Laura Smith
Main Page: Laura Smith (Labour - Crewe and Nantwich)Department Debates - View all Laura Smith's debates with the Department for Education
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Emma Hardy
Thank you very much. We do genuinely get on very well on the Education Committee, which is a welcome change from what happens in some of the debates that are conducted across the Floor of the House.
I sometimes feel that there is a false dichotomy between the sort of education we are putting forward here and the type of education that the Government are putting forward. There are also many things to do with statistics that are simply not true. It reminds me of when I was studying for my A-levels and I was talking to my lecturer about the use of statistics. They said to me, “Ah, Emma, you see, statistics are what a lamp post is to a drunken man: it is not so much for illumination as for leaning against.” That has often been proven to be true in debates about education.
What I experienced in my 11 years as an infant teacher until 2015 was the cuts to our schools and the impact they were having. The Government can cite figures and dance around the issue, and we can cite figures right back at them, but what are the parents, the teachers and the headteachers saying? That is where the truth of the matter actually lies. In March, 50 primary headteachers from Hull wrote to the Secretary of State about funding. They are desperate for more money for the special educational needs and high needs budget. In Hull, as many as 526 children aged four and under have been identified as displaying challenging behaviour or SEN.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I think the hon. Lady means, “Does my hon. Friend agree with me?”
Laura Smith
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that schools are having to bid for extra funding, and that that is a really dangerous direction for us to head in?
Emma Hardy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are so many people across this Chamber who have a shared sense of purpose and a belief that every child matters. I still believe that every child matters, but that seems to be getting twisted and distorted along the way. We simply do not have the money that SEN children in Hull desperately need. Headteachers wrote to the Secretary of State back in March and said:
“Mainstream schools are increasingly having to resort to fixed-term and permanent exclusions to deal with challenging pupils. This is despite the best efforts of dedicated staff in schools. There is a feeling that something has to change or schools will implode.”
Now, we know from the Education Committee’s recent inquiry into alternative provision that an increasing number of children are being expelled from the system or off-rolled. Why is that? It is not because teachers have suddenly become heartless or have suddenly stopped caring about the children in their classes, but simply because they do not have the necessary resources to deal with the different challenges that pupils come to school with due to the impacts of austerity and poverty.
What is happening outside schools is reflected in what is happening inside our schools. Children who come to school hungry or are coming to school after awful childhood experiences will display challenging behaviour, and schools do not have the necessary resources to deal with that behaviour. I say to the Secretary of State and the Schools Minister that alternative provision is a false economy that will cost the Government more money in the long run. Alternative provision is more expensive. Dealing with interventions for all these pupils as they go through their school career will be more expensive than helping and supporting schools at the beginning, when they need it. I never thought that I would be citing Estonia as a country with an education system that we should look at, but Estonia evaluates every single child at three years old for learning difficulties or any signs of special educational needs, so that interventions can be put in place to deal with the situation before those children start school. Our Government should be doing that if they actually want to save money.
Turning to saving money—another one of my bugbears—there seems to be a lot of talk from the Government about vice-chancellor pay at the moment. They seem to be getting hot under the collar and worked up about the issue, but there has not been a word about the pay of chief executive officers of multi-academy trusts. Is it right for some CEOs to be receiving over £450,000 a year? You are right to look shocked, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it right for CEOs to be getting paid that much money when our schools do not have enough money for their SEN pupils? Also on academies, is it right that millions of pounds have gone on related transactions within multi-academy trusts? Money could be saved by delving more deeply into the accounts of some trusts to examine what money is being wasted on. As a new Member of Parliament, I am subject to certain rules, which I absolutely support, and one such rule is that I cannot employ any direct relation, and nor should I. However, the CEO of a multi-academy trust can employ every single member of their family in a number of different roles on whatever salary they see fit. We could examine that to find a way of redirecting funds towards the SEN pupils in Hull who so desperately need them.
Headteachers in Hull have asked for an additional £5 million, which is all that they need to help give every single child in the city a quality education. But this is not just about the children with SEN; there is an impact on every child. I know that because I was a teacher for 11 years, and if a child in a class has challenging behavioural difficulties, the teacher needs additional resources to help that child, which will help every other child in the class. A teacher who is dealing on their own with a pupil’s challenging behaviour or learning difficulty will end up spending a disproportionate amount of time with that one pupil to the detriment of the others. The resources need to be in place to help SEN children and every other child in the class.
