Grammar Schools

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I said yesterday, I entirely agree with the noble Lord about the importance of early years—I think we all recognise that. That is why it is so pleasing to see so many academy groups opening nurseries. There have been a number of mergers and some closures of Sure Start centres, but the number of pupils attending them has remained fairly constant and the evidence is that they are doing well. Of course, this Government have invested heavily in early years childcare.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that the 11-plus was based on what is now regarded as faked information about 11 being the correct age at which to assess? It is regarded as particularly unfortunate for most boys. If we are going down the selection route, could we not follow the example of public schools in pushing the age back by a couple of years?

[Lord Nash]

As I said, we are working to develop systems which are much fairer and less easy to prepare for, and we believe that under the new system pupils may well be able to move streams or even schools at a later age. I entirely agree that the common entrance exam is a first-class exam taken at 13.

Schools

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes some good points. It is our intention to ensure that the impact is favourable across the whole system and that there is a net benefit across it. We will of course continually monitor the impact of our policies.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if you are to get people ready for selection you must have done some groundwork by making sure that they are properly taught? Will he give some assurance, given Stephen Munday’s review and the Carter report, that special educational needs will be properly covered and implemented in all teacher training, particularly if a pupil is going up for a selection process? They will otherwise be guaranteeing that anybody with a hidden special educational need is at a massive disadvantage. This will also run counter to a lot of law. Can we make sure that it happens?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord is right that the Carter report highlighted the importance of SEN training. It is something that we are determined to improve. I will specifically discuss this matter with the Minister responsible, Nick Gibb.

Independent Schools: Teacher Training

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I cannot give an accurate figure because that involvement is very varied, but we have many free schools that have been sponsored by independent schools. We have two London Academies of Excellence—one focusing on high-performing pupils in sixth form in the East End, sponsored by Brighton College, and another opening in Tottenham, sponsored by Highgate. We have Haileybury, which is sponsoring a school in Hertfordshire and we have Eton and Holyport College, of course. There are many other examples of independent schools engaged in the free school programme in one way or another.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that independent schools have a very good record of dealing with such things as special educational needs, probably because of the cost basis of the relationship? Would that be taken on board in any exercise that looks at teacher training generally? If 20% of your pupils have a special educational need, you should be able to teach them.

[Lord Nash]

I agree with the noble Lord. Indeed, Andrew Carter’s review stated that there was some variability in the quality of course content in relation to SEND training in ITT. Following that review, the Secretary of State for Education commissioned Stephen Munday to take forward an independent expert group tasked with developing a framework of core initial teacher training.

Regional Schools Commissioners

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We will publish the following information on the GOV.UK website this month: a high-level outline of the regional schools decision-making framework; each regional schools commissioner’s regional vision; a description of the national schools commissioner’s role; and the terms of reference for head teacher boards.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that if a political decision is made in a region that affected, say, a third of the primary schools in that region, the only way you can get an answer under the current arrangement would be to go directly to the Minister in charge—the Minister who is answering the question? What preparation has his office made for receiving inquiries from a third of the primary schools in any one of these regions?

[Lord Nash]

I think that it is unlikely that any particular decision would affect so many schools, but if the noble Lord is referring to small primaries, we are very conscious of the issues facing them and are very keen to support them. We believe that they will be more sustainable as part of groups working together in MATs. As Lucy Powell said in the other place only yesterday, it is acknowledged that schools work better in local regional clusters, and we are keen to see them be able to do that.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

Yes, I hope that it will be reported in Hansard.

Amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9, 9A and 10A concern the new definition of a school in trouble—that it is “coasting”. If coasting is a bad thing, I suggest that all types of school should have it available to them. I also note that the Minister has tabled amendments in this group, so I will resist any further comment until after I have heard what he has to say, as I believe that he has made certain steps towards us.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

Before the noble Lord moves on to his other amendments, I would like to elaborate on the point that he just referred to. As he said, I have tabled an amendment on it, and I take this opportunity to assure him that we take academies’ performance very seriously. We fully intend to hold academies to account in the same way as we do maintained schools. My Amendment 24 will ensure that the “coasting” definition always applies to academies and that we will always have power to take action when academies fail or coast. I will talk about that in more detail, but I hope that the noble Lord is reassured that we have addressed the concerns about tackling underperforming academies raised by him and a number of other noble Lords, and will not press his amendments in relation to that.

