Adoption: Adoption Legislation Committee Reports
Lord Nash Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, I would first like to congratulate the noble and learned Baroness on securing this debate. I would also like to thank her and other noble Lords for giving me the opportunity to hear the many thoughtful contributions to it. Finally, I would like to thank the noble Baronesses and noble Lords who served on the Adoption Legislation Committee for the authoritative and considered report that we are debating today.
Every child has the right to belong to a family. When they cannot live with their birth parents, we must ensure they are provided with a safe and loving alternative family that can meet their needs. There is overwhelming evidence of harm being done to vulnerable children and inexcusable levels of drift and delay in care and adoption services. That is why, alongside our work to improve outcomes for children in care, the reform of the adoption system is a major priority. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his words about that matter. This reform really matters, for deep, personal reasons, to our education Ministers—to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education, who was himself adopted, and to my honourable friend Edward Timpson, whose parents fostered 87 children and who has two younger adopted siblings. I assure noble Lords that that experience drives Ministers to care equally about all children in care.
I appreciate that the committee is as disturbed as the Government are by the unacceptable delay in matching an adoption for those children for whom adoption is the right decision, as well as about the delays in processes and the shortage of adopters. We are already addressing many of those issues, but the report is extremely valuable and a considerable contribution to the debate on adoption reform, and we will continue to reflect on its recommendations in our work going forward. We will submit a full response to the report before the Children and Families Bill is considered in detail by a Committee of this House.
I should now like to respond to some of the points made by noble Lords. I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, thinks that the Bill is in relatively good shape and I look forward to its speedy transition through your Lordships’ House. I believe that our hearts are all in the same place on this matter although we may differ on some of the methodology used to achieve these goals.
We believe that the Children and Families Bill carefully strikes the necessary balance between putting in place a maximum 26-week time limit to tackle delay in all cases while also allowing sufficient judicial discretion to extend time where necessary to resolve the case justly, having explicit regard to the child’s welfare. The Bill also ensures that when making any timetabling decision, including whether to grant an extension, the court must have specific regard to the impact on the welfare of the child. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, a family group conference helps to ensure that all relevant measures are considered.
I am pleased to address the points concerning reform of adopter recruitment. We have identified several problems with adopter recruitment such as the small scale of many adoption agencies and the fact that local authorities look first to their own adopters and then to adopters recruited by organisations with which they have an arrangement. Only if these are unsuccessful, and after an unnecessary delay, might they consider adopters recruited by voluntary adoption agencies. Not only does this create delay for children, but it also artificially narrows the choice of adopters that social workers have when looking for the best match for a child. This is simply wrong. Decisions should legally and morally be on the basis of what is best for the child, not on the basis of organisational convenience. It is for this reason that, while we welcome all improvements in recruitment of adopters, we want to be certain that bureaucratic arrangements do not lock out choice for children. Because of the nature of this problem, while we would like to see the reforms we need being put in place by the sector itself, and we would like, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, to see local authorities working together. We have had to accept, based on historic experience, that it may be necessary for the Government to direct local authorities to achieve changes, as the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said. We would, though, use this power only if the Secretary of State felt it was absolutely necessary to direct that services be pushed outwards, not to achieve efficiencies or because of ideology but to improve the lives of children now and in the future. This is about opening up services, not centralising power.
Many noble Lords spoke about post-adoption support. I appreciate that the committee considers that the package of reform does not go far enough without a duty to provide support. We are listening carefully to all the arguments on this issue. We published on 3 May an “adoption passport” setting out all the rights of adoptive families. This will improve awareness among adopters and local authorities, particularly of the right to an assessment, remove any stigma from seeking help and improve access to support when parents move to another local authority area and over the lifetime of the child.
The noble Baroness, Lady King, referred to freelance workers. I am pleased to say that, through the Children and Families Bill, we are bringing greater equality for adopters in terms of rights to pay and leave. I will write to the noble Baroness on self-employed adopters.
Racial matching was raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee, Lady Walmsley and Lady Jones. Our view is that an overemphasis on this area has contributed to the delays, such that black children take on average a year longer to be adopted, and that that conceals a number who wait so long that they never get adopted. We believe that a nudge on this is not the way to change behaviour but that we should remove the wording altogether, as is proposed, so that we can change practice, which is what we are after. Of course, we will be looking for social workers to come to a balanced decision, weighing up all the relevant factors, one of which will, of course, be ethnicity. However, as I say, we are convinced that to change practice we should remove the wording as the fact is that for certain children there are just not enough adopters of the appropriate race. If, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, says, the use of the provision is not widespread, why does it take a year longer for a black baby to be adopted? As I understand it, we will not be putting the wording into the checklist. We do not believe that it is realistic that social workers will swing back to no emphasis on ethnicity. It is just not in their nature, particularly if they are better trained, as we intend them to be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, made points about changing the behaviour of parents in early intervention. The points were well made and we have a substantial programme under way across departments on the most challenged families with multiple problems, but I agree that there is more to do. We remain committed to early intervention, continue to be interested in local initiatives, and are pleased that the ADCS acknowledges that local areas are already working hard to address this issue. Ofsted inspections are looking at the effectiveness of early intervention and will share good practice when it is found.
There is no firm data yet on the number of adoption breakdowns, although some research has looked at subsets of adopted children. The Department for Education has commissioned research into the number and causes of adoption breakdowns, and it is expected to be completed early next year. We began collecting data on the number of adoption breakdowns from April 2013, and the data should be available from October next year.
On the points made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about children not being consulted, they are supposed to be, and we will look at sharpening up our guidance on this and what we can do to encourage child advocacy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, raised the question of the status of social workers. We are determined to do something about this. We continue to work to raise their quality and improve their recruitment and retention. We have asked Sir Martin Narey to undertake a review of initial social work training, and his findings will inform further work.
On the point about overseas children referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, we mentioned the matter in our response to the Select Committee’s post-legislative scrutiny. I have the wording here, which I will send to her and we can discuss it.
We are carrying out work on social impact bonds. I am very encouraged by the progress being made by the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies in the development of a social impact bond approach to finding and supporting families for children with complex needs. This kind of innovative approach has the potential to shift thinking about adoption support, whereby it can be seen as an investment rather than a cost. This could be of great benefit to the increasing number of children with complex needs who are waiting for families. Although not directly involved in the bond, my department is keeping in close contact with the CVAA as plans develop.
I understand why the descendants of adopted people may want to find out more about their relative’s history. We need to balance this, however, against the rights and wishes of adopted adults and, where the adopted adult has died, their birth family. It is open to anyone to apply to the Registrar-General for a copy of any person’s birth certificate, and this includes the birth certificate of an adopted person. However, there are cases in which the applicant does not have sufficient information to apply for a birth certificate. The issue was referred to the Law Commission in 2010, and although at present we have no plans to change the law, we intend to keep it under review.
On our adoption reforms, in March 2012 the Government published An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling Delay, setting out the steps to be taken to streamline the adoption system so that more permanent loving families for more children can be found quickly and effectively. Through the action plan and subsequent policy announcements, we outlined our proposals for tackling delay and improving the involvement of adopters in different parts of the system. Collectively, our reforms are intended to reduce the delays faced by children awaiting adoption and create a system better able to focus on the needs of those children with more active involvement and support from adopters.
The new adoption website and helpline that we have just launched, First4Adoption, is an example. Noble Lords will also be aware that we have recently laid regulations before the House that will bring into force on 1 July this year the new two-stage adopter approval process, the fast-track procedure for adopters and foster carers, and other changes that have been welcomed by the sector.
Noble Lords may also be aware that we have been fulfilling our commitment to publish more and better data on the adoption system through adoption scorecards, so that the progress of those organisations that are doing the most to help the children who need adoption can be recognised, and those that are not can be identified.
Finally, as I have, I hope, made clear, we welcome the committee’s thoughtful and informed contribution to developing adoption policy and legislation. Again, I thank the noble Lords who served on the committee and contributed their thoughts today for the breadth of the issues that have been raised, many of which the Government will consider in more depth over the coming weeks and months. I look forward to debating the Bill in your Lordships’ House, and that is likely to be in July.
I know that noble Lords share our commitment to improving the lives of children and I hope they will agree that we are addressing many of the issues raised in the committee’s reports. We will, none the less, continue to reflect on the committee’s extremely helpful recommendations as we continue to reform and improve adoption. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to today’s important debate.
