Education: Development of Excellence

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Perry has rightly received many plaudits and I want of course to be connected with them. In my four minutes, I will make brief reference to the independent sector of education, with which I was closely associated for over six years as general secretary of the Independent Schools Council. My view is somewhat different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall.

As is well known, much excellence resides in our country’s independent schools. Sadly, the excellent education which so many of our independent schools provide is beyond the reach of most families in our land. Social mobility is a notable casualty of this tragic state of affairs. There are those who say that the state should help to equip families on modest incomes with the means to pay for places at independent schools. Admission, it is argued, should be decided by ability, not income. At the Independent Schools Council, I was involved in promoting an ambitious scheme to achieve open access. The cause has recently been taken up again by a large group of far-sighted independent heads committed to greater social mobility and supported by the excellent Sutton Trust, rightly praised by my noble friend Lord Lucas.

A Minister of Education said that he saw,

“no reason to use public money to subsidise the transfer of boys from one system to the other on a basis of selection in which nobody knows what would be just or why”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/6/1961; col. 898.).

The Minister in question was the Conservative Sir David, later Viscount, Eccles, speaking in 1961. No one so far has succeeded in finding criteria for a wider access scheme to the excellence of independent schools that is capable of commanding widespread public and political support. The most successful attempt, the Conservatives’ assisted places scheme, was always strongly opposed in some quarters. At its height, some 40,000 pupils benefited. It is greatly to the credit of independent schools that roughly the same number of children have free or subsidised places today as a result of the fee assistance that they provide through means-tested bursaries totalling more than £284 million.

Useful progress can be made through small-scale state-supported schemes, such as the provision of places in boarding schools for certain children in care who would be suited to them. There is growing support, as your Lordships’ House noted recently, for arrangements backed by charities and the Government that would increase the availability of such places significantly. However, as things stand today, the reality is that if independent schools are to spread the excellence for which so many of them are so well known, they will need to put themselves into a closer relationship than ever before with maintained schools, as my noble friend Lord Lucas made clear with his customary passion.

The steady growth of the academies programme and the introduction of free schools under this Government provide hugely important new opportunities for independent schools. Progress in exploiting them has not been as rapid as some might have wished. Thirty-three independent schools are now sponsoring or co-sponsoring academies. According to the ISC, another 18 sponsorships are under negotiation and a further 85 are possible in the next few years. Many parents throughout our country will hope that the pace of change can be quickened. The results of change can be impressive. Within a year of Wellington College sponsoring Wellington Academy, the percentage of pupils gaining five A* to C grades at GCSE rose from 43% to 98%. As the Master of Wellington College, my friend Dr Anthony Seldon, said:

“Academies work, and the partnership with an independent school provides extensive opportunities for both schools to learn way beyond the academic”.

There has been much reference recently to the famous Tory phrase “One Nation”, first used not by Disraeli but by Stanley Baldwin, a great social reformer, in 1924. Everyone in our country recognises that we are still far from making a reality of Baldwin’s vision in our education system, but surely there is no other basis for the lasting success of all our schools.