[Lord Addington]

I thank the Minister. I was going to thank him in my summing-up speech, but I do it now.

There are two clarification amendments in this group. Amendment 9 relates to the definition of a coasting school as having three consecutive years of failure. That has been suggested and referred to in regulation, but the amendment seeks to have that included in the Bill, or at least get confirmation that that is what must happen before this type of intervention takes place. Further reassurance would help on that.

Amendment 15A states that certain types of schools will never be affected by the definition of coasting. Once again, this is seeking clarification and reassurance. My attention is drawn particularly to special schools in this regard. The integration of special schools into the education system as a support structure is very important. Some local base will always be important. Who knows what will happen in the future, but under the current structure, it would be appropriate to spell that out more clearly.

The more substantive amendment as far as I am concerned is Amendment 15. When drawing up the definition of a coasting school, a school that is in the throes of failing or at least stagnating, what does one look at? It is quite clear that academic results will be a factor and I have included that in a small list. Lists are of course imperfect, but they are a starting point for discussions. But other school activities are also important and I offer three further examples. One would be arts and sports. If there is exceptional activity in that area, but the academic side is not great, are you in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? If schools are doing something that is good, do we endanger it with a change of school status, organisation and ethos? Any time we do that we will presumably throw everything into the melting pot and changes will have to be made to address something. By changing that structure we may get rid of something good.

The same argument could be made about placement in further education and/or school activity after that. If we have established a good pathway, are we in danger, if we change that, of damaging this process? I still regard apprenticeships as something of a work in progress, but they are lauded by all. If a particular school is doing very well at getting people into apprenticeships, surely that deserves to have some special attention paid to it.

I do not think this is a particularly radical thought, but I have not heard conclusively what we will do if we get these very great gains and positives; will we throw them away? I remind all noble Lords that we have heard much about how schools should not just be chasing grades. If the target is getting definite C grades at GCSE, which is one that is often referred to, just chasing B grades at GCSE is not that much better. It is for the person getting the grades, but outside that, are we actually getting rid of something else?

I beg to move Amendment 8A and I look forward to all the Minister’s replies on this group.

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[Lord Nash]

For a failing academy we would proceed as quickly as we could identify an alternative sponsor. There would be no question of the school closing, unless there was no demand for the school. In all the cases that we have brokeraged, to which my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy referred, we have waited until we identified another sponsor and moved on as quickly as possible. Generally, we are talking about a few months.

There was a question about whether different sets of regulations would apply to maintained schools and academies. There will be just one set of regulations. This is made clear by subsection (6) of new Clause 2B.

In conclusion, I note that noble Lords support our ambition to ensure that all pupils, whatever their background, receive an education that enables them to flourish. I hope that this debate and the amendments that I have laid will reassure the House that our approach will help us to achieve this ambition. I therefore urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments and to support the government amendment that I have laid.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, it has been an interesting and very wide-ranging debate. I do not envy the Minister his challenge of bringing all these amendments together in one group. However, I will try to finish where I began. I thank the Minister for Amendment 24 but have one word of caution, although I am probably teaching granny to suck eggs here. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, think that this should be looked at again for technical reasons, I hope that the Minister will encourage his officials to do that. He is nodding his head, and that is very much appreciated. That is what Third Reading is for; if there is a technical problem with this amendment, which is generally welcomed, let us get it right.

Amendment 15 was not a “may” or “shall” but a “must” and “may”—the updated version of that hardy perennial of Parliament. I take some reassurance from what the Minister said. The amendment was based on the exact regulations he looked at. I have had excellent help of late. I am more comfortable about the idea that the whole school be taken more into account. However, I think that we should keep an eye on this because it would be very easy to slip back to asking what the exam results are and saying, “That is it—final”. The whole House agrees that that is not a great model. There must be some flexibility. Once again the Minister nods his head, and so I am reassured.