Childcare Ratios
Lord Nash Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the Government announced in January, in the More Great Childcare document, the intention to give nurseries more flexibility over staff/child ratios where they employ suitably qualified staff. We have consulted on what those qualifications should be. The consultation closed at the end of March. We are now considering the responses and will make further announcements in due course.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response. The people of this country rightly want politicians to listen to their concerns. I realise that the Government are consulting, but given the scale of public opposition, especially from parents and all those involved in childcare, will the Government take this chance to rule out this dangerous policy, which simply will not work?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, there is a fear in the country now that the Government know the price of everything and the value of nothing, despite the response from professionals to government proposals. They ignored the view of the police about police officers being more important than the money spent on police and crime commissioners, as well as the views of other professionals, for example on the curriculum and history teaching, and even the health service, which the coalition government manifesto promised would not be reorganised top-down. When will this Government please start to listen to those who know more than they do as a result of their professional training?
Lord Nash
My Lords, we have the tightest ratios in Europe for under-threes. Other countries manage better childcare more efficiently. Our childcare is very expensive and we are motivated to deliver better-quality childcare and more choice for parents. These ratios will not be mandatory; they will be in childcare facilities only where suitably qualified staff are located and parents may choose whether to send their children to those facilities.
Baroness Deech
My Lords, are the Government aware that the working mothers of this country do not have time to organise and lobby and that groups such as Mumsnet are not necessarily representative? There are women who go to work and who are ambitious and high up the scale; there are women low down the working scale who cannot afford childcare. The Government have to listen to working women who need affordable childcare. I have been involved in setting up nurseries and, over 40 years, the ratios have changed this way and that way—more square footage this way, more square footage that way—but it does not make a scrap of difference if you have well intentioned staff, and you will of course have several staff in a nursery. The children are no worse off than would be five children at home with a mother on her own. The Government must listen to working mothers who need affordable childcare.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
My Lords, is it not right that, if we are consulting, we should go through the consultation process and not pronounce until that is finished? Surely it is right in those circumstances that members of this coalition Government keep their views to themselves until that consultation has been completed.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
In the traffic this morning coming into the House, I happened to have the radio on and heard the very eminent professor who conducted the study on childcare. She said that she was totally opposed to the changes and the ratios recommended by Government. Will the Minister listen to her?
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, what evidence is there that the cost of childcare will drop? What assumptions are the Government making about the cost of childcare?
Lord Nash
They will drop if nurseries are able to employ staff on ratios which enable them to operate more efficiently. There are providers in France who provide higher-quality childcare at more affordable rates because they are able to offer these flexible staffing ratios. More efficient providers may well be able to produce cheaper prices.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, I was a social worker of some years, having begun my career in children’s departments. At that time, more children were cared for by minders than are now—the ratios were different. Certainly, the ratios have swung back and forth. Will the Minister look carefully at the evidence which shows that children need a certain ratio of carers of good-quality training in order to gain the stimulation they need to go on into the education establishment where they will benefit from their learning? If the Minister is looking at other jurisdictions, I ask him to look particularly at the different training and pay of carers. Although our care is expensive, there are other reasons for that expense. I agree entirely with the view that if we have a different ratio all that will happen is that child carers will charge the same and have more children, and we will have poorer childcare with less finance.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, given that the cost of childcare has exceeded inflation substantially over the past 10 years since the current ratios were introduced, and given that the Government are considering tax refunds and support for parents, are they looking at any other mechanisms to make childcare more affordable?
Lord Cormack
Further to the observations of my noble friend Lord Hamilton, can the Minister assure the House that consultation means precisely that and that, if the weight of evidence indicates that the Government’s course should be changed, the Government’s course will be changed?
Education: Personal, Social and Health Education
Lord Nash Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in the debate, and particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for raising this important issue. I know of her long-standing personal commitment to ensure that children not only receive an excellent academic education, but learn the soft skills so that they can be “rounded and grounded”. I find myself in agreement with most of what has been said today. I agree with the noble Baroness that PSHE is not just a single subject, but a concept that should be part of the life blood of all schools, and that every school should have a clear PSHE ethos and programme. I want to assure noble Lords that I will use every opportunity to exhort all schools to do this and we will consider carefully what noble Lords have said today.
However, we believe that teachers need the flexibility to decide what to teach and how to teach it in ways that are appropriate. I will agree to meet the noble Baroness, interested Peers and other parties to discuss this important issue because there is no question that high quality PSHE education is vital to equip children and young people with the knowledge and skills they need. That is why we have outlined in the introduction to the new national curriculum our expectation that schools should teach PSHE by drawing on good practice. All young people should benefit from high quality PSHE education, including sex-and-relationship education. It is the Government’s aim to empower schools to deliver this as part of what my noble friend Lady Perry called a “broad and balanced” curriculum.
It is important to distinguish here between the national curriculum and the wider school curriculum. Over time, the national curriculum has extended to cover more subjects, prescribing more outcomes, and taking up more school time. The Government launched their review of the national curriculum to achieve two goals: first, to set out the core knowledge that pupils should have that is on a par with other high performing countries; and, secondly, to slim it down by reducing prescription, thus allowing teachers more flexibility and freedom to exercise their professional judgment. We know that international evidence shows that the best school systems in the world devolve more autonomy to the professionals working on the ground. Our overall reduction in prescription will give teachers greater flexibility in the way they teach, allowing them better to tailor their curriculum and to engage students in the classroom.
The sponsored academies programme, which has been built on the excellent work done by the previous Government, is about sponsors taking over the running of poorly performing schools that are often in deprived areas. Many of the areas will, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, touched on, have a high incidence of poor parenting, teenage pregnancy, absent fathers, drug and alcohol abuse and gang issues. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, it is a complex world. Running programmes that empower pupils to combat these issues is second nature to the sponsors and to many other schools in such areas. We want to build on this good practice to enable and exhort all schools to follow what good schools do in a way that is appropriate to them. We feel that the danger with a box-ticking approach is that schools will revert to the minimum provision, whereas our ambition, while recognising that we are a long way short of it at the moment, is that all schools should provide far more than that. For many children in situations where family life has collapsed and religion plays no part in their lives, their school represents the only solid brick they have.
I recently had occasion to investigate the gang activity in one particular area of London. What I discovered was, frankly, frightening and deeply disturbing. One of the important things that any school in an area such as this should do is provide strategies for preventing their students being recruited into gangs, which is happening at an increasingly young age. However, a school in a leafy suburb probably has other issues to worry about. It is horses for courses, and we want our schools to be free to adapt their provision accordingly. However, our approach is that we should not legislate for PSHE, particularly when the needs of individual pupils vary so widely. We trust teachers and head teachers to provide the PSHE that is relevant and necessary in their own school, but we plan to set high expectations.
However, many elements of PSHE have a statutory basis elsewhere in the national curriculum. For example, science covers the biological aspects of reproduction and the life cycle at key stages 2 and 3. Science also covers issues of health and drugs, ensuring pupils are taught about such topics as the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their body functions, and the effects of drugs on behaviour, health and life processes. In PE, pupils are taught to become,
“physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness”.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, spoke most convincingly of the necessity of good sex-and-relationship education, which is one of the most important aspects of PSHE and is compulsory in maintained secondary schools. All schools must have an up-to-date policy in this regard. One of the cornerstones of this education is parental involvement and consultation. The guidance covers a broad range of topics and stresses the need for pupils to be taught to develop a strong moral framework to guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour.
The very important issue of violence against women was highlighted internationally in February by the powerful One Billion Rising campaign. Young people need to be aware of these important issues and our guidance provides a strong framework for this to happen and how to avoid exploitation and abuse. This includes the teaching of consent. We have provided the PSHE Association with grant funding to promote the teaching of consent and help schools to develop their curricula. We have also commissioned the Bailey review.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for their comments on raising the quality of PSHE teaching in schools. I agree that this is important. In addition to a demanding curriculum, good-quality teaching is fundamental. There is overwhelming evidence that links teacher quality to pupils’ attainment. The Government’s reform of ITT demonstrates our commitment to recruiting the very best graduates into teaching and to giving teaching schools more of a role so that schools close to the needs of particular types of pupils can develop appropriate training.
The PSHE Association provides a wealth of resources for teachers and has launched its chartered teacher programme. This gives PSHE teachers the opportunity to evidence their professional practice. We have asked Ofsted to report on specific effective practice in PSHE teaching. It has agreed to do so and is considering the best way in which this might be accomplished and could include, for example, a national conference.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Eden about the danger of the internet. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has developed a specific educational resource that teachers can use to ensure that their pupils have the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe when using the internet.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds talked about emotional development. Emotional skills can be developed through all aspects of the curriculum. Key emotional and moral issues such as respect and tolerance should be part of all teaching, and practised and modelled by teachers themselves. At my school, all teachers and pupils have a clear vision of the characteristics that we want our pupils to develop, such as compassion and resilience.