I get a bit—
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
At the start of 2017, before becoming a Member of Parliament, I attended a meeting at a local high school, which was being held to raise awareness of the national funding formula and how it would impact on that school, and indeed others in the area. The headteacher was very honest about the challenges the school would face with the additional real-terms cuts to budgets; historically, ours was one of the worst areas in the country on this already. Parents listened to the facts and rightly raised their concerns about the impact this would have on their children: teaching assistants and teachers faced uncertainty as to whether they would still have jobs; the curriculum would be squeezed of subjects not seen as essential; opportunities for extra-curricular experiences would be jeopardised; and buildings and IT would not be updated unless critical. The mood was one of absolute disbelief. People were encouraged to engage in the consultation, but it was so unbelievably complicated that it had school governors and headteachers scratching their heads.
As a teacher myself, I left that meeting knowing that I had to do something; local parents needed to be informed and my colleagues deserved to be heard. I took to social media to explain what this funding formula would mean for our schools, and it is amazing what happens when people are informed about facts. I organised a campaign consisting of a packed public meeting, a 1,000-strong march and lots of people engaging with the consultation. It raised the profile of the issue locally, we had national coverage and it gave concerned parents and teachers a voice.
What we are actually facing long term in education is a complete crisis. Research shows that 94% of teachers are buying equipment and resources for basic teaching. My experience of teaching is that staff have always been willing to spend some of their own money for the odd item, such as prizes for children, but the funding cuts are digging deep. That is making it hard for schools to manage without being subsidised by staff and parents; the National Education Union reports that one in five said their schools were asking parents for financial contributions as a result of budget pressures, while two thirds said funding for special needs provision had been cut. It is wrong to rely on the good will of teachers and parents to meet the shortfall when pay has fallen over the past 10 years. The Government need to fund schools adequately, so that children can enjoy a full curriculum, in properly resourced institutions.
Many of my friends are still teachers, and staff morale is the lowest I have ever known it. Teachers are being stretched in so many different directions. Any time teachers might have once had for prep at school and to complete the ever-increasing amount of admin is being taken away to cover for staff who are not being replaced. Funding cuts are resulting in bigger class sizes, and cuts to support staff mean we are seeing more and more children with complex needs not getting the necessary support. The cuts to frontline teaching posts are happening at a time when pupil to classroom teacher ratios are rising, which means bigger classes and less individual attention for children. The funding situation also continues to have a growing impact on teachers’ pay and working conditions. The NEU believes that the damaging cuts to teachers’ pay must be reversed. Pay should be restored at least to the levels in place before the Government misguidedly imposed their pay freezes and pay limits. With schools already struggling with the funding crisis, it is vital that the Government allocate additional funding to support the pay levels needed to address the recruitment and retention crisis.
Another impact of the real-terms funding cuts is on the opportunities for children to participate in extra-curricular activities and school trips. Today, my son is going on his first residential trip, at six years old—one night, sleeping over, at the cost of £60. Like his school friends, he is bursting with excitement. I know that he is about to do something that he will always remember. How awful then to hear from other schools in my constituency that they will be unable to do school trips. Why? It is because they cannot afford to subsidise the trips for the poorer students. So, once again, the poorest are starved of opportunities that children from wealthier families can access. How desperately unfair our education system has become.
My constituency is part of the f40. Forty-one of the group’s 42 member authorities responded to its survey and unanimously agreed that the formula being introduced in April 2018 did not yet fully meet f40’s aspirations. f40, like myself, welcomed the Government’s commitment to an additional £1.3billion for school funding, but the survey demonstrates that concerns remain and there is still more work to do to tackle the remaining locked-in inequalities. Although the Government have added more cash to the system, a gap between the better funded and worst funded remains. Specifically, maintaining protections to the best-funded areas has meant that the historical inequalities will take longer to iron out. Like the f40, I believe that a needs-led funding formula that reflects the true cost of running a school and an adjustment to the balance between funding blocks, with an enhancement of core funding and reduction to additional needs, are required changes.
Michael Tomlinson
I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. Like hers, my constituency was part of the f40 campaign. Will she therefore recognise the steps this Government took, which the last Labour Government failed to take, to address those inequalities? While I am standing, let me say that it is welcome at least to hear her acknowledgement of additional money going in.
Laura Smith
I believe I acknowledged that extra money going into the system and mentioned it in my speech.