I thank the Minister for correcting what was basically a flaw in the Bill and for doing that very promptly. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I will speak to the new clauses proposed by Amendments 30, 31 and 32. These clauses, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell, Lady Pinnock and Lady Sharp, all relate to reports which Ofsted would be required to provide before a failing or coasting school becomes a sponsored academy. In particular, they seek to require that Ofsted must inspect an academy trust, report on teacher qualifications and report pupil absence levels prior to the Secretary of State entering into an academy arrangement for a failing or coasting school.

First, on Amendment 30, I agree with the intention behind the noble Lord’s amendment to ensure that regional schools commissioners should be fully informed about the performance and capacity of academy trusts in their area. However, this proposed new clause is an unnecessary addition to the Bill because regional schools commissioners already have access to this information, as I outlined in some detail in responding to the previous group of amendments. I hope that the Committee can see that, given the information already available to regional schools commissioners, this clause is unnecessary. I have described that there are already a number of ways in which this full picture of an academy trust is built up, rightly utilising the skills set of Ofsted inspectors on educational performance and the assessments of the Education Funding Agency against the robust financial and governance standards under which academy trusts are held to account.

The clause inserted by Amendment 31 would place a duty on Ofsted to report on the teacher qualifications required by a particular academy trust before a failing or coasting school joins that trust as a sponsored academy. I understand that, in tabling this amendment, noble Lords are concerned about ensuring the highest quality of teaching in academies, and I agree that this is a vital ingredient—probably the most vital ingredient—for securing the excellent education that every child deserves.

Teacher quality is a complex mixture of different attributes, including personal characteristics such as commitment, resilience, perseverance, motivation and, of course, sound subject knowledge. These cannot be guaranteed through a particular qualification. We believe that children should be taught by good teachers who inspire them, regardless of the qualification they hold. The noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, seem to have some notion of academies hiring unqualified teachers purely because they are enthusiastic. I doubt very much whether any professional head of a school would allow that to happen, and I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, thinks that they would.

One of the most important “qualifications” that teachers need is deep subject knowledge. I am delighted that, over the last five years, the number of postgraduates entering teaching with a 2:1 or better has risen from 61% to 73%. We do not think that we should necessarily require a PhD in physics to go through nine months’ teacher training, over 60% of which is likely to take place in a school. If they have deep subject knowledge and the right personal characteristics, they can make great teachers without any further qualifications, as I have seen myself on many occasions. Neither do we think that a drama teacher from RADA who has a spare afternoon a week to teach in a primary school should have to get QTS.

[Lord Addington]

What would the noble Lord say about the skills you need other than your primary consideration? If you have a PhD in physics, do you, for instance, know what to do with a child with special educational needs? That is the sort of thing that attracts the attention and the worry. It is not the fact that they are great at their primary function but that a lot of other stuff has to be dealt with to get to the primary function.

[Lord Nash]

I know that the noble Lord is always concerned about this point. Of course every school has to have a SENCO, and every school, particularly if it has high SEN numbers, will have plenty of teachers focused specifically on this area. However, if a person has high academic qualifications and the right other characteristics, as I have already said, we do not see why they would necessarily have to get a particular other qualification.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment is an attempt to correct something that I see as rather an error in the Bill. We have this new condition of “coasting”, which is bad—I think that that is probably the great driver here—and we have a solution to coasting schools, which is that they become academies. We have heard a great deal in the Committee—and it is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for three seconds—that occasionally, at certain points in the future—let us not argue about frequency—academies will start to coast. It has already been agreed that they can fail. My amendment is an attempt to try to tie academies into the existing structure that could deal with an academy that has gone wrong.

I feel that we will have a great deal more fun arguing about exactly what the correct definition of “coasting” is. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, looked, shall we say, a bit like a dog that had found a nice juicy scent when we talked about the academic definition before. That is something which any Minister should be very wary of. The fact of the matter is that we will have a definition, and no matter how you tweak it, occasionally an academy is going to fall within that definition. If coasting is wrong for one school it must, I hope, be wrong for any school. While, as always, the amendment is probing in nature, it is an attempt to bring such a school in.