As to the relationship between religious education and PSHE, schools are free to design their PSHE programmes to complement other aspects of the school curriculum and a school’s ethos as a whole. I agree that religious education and PSHE together can contribute to a strong-values ethos.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Massey, commented on health education. One of the key aims of any PSHE programme is to ensure that pupils receive the information they need to stay healthy and safe. I would expect a basic understanding of the rudiments of health to be a strong part of this. Again at my own school, we have a substantial information service on health issues and problems. This service is accessible by all pupils via the school intranet.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke about the importance of teaching first aid skills. PSHE provides opportunities for schools to teach first aid if they wish, and engage with such organisations as the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance. My honourable friend Elizabeth Truss met the British Heart Foundation and the Resuscitation Council on Monday this week. She listened with interest to their concerns and will consider them carefully as part of the national curriculum review.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester that decisions about SRE should be taken by parents. Governing bodies of all maintained schools are required to have an SRE policy. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about the importance of building pupils’ confidence and social skills.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for their comments on school governance, particularly in relation to education. We are simplifying the guidance on governance, particularly in relation to statutory provision of sex education. We believe that this will be much clearer. As regards the number of chartered teachers, this has been a rigorous programme but we anticipate the numbers to rise significantly next year.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that global understanding and multicultural literacy are important skills for pupils in today’s society—so important that I suggest that such provision should not be limited to PSHE lessons but be part of the whole school ethos, embedded throughout the curriculum in all teaching.
The Government believe that PSHE is a vital part of a broad and balanced curriculum and that excellent PSHE provision is part of the life-blood of all good schools. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this important debate.
National Curriculum
Lord Nash Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, thank you for the opportunity to debate the Government’s proposals for the reform of the national curriculum in England. As noble Lords know, on 7 February, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education announced a number of proposals to improve the content and design of the national curriculum. These proposals are the product of a painstaking and thorough review which the Department for Education has undertaken over the past two years—a review that was launched with the expressed aims of restoring rigour and high standards, ensuring that all children are taught essential knowledge, skills and understanding in the key subject disciplines, and granting teachers greater freedom to design lessons that meet the needs of all pupils.
The proposals on which we are now consulting are the culmination of extensive analysis of curricula used in the world’s most successful education jurisdictions, particularly in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science, and consideration of nearly 6,000 submissions to our call for evidence. We have also engaged with teachers and head teachers from across the country to learn more about the most effective practice in England, and have worked with subject experts and key organisations across all national curriculum subjects to inform our thinking.
The launch of the consultation on our proposals last month was preceded by a number of other publications of interest. In December 2011, the review’s expert panel, chaired by the respected curriculum and assessment expert Tim Oates, published its report. This set out a series of recommendations for the new national curriculum framework. It formed part of a wider suite of documents setting out the results of the call for evidence and research conducted by the review. This included a summary of evidence gathered about curricula for English, maths and science in high-performing jurisdictions and a research report on subject breadth in the curricula used in other education jurisdictions. The findings uncovered consistent themes that have challenged some of the tenets of our current system, showing, for example, that high-performing jurisdictions set higher expectations in terms of what they believe children can and should master at different ages.
In June 2012, we published draft programmes of study for primary English, maths and science for wider discussion. Since then, we have discussed the drafts with key subject organisations, teachers and subject experts, and have reviewed the content in the light of the feedback we received. These discussions have informed the draft national curriculum that was published last month.
The new curriculum upon which we are now consulting is both challenging and ambitious. It benchmarks our expectations in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science against those displayed by the highest performing education jurisdictions.
It is right to place this debate in an international context and to learn from those who are performing best. These jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong, Massachusetts and Singapore, which are shown by international surveys of pupils’ performance to consistently outperform England despite the best efforts of our many excellent teachers, deliberately set out to compare themselves against others, learning from other nations and asking constantly what is required to help all children do better.
Let me set out the scale of the challenge and how we are falling behind. Our performance in maths in the TIMSS study of pupil performance at the age of 10 has not improved since 2007, or at the age of 14. TIMSS science results show a drop in performance—at age 10, our mean score dropped markedly from 542 in 2007 to 529 in 2011, and at age 14 from 542 to 533. Our results in the PISA survey show that we are behind high-performing jurisdictions in reading, with an above average spread of attainment between pupils who do well and those who do not.
In the most recent PIRLS 2011 study, England ranked 11th out of 45 countries in the reading performance of pupils in the equivalent of year 5. Five countries performed significantly better than England: Hong Kong, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Finland and Northern Ireland. In the most recent PISA 2009 study, England ranked 25th out of 65 countries in the reading performance of pupils aged 15, falling from seventh in 2000; 28th out of 65 countries in the mathematics performance of pupils aged 15, falling from eighth in 2000; and 16th out of 65 countries in the science performance of pupils aged 15, falling from fourth in 2000.
Every performance measure reinforces the scale of the challenge that we face. In 2011, 18% of pupils in England left primary school without meeting the current expected standard in English, and 20% in mathematics. Employers and universities have also repeatedly highlighted school leavers’ lack of proficiency in these subjects. In mathematics specifically, England is among the countries with the lowest levels of participation for 16 to 18 year-olds, with fewer than 20% of young people studying mathematics to the age of 18. In most high-performing jurisdictions, the study of maths in this age group is almost universal. The Government have already set out their ambition for the vast majority of young people to study mathematics to the age of 18. It is therefore vital that we act now to create a new national curriculum that gives every child, regardless of their background, a broad and balanced education so that, by the time their compulsory education is complete, they are well equipped for further study, future employment and adult life.
Beyond ensuring that children are taught the essential knowledge in the key subject disciplines, we want to give teachers greater freedom to use their professionalism and expertise to help all children realise their potential. As part of this, it is important that schools and the wider public understand the difference between the statutory national curriculum and the whole school curriculum. All schools must provide a curriculum that is broadly based and balanced, of which the national curriculum is just one part. The school curriculum could be described as the way that schools bring the national curriculum to life and meet the needs of all their pupils. To do so, teachers must have freedom: freedom from top-down prescription and freedom to innovate. That is why there will be no statutory document to accompany this new curriculum telling teachers how to teach the subject content that it defines.
This is a huge cultural shift, but also a massive opportunity for teachers. In providing greater flexibility for professionals, we have considered changes to both curriculum breadth and depth. International evidence shows that high-performing jurisdictions tend to promote a wide range of subjects in compulsory education. We will therefore retain the current subject composition of the national curriculum, with the addition of foreign languages at key stage 2. Subject to the outcome of this consultation, we will change the name of the subject currently known as ICT to “computing” to better reflect its new content. We do not believe that further prescription of subjects to be taught at key stage 4 is necessary or appropriate; we are using other measures such as the English baccalaureate to encourage more schools to offer a broad academic education to all pupils—particularly the most disadvantaged—to the age of 16, in line with our international competitors.
I am sure that noble Lords will be interested in some of the detail of the new curriculum. As I have already mentioned, programmes of study in all subjects—except primary English, mathematics and science—have been significantly slimmed down, removing unnecessary prescription about how to teach and setting out the essential knowledge and skills which every child should master. In primary English, maths and science, we have taken a conscious decision to provide a higher degree of exemplification in order to ensure that we achieve the step change in standards that is essential.
In English, there is greater emphasis on reading for pleasure, and greater clarity on spelling, punctuation and grammar. In mathematics, the new curriculum will place a stronger emphasis on arithmetic and will include more demanding content on fractions, decimals and percentages. In the sciences, the programmes of study we have published include greater detail on key scientific concepts and processes. The mathematical aspects of science have been strengthened, and for the first time primary schools will be expected to teach their pupils about evolution and inheritance.
For the first time, and in line with practice in other countries and evidence about children’s cognitive development, there will be an expectation that foreign languages will be taught in primary schools. As well as enhancing the status of languages in the school curriculum, this will provide a better foundation for the teaching of languages in secondary schools, where there will be new content on translation, grammar and vocabulary at key stage 3.
In citizenship, our proposals make financial education statutory for the first time, and similarly propose that practical cooking is compulsory at key stage 3 in design and technology. In music we have balanced performance and appreciation, and in art and design there is a stronger emphasis on drawing skills and on the historical development of art. In history, rather than a disconnected set of themes and topics, we have set out a clear chronological narrative of British and world history. In geography there is a greater emphasis on locational knowledge so that pupils can use maps and locate key geographical features such as oceans, cities and continents.
