Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have to ask the hon. Lady where she has been for most of this debate. At no stage have we talked about separating children at the age of 14, and at no stage—

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Liz Kendall]

The Secretary of State is supposed to be a man of his convictions. Parents and pupils in my constituency want to know whether the Daily Mail report was accurate—yes or no?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for asking her question. I am a man of my convictions, and my convictions are that we need to improve our GCSE system. That is why we have outlined proposals that will ensure that we change the way in which children sit qualifications at the age of 16. In place of a two-tier system, with GCSEs split between foundation and higher-tier, we will have one qualification for all students. In place of competing exam boards where there is a race to the bottom instituted under the Labour Government, we will have exam boards that will be asked to compete to go to the top, and all those exam boards will be asked to produce qualifications that are more rigorous.

Instead of 60% of students being assumed to succeed and 40% being written off, we will set a benchmark whereby at least 80% and a rising proportion of students succeed over time. Instead of a flight away from rigorous subjects like history, geography and modern foreign languages, physics, chemistry and biology, we will ensure that those subjects are incentivised in league tables and accountability measures. We will ensure as a result of these changes that the drift towards mediocrity that the last Government’s qualification system incarnated is finally addressed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

In 2006, New College school in my constituency was the worst secondary school in England for truancy, the worst in the value-added league tables, and fifth from bottom overall for GCSE results. Just one in 10 pupils taking GCSEs at the school scored five grade Cs or better, while the truancy rate was running at more than 10 times the national average. I was therefore very proud when last Friday New College was named by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust as being in the top 10% of improving schools in the country. The number of children getting five A to C grades at GCSE including in English and maths has gone up by 450%, and the number getting five A to C grades overall has gone up by a staggering 700%.

Jane Brown, the head teacher at New College, says that three key things have helped it to achieve those phenomenal results, and that the first and foremost is having the right teachers—moving on those who were not up to scratch and replacing them with the very best. The second thing is the focus and financial support from the national challenge programme, which has enabled New College to get external support, including from the ex-head of education at Nottingham, and pay for additional resources, such as tutors to give intense one-on-one support in English and maths. The third thing is not allowing the school to get blown off track by different Government initiatives, and instead focusing consistently and relentlessly on what really matters to help children learn, aspire and achieve. The teachers, support staff, volunteers and students at New College deserve huge congratulations on their hard work, commitment and success. Although they are rightly proud of their achievements, they are not complacent, and they are determined to make even greater improvements in the future.

I have spoken to Jane and to some of the other heads at secondary schools in Leicester West about the Secretary of State’s plans—or, at least, reported plans—to change GCSEs. They think—and I agree—that a single exam board could be a positive step to help tackle unhelpful competition between exam boards and stop some heads thinking, “Which exam will get the best results for my school?” rather than, “How can we give our students the best education for life?” Achieving A grades in GCSEs should be really demanding, and with a single syllabus there is no reason that cannot be achieved. That is something we should be considering.

Jane and the other heads do not support a return to a two-tier system where children are told at age 14 what they can and cannot achieve. Telling some children before they have had a chance fully to develop that they are not good enough to do O-levels will not boost their self-esteem, but crush it. Telling them they can manage only CSEs, which will inevitably be a less valued qualification, will not raise their achievement, but cap it. We should not be putting a ceiling on children’s aspirations; we should be blasting those ceilings away.

This proposal is a terribly backwards step from a Secretary of State who does not seem to understand what it takes to help children from chronically deprived backgrounds to aspire and achieve. Jane Brown, who has proved through her hard work and effort what can and must be done to turn schools around, says labelling children as failures so early would be disastrous. Instead of helping schools such as New College, which have created a “yes you can, yes you will” culture for all the students all the way through to the end of year 11, the Government’s proposals will return us to the days when some children ended up believing that they could not aspire and achieve and that they were failures, particularly if they came from very disadvantaged backgrounds. That is why I urge the Government, in the strongest possible terms, to rethink their plans. If the Secretary of State would like to visit New College and see what it really takes to turn around a school that was in a terrible state some years ago, so that it is now doing really well for the people I was elected to represent, I am sure that he would be welcomed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is very youthful looking but I am not sure the league tables were in place when he was at school, so I find that point slightly confusing.

Does it matter that there has been grade inflation? I think we have all heard from higher education institutions, employers in our constituencies and members of the public that it does matter. One witness who gave evidence to the Education Committee’s exams inquiry said they did not believe that employers expect to be able to compare exam results over time, but I have news for him: that is exactly what employers, higher education institutions and parents expect to be able to do, and quite justifiably so. However, the system does not support them in doing that. Although there have been many factors at play with grade inflation, there are three root causes among which there is interplay: the pressure on schools to deliver the results; the competitive land grab for volume market share on behalf of the competing exam boards; and a too malleable system that attempts to put everything on a single scale when everything does not necessarily fit together.

I think we have moved on a good way in this debate. Over the past few days, the phrase we have heard most often on this subject has been about not wanting to return to a two-tier system, but increasingly there is a recognition that there are two tiers now, with 40% of youngsters being left behind. One could even argue that there is a third tier, with the young people who are put on to other qualifications that are of so little value to them in later life. Even in the purer sense, within a single-subject GCSE there are the two tiers of the foundation level and the higher level. Although this has been talked about much today, it is in many ways the best kept secret in education. I keep finding, when I talk to the parents of 14 and 15-year-old pupils, that they are not aware of that distinction. In many ways O-levels and CSEs never went away—they were just rebranded, but into one thing.

Let us take the example of GCSE maths. If someone is entered for GCSE maths at foundation level, that decision will be taken when they are in year 10 and the highest grade they can then achieve is a grade C. That sounds very much like getting a CSE grade 1 in the 1980s. And it is not just maths. Other subjects that are tiered include biology, physics, chemistry, general science, classical civilisation, Latin, English literature, English language, geography and modern foreign languages— almost every one of the core academic subjects that most of us did at school, with the single exception of history.

[Liz Kendall]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how having O-levels and CSEs would make that two-tier system better?

[Damian Hinds]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Lady, who is an erstwhile colleague of ours on the Select Committee, but I am not proposing a return to anything from the past. What we must do is build an exam and qualification system that is fit for the future and reflects the new reality in which the participation age is 18, not 16. We must make sure that all young people can reach their potential at 15 to 16 and that if they have not done so by that point, particularly in key subjects such as English and maths, they go on to do so at 16 to 18 and beyond.