Amendment 17 presents a slightly different way of basically removing the fur from this moggie. It would insert a new clause. One thing I like about it is that it goes back to nurse; it goes to Ofsted, a body that can take a look around, which knows the system and which can make a judgment. We should think about that because we know how Ofsted works and how its judgments go, and it is in place. Also, using Ofsted in conjunction with regional schools commissioners is probably quite a sensible idea. We have a body whose judgment we trust and which we have used. We should try to put something into the Bill for academies which are making mistakes and doing something wrong—there could be 1,001 problems. I think that Uplands Junior School in Leicester has lost half its teachers today and is to become an academy. Who knows what is going on there? The Minister is looking at me strangely, but it was reported only today so I understand why he may have missed it. It was brought to my attention very briefly.

[Lord Nash]

I am happy to talk about it now.

[Lord Addington]

Perhaps we can talk about Uplands school at length on Report.

If we go down this path, we will have situations where things go wrong. We need to have an intervention process for an academy that gets it wrong. If it is the entire chain because there is something that is happening through it, we will probably need to intervene on the whole thing. Amendment 16 is just a way of putting in the Bill a provision that says, “Let us try to use what is already in place and so get some sort of solution to this”. It is basically about starting again. I hope that there is no fundamental objection to the amendment and that we will hear how the thinking is developing on something which is an inevitability, no matter how infrequent it is. I beg to move.

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[Lord Nash]

I will try and make it clear again. Our approach to failing and inadequate schools, category 4 schools, is that they must become a sponsored academy. That is not our approach to coasting schools, as I hope I have made absolutely clear.

The amendment seeks to address noble Lords’ concerns on a number of points. First, that academies as well as maintained schools should become eligible for intervention when they fail or meet the coasting definition. Secondly, that the Bill proposes to remove consultation on academy conversion when a maintained school is judged inadequate. Thirdly, that a duty is placed on the governing body and local authority to progress academy conversion in such circumstances, and finally that, if necessary, the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to revoke an academy order. I shall deal with these points in turn.

First, on failing and coasting academies, I agree entirely with noble Lords that failure and wider underperformance must be tackled wherever it occurs, whether in a maintained school or in an academy. As I set out when we debated the coasting definition last week, academies are governed by a different legal regime from maintained schools. They are run by charitable companies known as academy trusts which enter into a contractual relationship with the Secretary of State through the signing of a funding agreement. It is this agreement that governs how an academy will operate and how the Secretary of State will hold it to account for its performance.

The vast majority of the more than 5,300 open academies and free schools are performing well. In the small number of cases where we have concerns, I can assure the House that regional schools commissioners are already taking swift and effective action to drive improvements and, subject to the passage of this Bill, RSCs will hold all academies to account against the coasting definition just as rigorously as they will maintained schools. To demonstrate our commitment to continually reviewing our approach and ensuring that poorly performing academies are robustly challenged, we have already added a new coasting clause to the model funding agreement showing explicitly that we intend to tackle all schools which are coasting. This gives the Secretary of State formal powers to terminate a funding agreement where an academy is coasting. Even where academies do not have this specific clause in their agreement, I can assure noble Lords that RSCs will still hold them to account against the coasting definition.

[Lord Addington]

Could the Minister just repeat where that is? That is the real essence of my amendment. Could he repeat where the intervention on coasting academies is?

[Lord Nash]

It is in the new model funding agreement which is on our website and I can send the noble Lord a copy.

[Lord Addington]

Thank you.

[Lord Nash]

RSCs have already shown they can act quickly to bring about improvements. Since September 2014 when RSCs first took up post, they have issued 58 pre-warning and warning notices to academy and free school trusts. In the same period they have also moved 83 academies and free schools to new trusts or sponsors, compared with 13 in the previous academic year. For example, Ipswich Academy in Suffolk was judged to require special measures in January 2015. The RSC acted swiftly to identify a new sponsor for the school and Paradigm Trust has taken on the school from September 2015. Ofsted undertook a monitoring visit in late September and judged that leaders and managers were taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.