In PE, there is greater emphasis on competitive sport to build character and self-esteem and to improve teamwork. As well as being valuable in and of itself, this will help ensure that we build on the wonderful legacy of the London Olympics. Finally, as I mentioned, we propose to replace the old ICT curriculum with a new computing curriculum with a focus on the principles of computer science and practical programming skills to ensure that England retains a competitive edge in the growing digital economy that will be key to our nation’s future economic prosperity.
The new curriculum will provide parents everywhere with a clear guide to what their children should know and be able to do in every subject as they make their way through school. It will also provide those schools that are choosing to take advantage of the freedoms and opportunities afforded by academy and free-school status with a reference point for designing their own school curriculum. The consultation exercise on our proposals will run until 16 April and we are keen to hear from everyone with an interest before the new national curriculum is finalised and published later this year. The timing of the debate is therefore pertinent, and I welcome further discussion of these proposals. I beg to move.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, for her detailed comments on design. I very much hope that she will feed them into the consultation. We recognise the concerns raised about design and technology study programmes. We are listening, and working with the subject community and the Design and Technology Association to improve the draft.
I thank my noble friend Lord Storey for his comments, in particular about the primary curriculum, an area in which he is extremely expert. It is a delight to hear someone who has spent so much time teaching children rather than thinking about theories of education talking about what it is appropriate to teach children. I am particularly grateful to him for laying off history today, and for supporting our move to give teachers more freedom.
The noble Lord asked about teaching sex education at key stage 3. Aspects of the biology of reproduction and the human life cycle are included in science in key stage 2. It is up to primary schools to decide whether to provide additional sex and relationship education, taking into account the views of parents. Many schools choose to provide sex and relationship education in year 6.
I am grateful for the comments on soft skills made by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. As he knows, I share his views about their vital importance. As noble Lords are aware, the outcome of the PSHE review was announced last week. PSHE remains an important and necessary part of all pupils’ education, but teachers need flexibility to deliver high-quality PSHE and are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils. This will not come from additional central prescription. Therefore, PSHE will remain a non-statutory subject, without new standardised frameworks or programmes of study. My honourable friend Elizabeth Truss wrote to Sir Michael Wilshaw last week, asking Ofsted to draw up a guide to effective PSHE practice.
Aspects of PSHE will continue to be taught throughout the statutory curriculum. In science, pupils will learn about the structure and function of the male and female reproductive systems, and the menstrual cycle. In both science and PE, children will learn about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, including the impact on the body of diet, exercise and drugs. In maths and citizenship, children will receive financial education, including learning about wages, taxes, credit and debt. In designing appropriate PSHE content for school curricula, teachers will be expected to build on content in the national curriculum on drugs, finance and health education, and on the statutory guidance on sex and relationship education.
All schools today have to focus more on PSHE. With the collapse in many areas of family life as a result of the high incidence of absent fathers, the absence of religion in many children’s lives and the prevalence of gang culture, the only constant in many children’s lives—the only brick—is their school. All children in the modern world face a variety of issues and schools have to do much more on what was called the pastoral front than they used to. This is meat and drink to good schools and we expect all schools to emulate what the good ones do. We trust teachers and head teachers to adapt what they do to their own particular circumstances. We are not arguing about the necessity for PSHE, and no one feels more strongly about the need for it than I do, having seen the effect at first hand of what really good pastoral, inclusion, behaviour and raising aspirations programmes, which of course include PSHE as a part, can have on disaffected children. However, we do not feel that it is appropriate to legislate for it. We should leave teachers free to teach what is appropriate to their circumstances. However, we have asked a specific question in the consultation about our proposed aims for the national curriculum and we will take all views into account before finalising them.
My noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood commented on animal welfare. It is not the role of the national curriculum to prescribe everything that might valuably be taught to children. We are slimming down the national curriculum to focus on essential knowledge in core subjects. The draft primary science curriculum requires pupils to be taught about the needs of animals, including food, water and so on, and the care of animals is something that we would expect all good schools to cover in their wider curriculum as part of the soft skills. However, we will look further into this matter.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, talked about languages. The evidence shows that we have a strong basis on which to build the new expectation that foreign languages will be taught in primary schools. A recent survey conducted by the CfBT Education Trust, the Association for Language Learning and the Independent Schools’ Modern Languages Association found that 97% of primary schools are already teaching a language, and that more than 80% are reasonably confident about meeting the statutory requirement for 2014. Evidence, including some from other countries, shows that children benefit from being taught languages at an early stage. They can inspire children with a love of language that will stay with them throughout their secondary education and beyond. For this reason, we are opening up the choice of languages beyond European modern languages by including Mandarin, Latin and Ancient Greek. It is right that we give our pupils this opportunity and provide a better foundation for the teaching of languages in secondary schools.
We will not be making languages compulsory at key stage 4 because we are conscious of the need to slim down the curriculum and allow schools the freedom to meet their pupils’ needs. However, to support the introduction of the new key stage 3 second language education, the Teaching Agency is facilitating an expert group chaired by a leading primary head teacher for languages and bilingual education. The group is meeting at the moment to develop the signposting of resources and the identification of high-quality teaching materials that are freely available and is looking at ways in which initial teacher training in schools can best prepare for the introduction in 2014. On schools becoming academies to avoid language teaching, we welcome schools becoming academies, but we are not encouraging them to do so for this reason. The national curriculum should be a benchmark for all schools. Academies would have to justify to their communities if they chose not to teach what all other maintained primary schools do at key stage 3.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley made a point about language experience courses in schools, which of course they are free to run. I am also grateful for her comments about cooking and IT. On IT careers advice, we expect all schools to engage with their local business communities for careers advice in IT and other industries.
I turn now to the subject of climate change. It is not true to say that climate change has been cut out of the curriculum. It is specifically mentioned in the science curriculum and both climate and weather feature throughout the geography curriculum. Nowhere is this clearer than in the science curriculum for 11 to 14 year- olds, which states that pupils should learn about,
“the production of carbon dioxide by human activity and the impact on climate”.
This is explicit coverage of the science of climate change. It is at least as extensive and certainly more precise than the current science national curriculum for this age group, which states only that:
“Human activity and natural processes can lead to changes in the environment”.
In addition, the Royal Geographical Society has said that the draft geography programme of study will provide,
“a sound underpinning of factual knowledge to prepare, at GCSE and A level, for pupils to study the topics that confront us all, globally, as citizens and which are inherently geographical, such as climate change, pollution, ‘food, water and energy’ security and globalisation”.
On academies not teaching the national curriculum, it is true that they have the freedom to vary any part of the national curriculum that they consider appropriate. However, even in a school system where more and more schools are moving towards greater autonomy, there is still a need for a national benchmark to provide parents with an understanding of what progress they should expect and to inform the content of core qualifications. Of course, academies and free schools must prepare their pupils for national exams and will be judged in part by destinations.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for his comments, particularly on the importance of the broad sweep of history and the opportunity now facing us with design and technology in schools.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for his Mr Micawber-like comments on the need not to crowd the national curriculum. On his point about Ofsted, I have already talked about the PSHE review. Ofsted inspects for a broad and balanced curriculum and for progression. Without good PSHE, progression can be difficult for some pupils. However, Ofsted is the sharpest tool in our box and I undertake to discuss this further with Sir Michael Wilshaw.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, commented on the lack of incentives for computer science graduates to enter the teaching profession. We are providing a £9,000 bursary for computer science graduates. The British Computer Society-Chartered Institute for IT is offering scholarships of £20,000 to exceptional candidates. The UTCs and studio schools programme is about encouraging more young people into the technical industries.
I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for her comments about the inadequacies of the current system. On maths and English post-16, students who have not achieved at least a GCSE grade C in English or maths at the age of 16 will be required to continue to study mathematics post-16 from September 2013. We also want to encourage schools and colleges to provide opportunities for students who have already achieved a GCSE grade A to C to continue with the study of mathematics at level 3 as part of their post-16 programme. We are developing new courses for this cohort, and work is under way with Ofqual, mathematics sector bodies and awarding organisations to determine the most appropriate format for these new core mathematics qualifications.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for his comments about primary schools. He is quite right that education often goes wrong in primary schools. That is why we are focusing on the most underperforming primary schools. On trips to cultural places, that is something we expect all schools to do.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, for his comments about teachers. He raises a very good point. All schools will have to focus on training their teachers for the delivery of the new curriculum. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her opening comments about how one can never get a draft of a curriculum that pleases everyone. On the authorship of parts of the history curriculum, as the noble Baroness knows, the history curriculum was drafted with the input of a great many experts in the field. We were very pleased to see 15 eminent historians, including David Starkey, Niall Ferguson and Antony Beevor, endorse our approach in a letter to the Times on 27 February.
