Times Education Commission Report

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for promoting this debate and the Times group for promoting the commission. It has drawn on an impressive array of talent, experience and knowledge and, as has been mentioned, the tone of the report is one in which we can all seek value. The commission’s proposal for a national conversation and a long-term strategy for education is very welcome, so long as those who work in schools and colleges have a central role in the process.

This has not been a party-political debate, but it is worth pointing out that—the Minister may wish to respond to this—for anyone reading the report, it is clear that it is another indicator of the gap between what the Government are doing and what we all agree needs to be done. The Minister will perhaps tell us what positive steps will be taken to move towards the general agreement about what can be achieved. I have to admit that I am not absolutely sure what the gap is between the recommendations in the report and what the Labour Party will do when it comes to power, but that is perhaps a separate issue.

I wish to highlight a few issues from the report. I think we are all agreed, everyone is clear, that investing in early years is the most important thing we can do. The report recommends

“A significant boost to early years funding targeted at the most vulnerable and a unique pupil number from birth, to level the playing field before children get to school.”


Everyone is agreed; everyone knows that; we just have to start moving towards it.

An expanded Ofsted—a replacement, if we want to use that word—is also to be welcomed: a fundamental reassessment of its role, so that it is there not to promote league tables but to provide practical assistance for schools in delivering their service. There is general agreement, again, on rethinking our exams system. I sometimes feel we are a bit imprisoned by the use of the word “baccalaureate”, because it means different things to different people, but I think the report is clear about what it has in mind in this area. The emphasis in the report on promoting creativity is also very much to be welcomed, although I have to say I sometimes worry about the implied division between creative subjects and other subjects, because if all subjects are not being creative, then they are being done wrong. These are bold and large-scale measures that will be supported by all educators, and we welcome the recognition that they are part of the solution.

As has been mentioned, the report was unanimous among a disparate group. Well, one of the ways of achieving unanimity on this sort of commission is by leaving subjects out, and there are two issues that I think should have played a bigger role in the work of the commission. The first is the damage that is done to children’s education by rising levels of poverty. We are aware that the children of poor families do poorly at school. Part of that problem can be addressed by what is being done in the school, and that is addressed in the report, but of course there is a previous question about why they are poor in the first place. What needs to be done to reduce poverty in families?

The second issue that has not had enough attention in the report is the deeply flawed system of primary assessment. The commission rightly says that the current assessment system

“has become a dead hand on education that is sucking the energy out of schools, stifling teachers and condemning too many young people to the scrap heap.”

It analysed the problem; I do not think it has done quite enough to set out how it can be addressed. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister would say something in her reply.

The main issue I wish to raise is the issue of girls and maths, physics and engineering. Someone said:

“From my own knowledge of these things, physics is not something that girls tend to fancy. They don't want to do it ... There’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think that they would rather not do.”


So said Katharine Birbalsingh, chair of the Government’s Social Mobility Commission and a secondary school head teacher, to the Commons Science and Technology Committee. Comments like this are extremely disappointing. There are multiple reasons why girls do not choose to study physics at A level, or for a degree, and not wanting to do maths is not one of them. It is worth exploring in some detail why the progress that has been achieved in getting girls to do maths has not been reflected in getting girls to do physics. The evidence shows that the expectations placed on pupils by society play a large role in which students go on to take physics at higher levels. A popular example is the television show “The Big Bang Theory”, which had four male physics and engineering students leading. Only in subsequent episodes were young women introduced.

The ASPIRES project found that, from age 10 to 18, boys were significantly more likely than girls to say that their teacher expected them to do well in science, and to feel that their teacher was interested in whether they understood science. The research found that girls often did not feel “clever enough” to do physics, even though girls achieve similar grades to boys in mathematics and physics. The stereotype is that boys are naturally better at physics than girls, and this messaging is still being passed on, both intentionally and unintentionally, to our young people in school, in their home lives and through the media. This is not just me saying this; the Institute of Physics has done the research, and its Limit Less report found that girls are often told that physics is more suited to boys.

Young people are put off studying physics from age 16 by misconceptions about what physics is. Girls are told that physics is too difficult, not creative or boring, but the report also shows that young people are denied the opportunity to study physics because of the prejudice I have emphasised. Another report from the Institute of Physics shows that in single-sex schools, a greater proportion of girls took physics than in co-educational schools across both the state and private school system. In environments where gendered messaging is lessened, the participation rate of girls increases. So, we need to increase awareness among children at school of gendered stereotyping in subject choice and equip them with the tools to be resilient to this. We also need to provide training to support teachers’ awareness of the damage caused by gender stereotypes, and to provide them with resources and tools to combat them.

I am not totally pessimistic about the prospects for advance in this area. In my own profession, the actuarial profession, the position of women has been immensely improved over the last 20 years, with new actuaries coming through virtually in equal proportions, and many women now taking leading roles in the profession. So, we can achieve change in this sort of area.

The specific problem with girls not taking physics is the knock-on effect that they do not take engineering at university because, in practice, most universities require you to have a physics A-level before you can do engineering. So, if you have not done physics, you do not get in to do engineering. This is the central problem that needs to be addressed.

I have only one other issue to raise in passing: school meals are also not mentioned in the report. What is clear is that school meals are important to education. It is not just about poverty relief or helping poor families; it is about improving children’s education. We found that out 30 years ago, when my colleague, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and I fought to provide free meals in our schools. The advantages were clear and absolute, but because we were an education authority, we could do it only for educational reasons. We got a very powerful legal opinion from a future Lord Chancellor and a future Prime Minister, who provided us with clear and powerful advice to that effect. That advice still stands: providing free meals in schools to some extent—I would provide them for all—has a powerful educational effect. There is nothing in the report about that at all, which is a shame.