In addition, Thetford Academy in Norfolk was judged to require special measures by Ofsted in February 2013. We brought in Inspiration Trust as a new sponsor in September 2013 to run the school. That was seven months later, as compared with the case to which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred, where 22 months later Uplands School has yet to become an academy—I will give some more detail on that in a minute. Provisional 2015 results indicate that even under our tougher accountability standards, 47% of pupils achieved five good GCSEs compared to 28% in 2011. Ofsted inspected the academy in December 2014 and judged it to be good with outstanding leadership, describing it as, “transformed beyond recognition”.

These are just two examples of the robust, decisive action that RSCs are taking to tackle underperformance, and of the positive impact they are already having on the school system. Therefore the proposal—that where an academy is judged inadequate or meets the coasting definition it should be eligible for intervention—does not need to be introduced in this Bill as RSCs are already taking action to secure improvements where necessary.

I turn now to the issue of removing consultation. Our manifesto committed to turning every failing maintained school into a sponsored academy, and Clause 7 makes provision for that. As I said in my opening remarks last week, we place children first in our school system and the purpose of the Bill is to ensure that children do not spend any longer than possible in a failing school. A day lost in a child’s education is a day lost forever, and I beg to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, on this point. We believe that there needs to be a clear course of action when a school is judged inadequate and that there cannot be any question or debate about what the right solution for that school might be. We must be completely clear, as our manifesto was, that becoming an academy with the support of a sponsor will always be the solution where a school has failed. Every minute spent on consultation is a minute that could be spent on turning the school around. Clause 8 therefore removes the requirement for the governing body to consult on whether the school should become an academy in such circumstances. It is clear that it would be nonsensical to carry out a consultation when our manifesto was so clear that the sponsored academy solution would be the outcome in this scenario. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Watson, say in Committee last week, “Yes, the Government have the right to implement their manifesto”.

It is crucial to remember that consultation would be removed only in the most serious cases of underperformance. Where a school voluntarily seeks academy status, I agree completely that the school community should contribute its views. In that instance, the governing body is choosing to enter into new arrangements. However, where a school has failed or is otherwise causing concern, there is no choice. Parents will want to see swift and decisive action to bring about urgent transformation.

I want to re-emphasise that this is not about removing democracy or excluding parents, as some have claimed both in the House and in the other place. It is about ensuring that there is a clear course of action in place to improve the very worst schools in our country. We demand immediate action in other instances of failure, such as when an NHS trust is placed in special measures, so why should we expect any less for our schools? It takes on average a year from the time a school is judged inadequate to open as a sponsored academy.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, on the definition of “coasting”, I wonder how much the Treasury Bench wishes it had got that in place before we started. We have gone round that before and will probably go round it again.

[Lord Nash]

We published the definition in June.

[Lord Addington]

I know, but that is an administrative thing. We should have something in the Bill. Much of this discussion is about why we cannot have things in the Bill. That seems to be quite a good answer but I did not find that regulation.

My amendment is about what happens when an academy is coasting. If there were a reference to it, or if we knew that it would be published, this amendment would not have gone down. I did not table the amendment because I could not think of anything else to do; there are novels I could read and other activities I could do. But I had a look at this and it seemed that academies were excluded from the state of something being wrong, such as “coasting” or underachieving. Everyone else who looked at it said, “Yes, that seems to be correct”.

I hope that on Report we will get a little more definition and guidance on when these things will come through. At the moment, we are still groping around. Some things have been published—indeed, some unfinished things have been published—so we are constantly looking. I will read the document, of which I was not aware, and I may find that it addresses the point. At the moment, though, we have the idea that some schools are bad but that does not seem to apply to half or more of the schools in the country. That is totally inequitable and removes a way of intervening to help pupils. Surely a little more time needs to be given to ensuring that we can find where the information is. We are still going through consultations and the argument on the definition of “coasting” is far from over, so we need a bit more time and effort on that.