On academy freedoms and the national curriculum, academies were allowed under the previous Government not to teach the national curriculum. If the Labour Party wants to change that, I would be interested to hear about it. On plans for an office for educational improvement, of course we agree with the principle of evidence-based policy. That is what we have been doing, and plenty of evidence is available. However, we are not convinced that the noble Baroness’s approach of setting up a new quango—no doubt at great cost—is necessary.
Turning to the content of the history programme, I reiterate the importance of giving our pupils a clear chronological narrative of British and world history rather than a disconnected set of themes and topics, often repeated, as is the case currently with for instance Nazism, over the course of their school careers. It is right, too, that the teaching of history should cover significant individuals who have helped shape the history of Britain and the world. Those names listed in the programme of study are just some of the individuals we expect schools might cover. It is not a definitive list, and teachers are free to teach about any other individuals or aspects of the history of other countries and cultures as they see fit to meet the needs of their pupils. It is clear that the history curriculum generates a wide range of views about what pupils should be taught, and it is right to have that debate. I also acknowledge that others might have made different choices, but that is why we are consulting on the programme at present and welcome responses from all parties.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made a comment about vocational education. One of the Secretary of State’s first acts was to commission the Wolf review, which we have implemented in full. We also commissioned Doug Richard to look at apprenticeships and are taking his proposals forward.
I must comment on the rather sensational latter which was recently written by 100 academics. They are of course right that we want our students to learn higher-order thinking skills, but those academics, I am sure, would acknowledge that to progress to that level, students need a basic grounding in lower-level skills and in knowledge. Sir Michael Wilshaw has—
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
I just wonder whether the Minister has noted that my noble friend Lord Quirk and I have both chaired meetings with more than 100 professors in them. They were called senates and they did not always fill us with confidence that the judgment coming out was the right one.
Lord Nash
I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for that comment and have to say that I rather sympathise with Sir Michael Wilshaw, who has encouraged people like that to get out there and see what is happening in many of our classrooms. Once you have done that, only then can you appreciate how vacuous the content is that is being taught in many of our schools and how we need to improve the national curriculum in order for pupils to progress to a higher cognitive level.
As I outlined in my opening speech, the draft national curriculum on which we are consulting is based on careful analysis of the world’s most successful school systems. That showed that our curricula, in particular for the core subjects, focuses insufficiently on key knowledge and is less demanding than in other jurisdictions. The new national curriculum will change this and will also give schools more freedom over the curriculum and teaching, not less. The new national curriculum acknowledges the vital role of knowledge in education and is based on up-to-date, cutting-edge research about how the brain learns. It lists the important knowledge pupils need to know within clear subject taxonomies. To quote the leading US cognitive scientist, Dan Willingham:
“Data from the last 30 years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most—critical thinking processes like reasoning and problem solving—are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is in long-term memory (not just in the environment)”.
Indeed, how interesting would debates in your Lordships’ House be if noble Lords did not have huge reservoirs of factual knowledge stored in their long-term memories which they use to display high-order skills such as argument, reasoning, analysis, comparison et cetera? The curriculum does contain lists of facts but these facts are not opposed to higher-order thinking and the skills of analysis and creativity; rather, these facts enable such skills and provide a framework of understanding.
In every field of human endeavour it is accepted that you must know the rules of that field before you can produce anything of worth within it. Great artists and writers know their rules before they break them. Great scientists and mathematicians know the work that has gone before them. This curriculum provides the foundational knowledge that will stand our future artists, writers, scientists and mathematicians in good stead, while also allowing all pupils to appreciate the great achievements of the past.
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this important debate. As I mentioned earlier, the consultation on the draft curriculum will close on 16 April and we welcome responses from anyone with an interest. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, we then plan to publish the final curriculum in Autumn 2013, to allow time for schools to prepare for the first teaching in September 2014.
Children: Care
Lord Nash Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they have consulted early years practitioners on their plans to increase the maximum ratio of carers to babies and toddlers under two years old to 4:1, and carers to two year-olds to 6:1, where high-quality carers are available.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Childcare, and officials at the Department for Education, have consulted a wide range of interested parties on our proposals through a series of meetings and workshops. Officials have also visited a number of early-years providers to discuss the proposals. The Government launched a public consultation on 29 January, seeking views on these proposals from parents, early-years practitioners and others.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, and for the Government’s consultation on this implementation. However, is the Minister aware of the widespread concern among parents, practitioners and experts, and among organisations such as the Pre-School Learning Alliance, that the Government are even considering reducing the ratio of carers to babies and carers to pre-schoolers? Will the Minister now consult with his colleagues and consider pausing, taking off the table the proposal to reduce ratios, and will he take the advice of those in the sector on how to improve quality and affordability of childcare?
Lord Nash
My Lords, our consultation on adult/child ratios will continue until 25 March. We should not pre-empt its outcome. The changes that we have proposed to the ratios are not obligatory. Providers will be under no obligation to change the way in which they operate. Our proposals are about giving freedom to high-quality providers to use their professional judgment to decide for themselves how to deploy their staff to best meet the needs of the children for whom they care.
Baroness Benjamin
My Lords, from September, 20% of two year-olds—those from the poorest backgrounds—will become eligible for free early-years education for the first time, which will be so important for their brain development. How will the Government make sure that there are enough new, high-quality nursery places to take those extra children, and enough early-years workers, who will be responsible for their emotional, social and language development as well as their safety?
Lord Nash
We are doing a great deal of work with local authorities and other providers to ensure that these spaces are available. The department is allocating funding to local authorities at an average hourly rate of £5.09 for statutory two year-old places. This is a competitive rate that will encourage providers to deliver the places. We know that private and voluntary-sector providers and childminders are already delivering more places for two year-olds, paid for by local authorities. The proposals set out in More Great Childcare will encourage investment in better-qualified staff and in their training, so that more two year-olds can be cared for by professionals who are well equipped to help them develop, learn and prepare for school.
Lord May of Oxford
My Lords, will the Minister reassure me that he will correct the inadvertent carelessness here? Taken literally, the Question states that the Government want four carers for each toddler under two and six carers for each toddler over two.
Baroness Afshar
My Lords, will this cause the usual problem of exacerbating the difficulties of those who cannot afford better rates by providing minimal care for second-class citizens whose children will be cared for at this level, while intense, high-quality care will be reserved for those who can pay better rates and employ more people?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness raises a good point. This is something that we will consider carefully in the consultation. It is not our intention, which is to provide higher-quality care by more highly qualified staff. All the evidence is that children from deprived backgrounds in particular, who have a deficit of structure and language in their home lives, need higher-quality staff to care for them.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, the Government’s proposals will allow childminders, for example, to look after six babies at any one time: two aged six months and another four aged 12 months. Does the Minister think that it is possible for one childminder singlehandedly to provide safe, good-quality care for such a group of babies? If so, what evidence have the Government examined to support this, and to form their view that this will not be detrimental to the development of those children?
Baroness Deech
Does the Minister agree that it is quite unrealistic to expect women to take half the seats in boardrooms and half the top jobs if there is no affordable childcare? Does he agree that, while one may quibble about changes in ratios, there is also too much pressure on women these days to stay at home and be perfect mothers? What steps will the Government take to make sure that, as in other European countries, there is ample affordable childcare to allow women who want to go to work to fulfil their potential?
Lord Nash
We are taking steps with our two year-old offer. I agree with the noble Baroness, and Polly Toynbee herself points out that British mothers have one of the lowest employment rates in the OECD because we have the third most expensive childcare, often of mediocre quality. We believe that our proposals will go some way to solving this problem.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, does the Minister remember, or has he read, the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, on children with special needs, many of whom are concentrated in less advantaged backgrounds? Would he agree with me that those people providing childcare, whether they are carers at home or in provided accommodation, ought to be able to devote time to individual children? I am sure that the noble Lord would not be quite so sanguine had he done the job of bringing up very small children, not even family members, in difficult circumstances.
Lord Nash
I have not read the report to which the noble Baroness refers, but I shall now do so, and I thank her for pointing it out to me. I go back to the point about quality. The EYFS is an inclusive framework for all children, which specifically requires that providers implement policies and procedures that promote equality of opportunity for all children, including those with SEN disabilities. Since 2012, the EYFS has included a new progress check for all two year-olds to identify early their specific needs.
