Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell (Con)]

My Lords, I mention my interest as the governor of a specialist music school. There is clearly much to debate in the Bill, but I will focus on two areas of provision: grammar schools and home education.

I welcome the safeguards in the Bill for existing grammar schools, but I regret that it is not taking the opportunity to open up the development of new grammar schools. There are now just 163 grammar schools, in 36 LEAs, which means that children in 75% of England do not have access to a free academic school. I recognise that there are of course conflicting views on how much better children of high ability do at grammar schools, but you do not need statistics to appreciate that these children are stretched and motivated when they are in a cohort of children of a similar standard and that this allows the teacher to move at a faster pace and cover more material.

But it is not just about academic progress. What those who have not experienced these schools often fail to understand is the lifting of aspirations and confidence when those from less privileged backgrounds are in an environment and social mix where they can be encouraged to aim for the top. A top stream in some comprehensives may be able to replicate this, but most do not have enough children at that level. Sadly, this is most likely to be true for schools in deprived social areas. So, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, once observed, the elimination of grammar schools has replaced selection by ability with selection by postcode. If you are a talented child living in the wrong postcode—in the 75% of local authorities without grammar schools—your chance of getting the top-class education that you deserve has been taken away.

Of course, critics say that selection unfairly favours the children of middle-class parents. That may be true, but those children will benefit from their parental support in any system. That is no reason to take away the opportunity for high-ability children from less advantaged backgrounds to at least have a chance of gaining an education that can transform their lives.

Just to be clear, I am advocating not the return of compulsory 11-plus but simply the availability of free academic schools for anyone with the ability to apply to them. This is similar to the German gymnasium schools, for example, which operate so effectively. I do not understand why, in this country, it is rightly regarded as acceptable to single out the highest youthful talent in, say, football, swimming or drama and give it special support, while it is regarded as divisive to provide the same special support to children with academic talent. These are individuals who may go on to take valuable leadership roles in society.

The new Labor Prime Minister in Australia summed up his philosophy as:

“No one held back. No one left behind.”


That would be a good subtitle for the Bill. Expanding access to grammar schools is an important aspect of ensuring that our brightest children are not held back. I hope that it might be possible for the Government to go further on that aspiration.

The second area that I wanted to touch on is the provisions for home education. An estimated 80,000 children are not in school and are being educated at home. For the record, I note that that number includes some of my own grandchildren. Although the law puts the responsibility on parents to ensure that their children get an adequate education, it is of course important to ensure that these children are actually getting that and that the freedoms of home education are not being abused. So I strongly support the introduction of a simple register that, for the first time, would enable us to know who these children are. But I am not sure that it is appropriate for the Bill to say that a child can be taken out of a school and placed on that register only if the school agrees. It may be that a conflict with the school is the primary reason for choosing home education.

I fear that the Bill then goes too far in enabling local authorities to prescribe and collect detailed and potentially intrusive information about the means and methods by which parents are providing this education. If a local authority judges that the curriculum or teaching methods do not conform with its view of how children should be educated, it would then have extensive powers to require the child to attend a regular school. That provision leaves many parents worried that their existing freedom to choose how they educate their children will in practice be denied.

I recognise this is a difficult balance, but I urge the Minister to listen to the arguments on this and consider whether it might be better to monitor the output from home education rather than giving LEAs powers to control the inputs—for example, having an advisory service with home visits that can make informed assessments about whether each home-educated child is making the progress expected. If there are not adequate resources to do this for every child, parents could perhaps be required to provide an annual report setting out what progress the child has made, which might highlight specific cases where inadequate or unconvincing reports raise concerns.

I suggest that the Government need to review these provisions in the Bill carefully to ensure they do not go too far in giving local authorities excessive power to impose conformity on the freedom that is there for those who want to challenge conformity.