The noble Lords on my physical right presented an interesting amendment, and I am sure that we will have a discussion about that and see what we can do about it at another stage. At the moment, though, as we are in Grand Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Thursday 5th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

I think—although I will write to the noble Lord—that it will not be calculated; they will not be in the stats, because they will not be there at the beginning.

The Bill provides that the Secretary of State will notify a school when it is coasting, and this makes the school eligible for intervention. As set out in the draft Schools Causing Concern guidance, which is currently out for consultation, regional schools commissioners will then consider whether the school has the capacity to secure sufficient improvement without formal intervention. In some cases, a school which falls within the coasting definition may have a new head teacher, governors or leadership team who can demonstrate that they have an effective plan to raise standards sufficiently. In other cases, they may be able to buddy up on a short-term basis with a nearby school and, in others, external support may be necessary from an NLE.

Where appropriate, regional schools commissioners will use their formal powers to ensure a coasting school receives the support and challenge that it needs, which may include becoming an academy. In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, it is by no means certain that coasting means becoming an academy; there may be many different ways in which schools can improve. As he knows from his excellent work on the London Challenge, that could be school-to-school support. We see one of the advantages of academisation as the clear structure of school-to-school support that it can bring, but that may necessarily be on a temporary basis for a coasting school.

Amendments 1 and 2, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and Amendment 5 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, propose alternative approaches to identifying and addressing schools in which pupils do not fulfil their potential. Amendment 2 gives Ofsted and the local authority responsibility for determining which schools are coasting. Amendment 5 seeks to broaden the definition to include achievement in sports and the arts and access to training, further education and the world of work. My concern with such approaches is that they remove certainty and transparency for schools; it would be unclear for any school whether it would be identified as coasting and, as such, could become eligible for intervention.

Being a teacher or a head teacher is a tough job. It is also in my view one of the most important jobs, if not the most important job, in our country at this time, given how highly geared these roles are to the future success of our country. We want to make the environment in which our teachers and head teachers operate easier, not more difficult, and more certain, not more uncertain. Our schools are inspected by Ofsted; that is right, and there is no doubt that our schools take great notice of this. But there is already enough uncertainty in the minds of our teachers and head teachers as to how their school will be rated by Ofsted without adding to that uncertainty and, yes, anxiety, by adding a vague coasting definition by which they are measured. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her observations on this issue.

We have chosen to base our proposed coasting definition on published performance data precisely so that schools can easily understand whether their performance will equate to them being identified as coasting. Under our proposed approach, many schools can already be reassured that their 2014 and 2015 performance means that they will not be deemed to be coasting when—looking at three years of data, as we propose—we identify coasting schools for the first time in 2016. Such a certain, data-driven approach has been welcomed by many school leaders and organisations representing them. For example, the chief executive of Outward Grange Academies Trust has said that he welcomes the definition,

“in particular the fact that it is based on performance data not Ofsted and the fact that it is measurable every year and compares performance at similar schools over time”.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, if the primary definition here is based on academic achievement, where does it place other objectives that come through schools? I have spent a lot of time on the school sport strategy. It consults; it goes through; it gives duties; it relates to other bits of government. If you remove a certain aspect of a school’s activity from any reference, why do we bother making any references at all?

[Lord Nash]

The reason why it is so important in primary—and it is again based on pupils making the right levels of progress—is the sad statistic that if you get better than level 4 at key stage 2 at primary, you have a more-than-90% chance of getting five good GCSEs; but if you get worse than level 4 at key stage 2 at primary, you have a 6% chance. We all get fixated on GCSE results, but the real work has to start in primary.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, we are at the point of clarification and probing here, and sport is just an example. This is about the whole-school approach. What we are getting at is that academic achievement is the driver here. If the academic overrides everything, we are in danger of changing the character of an achieving school that is very successful in a different area. How does that get taken into account? It does not seem to be something that is taken into account when looking at academic progress, which is dominating this. Some more guidance there would help.