Schools: Careers Guidance
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will provide face-to-face careers guidance for all young people in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, statutory guidance has been published to underpin the duty on schools to secure independent and impartial careers guidance introduced in September 2012. The statutory guidance places a clear expectation on schools to secure access to independent face-to-face careers guidance where it is the most suitable support for young people to make successful transitions, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or those who have special educational needs, learning difficulties or disabilities.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply. Has he been made aware of the serious concerns that we raised during the passage of the Education Act 2011 that the changes to careers provision would lead to a worse service for young people? Is he now aware of the growing evidence that our concerns unfortunately have proved to be justified? That view is echoed by the Commons Education Committee, which reported in January. It said:
“The Government’s decision to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to schools is regrettable. International evidence suggests such a model does not deliver the best provision for young people. The weaknesses of the school-based model have been compounded by the failure to transfer to schools any budget with which to provide the service”.
What do the Government intend to do to address these failings, in particular the overreliance on referring pupils to careers websites, when it has never been more important for children to have guaranteed, personalised, face-to-face careers advice?
Lord Nash
I am aware of the concerns to which the noble Baroness refers. However, hardly anyone—from Alan Milburn to Ofsted—had a good word to say about the quality or effectiveness of the careers guidance provided by Connexions. That is why we gave responsibility for securing careers guidance to schools. They know their pupils best and can tailor provision to their individual needs. The £200 million we have saved on Connexions careers guidance has gone to help protect the schools budget, which itself is a pretty remarkable performance bearing in mind the state of the public finances we inherited. We know of schools which have seized the opportunity.
There is no gold standard for careers advice. It is a difficult area. The duty has been in place for less than two terms. To check on progress, we have asked Ofsted to undertake a thematic review, which will be published in the summer. Information on websites can be very helpful, and the Government are considering the Select Committee’s recommendation and will respond shortly.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I thank the Government for extending the duty for careers advice from years 8 to 13 from September of this year. However, in response to a Written Question on 27 February in which I asked about the status of independent careers advice in academies, the Minister reassured me that academies opened after September 2012 would be covered by the guidance, but those which opened prior to that are not. Does the Minister agree that it cannot be right that some pupils in schools have access to that advice and others do not?
Lord Nash
It is true that academies opened since September of last year will have an obligation in the same terms but academies opened prior to that do not. We have written to all those academies making them aware of this advice and asking them to change their funding agreements accordingly. Good schools seek to identify their students’ aptitudes at an early age and to give them guidance throughout their school career. We take the view that one minimum face-to-face interview at the end of one’s school career is a poor substitute for a broad education.
Lord Peston
My Lords, bearing in mind the enormous scale of youth unemployment and the fact that a large number of young people who happen to be in jobs are in jobs well below their qualification and skill levels, can the noble Lord imagine himself being transformed from the government Front Bench to being a schools career adviser? What advice would he give to the young people leaving school later this year?
Lord Nash
It will take me a second just to make that transition. We are focused on making sure that more of our pupils leave school with a good education. It is fair to say that the figures on NEETs have gone down in the past quarter for the first time in 10 years. But the advice I would give such a person is to seek some good careers advice from a qualified person.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
Is the Minister aware that in a survey conducted by Edge a year or so ago, it was revealed that teachers knew less about apprenticeships than either parents or pupils? Many schools are not providing decent advice about the range of options open to young people. How can careers advice, which is supposed to be independent, be given by schools when the teachers know nothing at all about these options?
Lord Nash
We do not expect teachers to be widely experienced on individual careers. That is why the duty is for them to seek independent advice. All good schools should involve their local business and professional communities from an early stage in their children’s education to give them the broad experience of the careers options open to them.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal
My Lords, how will this be assessed? I speak only from my own experience, when my careers adviser told me that if I tried very hard I might aspire to become a supervisor in Sainsbury’s. Is similar advice still being given to aspiring young black girls in Walthamstow?
Lord Nash
Schools are held to account through Ofsted on how well students are prepared to progress to the next stage of education and employment. Linked to that, part of the leadership and management assessment would include the extent to which the school is offering a broad and balanced curriculum. Schools are also held to account by the destinations measured, but I think the noble and learned Baroness rather makes my point for me: it is not just about one interview with a careers adviser.
Schools: Academies
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, 2,673 academies are now open in England. Nearly 60% of state-funded secondary schools are now either open or in the process of becoming academies, and more than 1,000 primary schools are now open as academies. Three alternative provision academies are open, with 20 more planned, and 63 special academies are open, with 50 more planned. The department is working to ensure that as many good and outstanding state schools as possible have the opportunity to sponsor other schools.
Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, that is very exciting news. I understand that academies are producing increasingly high levels of attainment. Will the Minister say what plans the Government have to tackle underperformance in all our schools, including academies?
Lord Nash
My noble friend is absolutely right that these schools are increasing attainment. The Government are ruthlessly focused on tackling school underperformance, and it is one of my main responsibilities. The Government believe that every child, irrespective of background, deserves a high-quality education. We have built on the previous Government’s programme to establish a further 415 sponsored academies, including 200 of the worst-performing primary schools, and we are focusing on many more underperforming schools. Where we see underperformance and failure in any school, we will not hesitate to use all our powers.
Lord Bilston
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the coalition Government are currently planning to convert academies and to move them from the public sector to the private sector? If that is the case, will the Minister confirm—it is certainly our opinion—that that would be entirely the wrong policy?
Baroness Walmsley
Will the Minister say how many academy schools are fulfilling their duty to support other schools to improve? Is he satisfied with that number? I have an indication that not all academy schools are doing that.
Lord Nash
All good and outstanding schools that have chosen to convert to academies are expected to support other schools. More and more academies are taking this further and sponsoring other academies. Eighty-nine converter academies are now sponsoring other schools and providing support by sharing innovative ways of thinking and clear examples of what works, and we are working hard to encourage more to do so.
Lord Grocott
Will the Minister comment on reports that heads are being offered around £65,000 as an inducement to convert their schools into academies? If that is true, what is the estimated cost to public funds if the number of academies turns out to be as he anticipates: that is, the number of schools multiplied by £65,000? At a time when we are constantly being told that austerity is the order of the day, can he confirm that it is his opinion, as it is mine, that this is a complete waste of money?
Lord Nash
We are offering grants—all this is available on our website—to help sponsors to turn round failing and underperforming schools. In its November 2012 report, the National Audit Office rightly acknowledged the extraordinary success of the academy programme. We make no apology for spending money on a programme that is proven to drive up standards and make long-term improvements. We want as many schools as possible to take advantage of the significant benefits of academy status.
Lord Lexden
Can my noble friend tell the House how successful the Government have been in working with independent schools in expanding their marvellous academies programme?
Baroness Warnock
Can the Minister tell the House whether any research is going on to monitor the progress of children with special educational needs in academies and free schools?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge the problem, which was recently identified in the Academies Commission report, that many academies are in effect setting their own rules for admissions, which are incredibly complex for parents to navigate and are in effect excluding many children from disadvantaged backgrounds from the academies programme?
Lord Nash
I do not acknowledge that. All admission authorities, be they local councils or self-governing schools, including academies, must comply with the new, fair admissions code. Anyone who has concerns, including the noble Baroness, about how state-funded schools are admitting pupils can formally object to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. The law requires that academies and free schools make the majority of their places available to children from the area.
Young People: Personal Finances
Lord Nash Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that young people have a proper understanding of managing personal finances before leaving school.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, I agree entirely with the sentiment underlying the noble Lord’s Question. The ability to manage one’s finances is a very important skill that all young people should have. The Question is also brilliantly timed as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education is currently on his feet in another place, outlining the draft programmes of study for the national curriculum, among other things. The new national curriculum will place a renewed emphasis on mathematics, which itself will include a strong focus on arithmetic, money and percentages. In addition, citizenship will include a strong and specific emphasis on financial education.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister for his reply. Leaving school with the skills, knowledge and confidence to manage money is vital—we agree about that. If those skills are not learnt in school they will probably never be learnt. I found out that the average age when a child makes their first purchase online is 10. What cross-departmental work is going on to ensure that those essential skills are learnt, and would he agree to meet me and some campaigners on the issue to discuss this in more depth and explore what can be done further?
Lord Flight
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for raising this matter and for the Minister’s reply. This is territory on which I have sought to campaign. Within the two territories to which he referred—mathematics and citizenship—will the territory of understanding concepts be covered? One of the key problems is that unless people have actually had it explained to them, they do not know what a pension or a mortgage is. It is not just about mathematics.
