunked is that the Ebacc will stop other subjects being taught. That is clearly not the case, because most, if not all, schools also offer a wider variety of subjects. That is what they are supposed to do, and what they will continue to do. I do not believe that enough attention has been paid to the role of Ofsted in ensuring that schools are going beyond the Ebacc subjects. We need to be much clearer about the process involved in the inspection regime, and about the impact that the Ebacc will have on the delivery of other subjects.

Linked to that is Professor Alison Wolf’s report, which has been discussed by the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools. I think that Alison Wolf’s report is first class. It sets the scene for proper vocational training. She makes two points, however, that have thus far been overlooked. First, she believes that an academic framework is absolutely necessary for pupils, and that it is not inconsistent with going on to vocational studies. In fact, she notes that it is a good thing to have an academic basis for vocational training. The second point that she makes very clearly in her report is that there is plenty of time in the school day to go beyond the Ebacc and into vocational training. I think that is critical, because it applies to post-16 education—beyond school and into colleges—as well. We need to bear those two points in mind when we think about the EBacc.

It is important to underline what the Minister of State said about universality. I was particularly impressed with it, as I think we should have a system in which all pupils are treated fairly and all pupils have a fair chance of taking an examination, so that we do not get division between one type of pupil and another. One of the great achievements over the last decade or so has been exactly that—and we should celebrate it. I would say, however, that the EBacc builds on that and does not threaten it, which is something of which we should be proud.

School Governors

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure and honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I also welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This might be her first performance as a Minister here—perhaps not. I am sure she will enjoy this one as much as she may have enjoyed the previous one. She has appeared before the Select Committee on Education and gave a fine performance. I am sure that we are in for a treat.

I asked for this debate because it concerns an important policy that should be deliberated. We need to think how we can adapt the role and recruitment of governors for the challenges ahead in the education system, which is still being reformed, quite rightly.

I want to thank all the governors who govern. We have nearly 300,000 possible governors; there are some vacancies at the moment. They meet regularly, often in relatively difficult circumstances, to deliberate on their schools and education policy. They must be thanked for all that they contribute to their communities and their schools. What I have to say about reforming governors and governance has nothing to do with the devotion of most governors to good practice and to the future of their individual schools.

Lord Hill of Oareford, one of the other Ministers in the Department for Education, said:

“The most important decision-making group in any school is the governing body… Governing bodies should set the overall strategic direction of a school, hold the head teacher to account and have a relentless focus on driving up standards but not get dragged into micromanaging the school or the minutiae of its day-to-day activities.”

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and I echo his words on the efforts of school governors. What does he think of the Secretary of State for Education’s description of school governors in his speech last July? He described them as

“Local worthies who see being a governor as a badge of status, not a job of work”.

[Neil Carmichael]

Out of a total number of several hundred thousand governors, there are bound to be some who are not as good as others and some who are there for reasons not necessarily those that we would all expect or salute. As I said, we have to congratulate and thank all governors generally speaking but note that there are bound to be some who do not rise to the challenge.

I return to Lord Hill’s quotation because I shall address the debate in that spirit. I have been a governor—whether I am a local worthy is another matter—in total for about 20 years in various organisations, such as further education colleges and primary and secondary schools, so I do have some experience. I dealt with a difficult situation quite recently where governance had been judged inadequate and the future of the head teacher became an issue. I am no stranger to controversy in school governance, as well the more reasonable activities of a governor.

I managed to persuade the Education Committee to conduct a full-scale inquiry on school governance, and I see that a member of that Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), is here. He will know that I was keen to do that, and I am pleased that we have an inquiry under way and that the first evidence session will take place in January.

I have also established an all-party group on school governance and leadership. The striking thing about that is that every time we have had a meeting we have had standing room only. There clearly is an appetite and interest in governance, governors and the policy around them. We have produced two publications: “Stronger Boards, Better Education” and “Who Governs the Governors?” We draw two significant conclusions from each of them. I will refer to the direction of travel in my remarks. The question of accountability is clearly at the core of who governs the governors. The question of skills versus stakeholders is clearly at the core of the quality of boards. I will set out those issues in more detail in due course.

As I have already said, there are a number of changes in the world of education, and the academies programme is clearly one of the most significant. It has significant implications for governance in several ways. I have referred to accountability, but the fact is that, as schools become more independent from local authorities, we should ask our governing system to fill the vacuum created. That is not an unfortunate vacuum—it is quite deliberate and quite right that schools are more independent and autonomous—but we must have a proper accountability system within schools.