[Lord Nash]

We should discuss this and I am very happy to do that. It is taken into account by Ofsted and will be taken into account by the regional schools commissioners. All good schools have a broad approach because they know how it pays back in academic results. However, in terms of having a metric which is clear and assessable, we believe that our approach is the correct one.

As my noble friend Lady Perry said, the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, was based on practical common sense. As a former chairman of Ofsted, chairman of the Future Leaders Trust and adviser to Ark, she is of course hugely experienced. Her practical experience—instead of theoretical analysis—was extremely helpful. I am grateful for her thoughts and her point that the definitions proposed in the amendments are just too complicated. She also made the point that good schools tend to provide a broad and balanced curriculum anyway. She is right that our new progress data are so much more robust, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said. I am also grateful for the noble Baroness’s comments about RSCs. We will be resourcing them up substantially over the next year, and I will be able to say more about this once the spending review has finished. I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s comments. As she said, Ofsted of course takes a lot of these issues into account.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, commented on the importance of leadership. Ofsted focuses on this heavily, which is the reason why we reduced the Ofsted categories down to four, one of which is leadership. We focus on that substantially. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, also talked about the importance of leadership. I could not agree more. This is the most important issue facing us in schools, and we have an active programme of leadership in our schools. We are currently looking at all our leadership programmes to see whether they are fit for purpose, and have recently introduced a new leadership programme, the Future Leaders Trust MAT CEO course, for chief executives of MATs. We are very focused on making sure that our leadership training is adequate. We have had a lot of sessions with different regional schools commissioners, bringing in the top-performing MATs to explain to the newer MATs how they operate their organisations. There has been a huge amount of sharing of good practice.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, made a number of comments. When he mentioned his involvement with TES, I was reminded that I had my first interview with TES last week. I am rather naive on the political front, as you know, and I made the mistake of saying that if we are to have enough schools in future, we would have to get away from the concept that they all had to be on one or two floors. That resulted in a headline—not in the noble Lord’s paper, but in another one—that I was advocating skyscraper schools. That shows how naive I am on these matters; I should stay away from journalists as much as possible.

We will be setting up a competition, called the Knight competition, for renaming RSCs, so that the noble Lord does not get confused with the Royal Shakespeare Company in future. It will apply to grammars, I assure him of that. This definition is very focused on schools that appear to be doing well but are in fact coasting. In fact, some of the original thinking behind this was aimed very much at those apparently high-performing schools. From 2016 onwards, the secondary coasting definition will be based on the new headline accountability measure. Over three years, it will be the only measure that we look at. It is very robust, and will measure the progress of all pupils in the school. That will include a grammar school with a high attaining cohort making less good progress than such pupils should be making.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, primarily because, having looked at the end of my Amendment 5 and the end of Amendment 8, we have the same last 13 words. Basically, there is not much between us on this. A lot of the debate has been on the fact that we just do not quite know what we are getting into. If this is going to change and the Secretary of State or a Minister is going to change their mind, we have to know, or we are not doing our jobs. We are utterly irrelevant if we do not insist on knowing. I hope that the Minister will be able to accept this amendment, or something like it, in the course of the day. There is no reason not to do it. There is a great deal of confusion, which I know he is doing his best to sort out; there is also disagreement. There should be a way in which we can input into this system as it changes and develops because, undoubtedly, it will as it goes on.

To echo others—indeed, they echoed what I said at Second Reading about not going to an all-academy status or something like it—we will always have discussions about this while we have this death of a thousand cuts or piecemeal change, call it what you like. We have got to know what we are dealing with. These amendments would be one way to make sure that we do.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3 and 8 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. As I promised earlier, I will also cover the similar element of Amendment 5 relating to the coasting regulations from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. Amendment 3 seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out the definition of coasting. This goes beyond the current power in Clause 1, which provides that the Secretary of State may by regulations define what coasting means in relation to a school.