Lord Nash
The noble Lord is absolutely right. The draft programme for study states that pupils will be equipped with the financial skills to enable them to manage their money on a day-to-day basis as well as to plan for future financial needs, and that they understand the concept of wages, taxes, credit, debt, financial risk and a range of more sophisticated financial products. I should hope that any proper education on that front would cover those points.
Lord Laming
Will the Minister assure the House that in his new ministerial responsibilities he will give particular attention to young people who have been in the care of the state? Does he agree that we expect the greatest coping skills from the young people who have had the fewest opportunities in life and do not have families to support them after they leave school?
Lord Tomlinson
Does the Minister agree with me that, on the basis of the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and with the emphasis that he has placed on the continuing development of these financial skills, one day a young person who might aspire to become Prime Minister might know the difference between debt and deficit?
Lord Addington
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that whenever it comes to an issue that needs to go into the national curriculum we always have our own hobby horse, and then another great cohort of us tells us that the curriculum is too crowded? Will my noble friend make sure, if we are going to take this on, that it is integrated into maths lessons?
Lord Davies of Oldham
The Liberals are part of the coalition. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Flight. This is not just a question of mathematics but of knowledge. It is quite clear that a very high percentage of adults who invest their hard-earned money in all sorts of organisations have no idea of the costs that have been taken from them by the people controlling the fund. The evidence is clear that a very large percentage of our population are quite ignorant of such costs. That is why we need financial education.
Lord Geddes
Does my noble friend agree that this is vitally important for those embarking for the first time on tertiary education—particularly the requirement to budget their expenses?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Citizenship Foundation. With his very welcome news when he first answered this Question, does it mean that citizenship is now going to remain part of the core curriculum?
Lord Elton
Following the question of the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, does my noble friend agree that if eventually all the electorate were to realise that you cannot throughout your life spend more than you get, they would be more accepting of Budgets that would reduce the deficit and get this country back to where it should be?
Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform
Lord Nash Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education in another place this morning.
“Mr Speaker, with your permission, I should like to make a Statement on the future of qualifications, school league tables and the national curriculum.
Last September we outlined plans for changes to GCSE qualifications designed to address the grade inflation, dumbing down and loss of rigour in those examinations. We have consulted on these proposals and there is now consensus that the system needs to change. But one of the proposals I put forward was a bridge too far. My idea that we end the competition between exam boards to offer GCSEs in core academic qualifications and have just one—wholly new—exam in each subject was just one reform too many at this time.
The exam regulator Ofqual, which has done such a great job in recent months upholding standards, was clear that there were significant risks in trying both to strengthen qualifications and end competition in a large part of the exams market. So I have decided not to make the best the enemy of the good and I will not proceed with plans to have a single exam board offering a new exam in each academic subject. Instead, we will concentrate on reforming existing GCSEs along the lines we put forward in September, because there is consensus that the exams and qualification system we inherited was broken.
Our first set of reforms was to vocational qualifications. They were allowed to become less rigorous options under the previous Government. Alison Wolf’s report outlined how to improve the quality of vocational courses and expand work experience. It secured near universal support. It will soon all be done. We are also reforming apprenticeships. Under the previous Government the currency of apprenticeships was devalued alongside every other qualification. The Richard report on apprenticeship reform will restore rigour, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has explained so powerfully.
We are reforming A-levels. Schools and universities were unhappy that constant assessment and modularisation got in the way of proper learning. So we are reforming those exams with the help of school and university leaders. GCSEs will now also be reformed in a similar fashion. The qualifications should be linear, with all assessments normally taken at the end of the course. Examinations will test extended writing in subjects such as English and history, have fewer bite-sized and overly structured questions, and in mathematics and science there should be a greater emphasis on quantitative problem-solving. Internal assessment and the use of exam aids will be kept to a minimum and used only where there is a compelling case to do so, to provide for effective and deep assessment of the specified curriculum content.
Importantly, the new GCSEs will be universal qualifications and I expect the same proportion of pupils to sit them as now. This is something we believe the vast majority of children with a good education should be able to achieve. But reformed GCSEs will no longer set an artificial cap on how much pupils can achieve by forcing students to choose between higher and foundation tiers. Reformed GCSEs should allow students to access any grade while enabling high-quality assessment at all levels. The appropriate approach to assessment will vary between subjects and a range of solutions may come forward; for example, extension papers offering access to higher grades alongside a common core. There should be no disincentive for schools to give an open choice of papers to their pupils.
I have asked Ofqual to ensure we have new GCSEs in the core academic subjects of English, maths, the sciences, history and geography ready for teaching in 2015. These proposals will, I believe, achieve a swift and significant rise in standards, right across the country—equipping far more young people with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve their full potential.
Reforming qualifications alone is not enough to ensure higher standards for every child. We also need to reform how schools are graded to encourage higher expectations for every student. Existing league tables have focused almost exclusively on how many children achieve a C pass in five GCSEs including English and maths. Yet this deceptively simple measure contains three perverse incentives: it encourages schools to choose exams based on how easy they are to pass, rather than how valuable they are to the student; it causes a narrow concentration on just five subjects, instead of a broad curriculum; and it focuses teachers’ time and energy too closely on just those pupils on the C/D borderline, at the expense of their higher or lower-achieving peers.
So today I am proposing a more balanced and meaningful accountability system, with two new measures: the percentage of pupils in each school reaching an attainment threshold in the vital core subjects of English and maths; and an average point score showing how much progress every student makes between key stage 2 and key stage 4. The average point score measure will reflect pupils’ achievement across a wide range of eight subjects. As well as English and maths, it will measure how well pupils perform in at least three subjects from the English baccalaureate—sciences, history, geography, languages and computer science—and in three additional subjects, whether those are arts subjects, academic subjects or high-quality vocational qualifications. This measure will incentivise schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum, with high-quality teaching and high achievement across the board. It will also affirm the importance of every child enjoying the opportunity to pursue the English baccalaureate subjects. By measuring average point scores rather than a single cut-off point, the new measure will also ensure that the achievement of all students is recognised equally, including both low attainers and high fliers.
Alongside today’s proposed changes to exams and league tables we are also publishing our proposals for the new national curriculum in England. Over the past two years we have examined and analysed the curricula used in the world’s most successful school systems, in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Massachusetts and Singapore. We have combined the best elements of their curricula with some of the most impressive practice from schools in this country, and the result is published today—a new draft national curriculum for the 21st century which embodies high expectations in every subject.
We are determined to give every child, regardless of background, a broad and balanced education, so that by the time their compulsory education is complete they will be well equipped for further study, future employment and adult life. All of the current national curriculum subjects will be retained at both primary and secondary levels, with the important addition of foreign languages, to be taught in key stage 2.
Our new draft programmes of study in core subjects are both challenging and ambitious, focusing tightly on the fundamental building blocks of study, so that every child has the knowledge and understanding to succeed. A key principle of our reforms is that the statutory national curriculum should form only part of the school curriculum, not its entirety. Each individual school should have the freedom to shape the whole curriculum to their particular pupils’ aspirations and priorities—a freedom already enjoyed by the growing numbers of academies and free schools as well as, of course, by schools in the independent sector.
Programmes of study in almost all subjects—other than primary English, mathematics and science—have been significantly slimmed down. We have specifically stripped out unnecessary prescription about how to teach and concentrated only on the essential knowledge and skills which every child should master.
In maths—learning from east Asia—there is a stronger emphasis on arithmetic and more demanding content in fractions, decimals and percentages, to build solid foundations for algebra. In the sciences there is rigorous detail on the key scientific processes from evolution to energy. In English there is more clarity on spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as a new emphasis on the great works of the literary canon, and in foreign languages there will be a new stress on learning proper grammatical structures and practising translation.
In geography there is an emphasis on locational knowledge—using maps and locating key geographical features, from capital cities to the world’s great rivers. In history there is a clear narrative of British progress, with a proper emphasis on heroes and heroines from our past. In art and design there is a stronger emphasis on painting and drawing skills, in music a balance between performance and appreciation. We have replaced the old ICT curriculum with a new computing curriculum, with help from Google, Facebook, and some of Britain’s most brilliant computer scientists, and we have included rigorous computer science GCSEs in the English baccalaureate.
With sharper accountability, a more ambitious curriculum, and world class qualifications, I believe we can create an education system which can compete with the best in the world; a system which gives every young person, regardless of background, the high-quality education, high aspirations and high achievement they need and deserve”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Lord Nash
I am surprised at the comments of the noble Baroness as it seems to me that by an excellent democratic process of consultation, we have arrived at a remarkable synthesis of views. Many people have advised that our exam system is in need of fundamental reform. The Select Committee, Ofqual and others advised that moving to a single exam board was a step too far, and we have listened to that advice. If criticising us for that is the Opposition’s best point, we must be doing most things right. No Secretary of State in living memory has done more for children’s education in this country than my right honourable friend. Contrary to what the noble Baroness said, I can assure her that he thinks most deeply about our education system.