The right to a decent, diverse and inspirational education is something every child deserves, no matter their background, no matter their ability. School is about so much more than just results and attainment. It should be a place of safety, support and development, and children deserve access to teachers who feel valued and inspired themselves. I became a teacher because I love to see the spark in a child’s eyes when they find that thing that makes them tick. Every child I ever worked with had something to offer, and as a teacher it was my job to tune into it and give them the confidence and self-belief to learn. Teachers are working harder than ever, with fewer resources and more challenges, and their wellbeing is being affected massively. Who, ultimately, misses out as a result of the crisis that schools face? It is every person in our society, as the kids of today are the future of tomorrow. They did not cause the global economic crisis and they should not be punished for others’ failings.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, because Conservative Members have a duty to put the record right on some of the statements that Opposition Members are making. They continue to peddle myths day after day in the Chamber. Today, I feel as if I am in a parallel universe to the one those Opposition Members are in. I ask myself: why would the Opposition promote these many myths in the way they do? What is their reason for doing this? I do hope they are not doing it knowingly, misleading the public to spread fear and distract from the reality of the situation. Unlike in the glory days of “Education, education, education”, the Labour party now has no plan. It is unable to present an alternative vision for education in this country and unable effectively to cost the pledges it does make without burdening our children and our children’s children with huge amounts of debt.
Let us examine the facts. The proposed new funding formula, which will right the historical wrong of the schools funding postcode lottery, will mean that schools in Erewash will receive an increase of 5%—that means £2.6 million more to spend on education in my constituency. That is not a cut. As we speak, the new multimillion-pound Wilsthorpe Community School is nearing the end of its construction phase, in preparation for opening its doors to students from Long Eaton and the surrounding area in September. This is a great example of real investment by this Government, through the Education and Skills Funding Agency, to update a school that had previously been neglected by Labour.
Laura Smith
I am still getting used to this place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise. The hon. Lady made the point that there is more funding going into the system, and I recognise that—it is true—but does she also accept that there are more children in schools, so that money is being spread more thinly?
Maggie Throup
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, but once again, I think that the myths have been spread and spread. If we look at it historically, in Erewash during all the 13 years of Labour government, schools were underfunded completely. Thankfully, this Government are correcting the wrong that was in place for so many years.
Like many other public services, schools are much more than the building or the money we spend on them. As others have mentioned, those who go into education often talk about a vocation—a calling in life—and in Erewash we have some extraordinary examples of teachers and teaching assistants who go above and beyond to give our children the very best start in life.
One example is Chaucer Junior School, whose pupils can often be found gardening or litter picking. I joined them to pick litter, and it taught them a lesson about how important it is not to drop litter, so it is an educational activity as well. They also visit places such as Parliament, which adds real value to their education. That is down not to the funding the school receives but the hard work and dedication of the staff who are willing to organise and facilitate those activities. I can cite example after example from my constituency, including English Martyrs in Long Eaton, which was visited a couple of years ago by the Minister for School Standards, who is on the Front Bench and who tested their maths when he visited. That school regularly gets to the final of the green school awards, which means they can come down to London, go to London Zoo and be part of the bigger picture that schools and education provide.
Sadly, the story in Erewash is not all a bed of roses and students are suffering, not because of funding cuts but because of teaching time lost by politically motivated strike action. Like its colleagues in Labour and Momentum, the NASUWT has been prepared to weaponise teachers in opposition to academisation, despite it being in the best interests of students and, I remind the House, a policy that began under Labour.
Last month, the Opposition were forced to retreat over the issue of free school meals, not just by the Government but by the team at Channel 4. Indeed, even the Labour candidate in Erewash embarrassed herself in our local press by jumping the gun, blindly following the party line rather than checking local facts, and was rightly exposed for it. In a similar vein, the Opposition are pursuing today’s debate with the same misguided intent, rather than using it as a constructive way of proposing policy.
Having spoken before this debate to those in my office about their own time in school, with their experience spanning time from Wilson to Cameron, I found that they can all recall the charitable element historically embraced by our education system to support the formal budget set by Government. The parent teacher association raffle, the summer fair, the Christmas pantomime and the sponsored walk while dressed as a hippo—I have yet to find out who wore the hippo outfit—helped to pay for things as wide-ranging as a minibus and basic extra equipment. There is nothing new about people contributing to school budgets rather than relying on what the Government provide.
We must ask ourselves what makes a school. I would argue this is about more than just the funding that the Government provide. I agree with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on one point: she said that it is not just about money. Yes, we would all like more money, but it is clear that in Erewash there are no cuts, despite what the Opposition would like the public to believe. Instead, we have both an increase in funding and significant investment in new school buildings.