We have been very clear that we intend to make such regulations. In June, we provided an indicative set of regulations to Parliament for scrutiny. Last month we launched a public consultation on our overall approach to coasting and the detail of the definition set out in the draft regulations. I can reassure the House that our intention has always been that regulations will be made but I appreciate that, with this amendment being laid in this House as well as in the other place, there continues to be concern that regulations will not always be made. I have reiterated the Government’s commitment to making regulations today but will also reflect before Report on whether the primary legislation should be more explicit on this point.

Amendments 5 and 8 seek to ensure that the regulations defining coasting are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure each time the regulations are changed. As I have said, we published comprehensive draft regulations in June so that Parliament could understand and scrutinise our proposed approach. From these draft regulations, the House will be aware that the proposed approach relies heavily on references to the department’s performance tables which capture schools’ performance data, as well as defining the specific coasting bar which applies in each year.

Results for primary and secondary schools are published at two different points each year, which might necessitate changes to the regulations as national performance standards change. The performance tables are also technical in nature and so, if minor changes are made to their layout or content, this may also necessitate minor, consequential amendments to regulations. A change as small as a revision to a column heading in the performance tables would require a change to the regulations. Similarly, if the department were to change or merely update the published guidance regarding the calculation of Progress 8, for example, the regulations would again need to be updated. Requiring the consent of both Houses each time such changes were needed would seem an excessive use of Parliament’s time. We already publicly consult, however, when significant changes are made to accountability systems—for instance, as we did on the new measures coming in in 2016. I reassure noble Lords that, if major changes to the accountability system underpinning the coasting definition were proposed, such public consultation would therefore happen again.

I hope that, having seen the detailed illustrative regulations, as well as hearing my explanations today, Peers will understand why it would be very difficult to subject the regulations to the affirmative procedure each time a change is needed. I do, however, appreciate the concern of noble Lords who have tabled these amendments, as well as the concern of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that due process should be followed. I will therefore reflect if there are any further reassurances that I can make on this point at Report. I hope that I have been able to assure noble Lords that we take their concerns very seriously, and I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, my Amendment 16 addresses this later on. We might even be able to kill two birds with one stone.

[Lord Nash]

We may bring this up again in Amendment 16, but I cannot really say more than I have already. I was about to give an example of a very successful academy. I shall move on but will address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about Ofsted results for academies and local authority maintained schools. As I tried to explain at Second Reading in relation to Ofsted ratings, over the last five years—or less than that—we have taken more than 1,300 failing schools off local authorities and turned them into academies. That is clearly why there are many more schools rated as failing among the more limited number of academies than there are among local authority schools, because we have dealt with the matter in that way. I am sure we will return to this, but I reiterate our belief that regional schools commissioners are driving up standards and issuing warning notices much more stringently than many local authorities. Following this discussion, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Nash]

As I said, we believe that this is not just devolution but devo max, if you like, to the front line.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, enjoyable as that little bit of hack and thrust was, to go back to my amendment, it was basically tabled to seek information and clarification. There is a framework and I wanted to look at it.

I was interested to hear that there is a degree of judgment to be used. I was wondering whether we could work into that judgment whether a school has a decent sports policy, arts policy or something like that. It might be an interesting place to include whether the Government’s sports policy is being implemented properly. I am sure that we will discuss the arts later. Once again, one is trying to get all bits of government singing at least the same tune, if not the same words; that would be a step forward. However, I think I have enough information to be going on with and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Creative Sector: Educational Provision

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Nash

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the right reverend Prelate. Core cultural studies must include the arts and creative subjects, and from September 2015 Ofsted will inspect pupils’ welfare and engagement in these kinds of studies and activities.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister give us an answer which refers to the emphasis that should be placed on encouraging voluntary activity? It has been encouraged by all Governments, and so much is done in the voluntary sector. What are we doing to encourage people to get a good grounding so that this thing which lightens up our lives is encouraged?

[Lord Nash]

All good schools will encourage their pupils to engage in these activities. It is all part of a well-rounded education. We are seeing this across the board. We are also seeing the creation of new free schools that focus specifically on arts and music. We have the East London Arts and Music Academy, the Plymouth School of Creative Arts, and my noble friend Lord Baker will be pleased to hear that we have a number of UTCs specialising in creative and digital media.