Education Settings: Autumn Opening

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, as the noble Lord outlined, most children with special educational needs are within mainstream education, and when schools return the obligation is on them to offer that broad and balanced curriculum to all their pupils. Obviously, there are specialist teachers in schools to ensure that those with special educational needs are assisted to access that curriculum. During this period, there have been particular resources and guidance for those with special educational needs, including a specific SEND curriculum, available online through the Oak National Academy.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am particularly concerned about the less gifted and disadvantaged children when schools open. Many have lost three months of teaching, yet they will be expected to take GCSE exams next summer which are virtually the same for subjects as they were this year or last year. There has been no reduction in the subject content of GCSE subjects; the things dropped include field trips for geography and experiments in science. Is it fair to expect children who have lost up to three months’ education to take those exams? They will not catch up; they cannot catch up in the time available in one year.

So I ask the Minister to consider extending the school day. University technical colleges have an extended day: they have 31 teaching hours each week, as opposed to 25. If all schools had an extra two hours each day for four days—eight hours overall—that would provide time to catch up with the two, or two and a half, missing months. I do not see how else they can possibly enter a fair examination, and I hope that the Government will examine this seriously as a proposition. You cannot subject those children to unfair exams next summer.

[Baroness Berridge]

The Government are particularly aware of the situation for children in year 10. That is why, within the laptops programme, disadvantaged year 10 students have been given access to laptops. For the reasons my noble friend outlined, Ofqual has an extensive consultation at the moment to ensure that examinations next year are fair to the children he mentioned.

In relation to his specific proposal to extend the school day, we must take into account that we have a particular set of contracts with staff, and that many staff in our schools have been working since they came back after the February half-term.