We are making a great many changes, and quickly, because the state of the education system we inherited demands them. We need to make them in order to be internationally competitive. Over the nine years from 2000 to 2009 we fell from fourth to 16th in science; from eighth to 28th in maths; and from fifth to 25th in literacy. Even if we question the statistics, how many more NEETs do we need and how many more businessmen need to tell you that the people coming out of our schools are not fit for employment to realise that our education system needs fundamental reform?
On the question of embarrassing changes, perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us whether Stephen Twigg still supports a single exam board, as he stated last September. He seemed unable to answer that question in another place earlier today. Anybody who thinks that the current national curriculum is fit for purpose should get out there and sit through lessons, as I have done on many occasions, to see how content-light the current national curriculum is and how it is short-changing our pupils. That was brought home to me about four years ago when I watched a lesson by a so-called very good English teacher on “The Taming of the Shrew”. It was a 50-minute lesson and the sole material produced was a single sheet of A4 on which she had photographed the posters of the six films that had been made about “The Taming of the Shrew”. The subject matter of the lesson was how more or less the portrayal of the shrew in the photographs had been sexualised. Apparently that was relevant and something in which children could engage. That was when I realised what was going on in our schools.
We believe that pupils can achieve far more than we have hitherto asked of them and everything that I have seen in my experience confirms me in that view. EBacc is based on the best international systems that all have a core suite of academic subjects that sometimes is mandatory. We will substantially reduce controlled assessment, making exams linear, not modular. We will finally be ending the culture of dumbing down. We are putting in place an effective accountability regime which substantially reduces the chances of gaming and ensures all pupils receive equal attention, not just those on the C/D borderline. It encourages a broad and balanced curriculum in which all relevant GCSEs and approved vocational subjects will be treated equally.
Our exams will be modern; they will include computer science; they will be rigorous; they will require deep subject knowledge and understanding; they will test extended essay writing and problem solving and will give our pupils the skills they need for the future. We will also be stripping out unnecessary prescription as to how teachers teach, freeing them up to display their professional expertise and subject knowledge. One very important point, which has gone largely unnoticed so far, is that, as the chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, says in every speech he makes, we no longer care precisely how teachers teach provided our students are learning and making progress. There is a perception among all teachers that there is something called a standard Ofsted lesson. It does not exist but it is perceived to be no more than five minutes teaching from the front; a plenary at the end; group work; peer group discussion and so on. Teachers find this a straitjacket which they live in fear of. We are determined to end this but that message has not got through yet to all Ofsted inspectors; however, we are determined to get it through. When we end this, it will free teachers up to display their professional expertise and their subject knowledge, and make teaching much more enjoyable. We are determined to allow teachers to take back control of their classrooms.
We believe that this curriculum and the examination system we propose will help give our children and young people the education they deserve.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, just before we begin, I remind noble Lords to be as brief as possible to enable as many Members as possible to speak.
The Earl of Clancarty
My Lords, I thank the Government for listening to the many voices of concern, including those from the arts, about the operation of a two-tier system. We have had good news today; nevertheless, issues remain. Does the Minister accept that for the Government to be consistent in their response to these concerns, any performance measure should not continue to discriminate against subjects, including arts subjects? The Minister will be aware that this is currently having a significant effect in schools with the EBacc performance measure presently in place.
The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells
My Lords, I speak on behalf of the Church of England but on a personal note to begin with, I failed the 11-plus, went to a secondary modern and got five O-levels, not including English and maths. I ended up as a teacher. I have three sons who teach and they thoroughly enjoy the profession they are in. I welcome the announcement, on behalf of the Church of England, and await more details of what it will mean for our schools. Our concerns about the Government’s EBacc plans have always focused on the downgrading of religious education as a core subject. In modern society, understanding about faith has never been more important for both civic discourse and cultural enrichment and we eagerly await the findings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education to be published next month.
Church schools have always followed the national curriculum. There are dangers in anecdote because I spent a very fortunate three weeks in one of our local comprehensive schools observing the RE teaching, which was of a very high standard indeed. We hope that Mr Gove’s plans will put the good of all the pupils first and not just those who are academically gifted—as it is quite clear I am not.
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, I warmly welcome the Statement made by Michael Gove in the other House and repeated by my noble friend. When a politician changes his mind it should be an act of rejoicing. What Michael Gove has done in the House of Commons today can only be done by a big politician; little ones would not dare to do it. I very much welcome the fact that we are going back to eight GCSEs, with two more rigorous ones—that is Michael Gove’s initiative—in maths and English. There is a group that allows computer science, which I welcome, and another group that allows creative arts and performing arts and, as far as I am concerned, practical, technical and vocational education for university technical colleges. Therefore it is to be welcomed. We will wait to see where they will feature in the league tables.
Is the Minister aware that the broad and balanced curriculum we have heard about today is almost word for word what I announced in 1988 so there has been an erosion of time and good intention and he will have to screw his courage to the sticking place to ensure that this actually happens? Is he also aware that many schools, because of the more rigorous GCSEs, will find it much more demanding to meet these higher levels of requirement and I hope that will lead to them extending the school day so we do not see pupils leaving schools at 3 pm or 3.30 pm?
Baroness Taylor of Bolton
Will the Minister accept that while, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, there may be rejoicing about this U-turn, it is particularly humiliating for the Secretary of State because of the bravado with which he announced his original plans? Maybe the Secretary of State can learn something from that. Many of us still worry that he does not understand the basic problem of trying to be too prescriptive about the national curriculum or an examination system, or the difficulties of not having a proper, coherent examination system in this country. Whatever the questions are, the answer is surely not to have a 19th century model of education, as the Secretary of State suggests.
Does the Minister agree that we can make progress on the national curriculum and the most appropriate system of examination in this country only by building consensus, and building it before the Secretary of State makes decisions? Surely that should be one of the lessons that the Secretary of State learns from this whole experience: you need to consult with head teachers, teachers, employers and parents before you come to a decision, not after you have decided and are trying to ram that decision through.
Will the Minister ask the Leader of the House if we can have a lengthy debate in the House at an early opportunity both on what is appropriate for the national curriculum and how we achieve an examination system that is proper and cohesive and includes both examinations that are academic and ones for those with vocational aptitude? A debate in this House that allowed wide consultation would be useful and constructive for the future.
Lord Nash
As the Secretary of State has said on a number of occasions, the Opposition seem determined to leave the less privileged in this country with a less good education. He has consulted extremely widely. On the accusation that is constantly made of a 19th century education, he has consulted widely with cognitive scientists who will tell you that modern cognitive theory is that knowledge is necessary in order to gain skills. The thinking that you can get skills without knowledge is itself out of date.
Lord Storey
My Lords, I welcome my noble friend repeating the Statement. On these Benches, we want a system where a child can succeed whatever their background. We want fair and rigorous examinations and a broad and balanced curriculum. That is why we welcome the Statement here today. I just wish other Secretaries of State, Ministers and Governments, when they consulted, were prepared to listen to those consultations. In our political system, when Governments listen and modify or change their policies, why do we always refer to it as a U-turn and people going back on what they have said? It is refreshing that when you consult you mean what you say.
I have three questions for my noble friend. Can the Minister confirm that coursework will continue to be a feature of GCSEs where it is essential for the child’s learning? Now that the national curriculum has been slimmed down, does the Minister agree that it should be taught by all schools? The Minister will agree that it is essential that all children leave school with solid literacy and numeracy skills. How will the Minister hold schools to account for their performance in these two subjects?
Lord Nash
I thank my noble friend for his remarks. I can confirm that coursework will continue where it is appropriate in the relevant subjects. As the noble Lord knows, the national curriculum does not run in academies and free schools and that policy will not change. The new accountability measure has two parts to it. The one that focuses on English and maths should satisfy his requirements on literacy and numeracy.
Lord Nash
I am grateful for the mature opening views of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. As a non-politician myself, I share his views on politicians’ listening skills. As far as A-levels are concerned, we have consulted widely with universities and will continue to do so in their formation. On the accountability measures, again we will be consulting on these. I could attempt to answer his question now but I think it would be better if we discussed this separately, which we can do.
Lord Clinton-Davis
Going back to what the Minister said originally, did not the Secretary of State describe his original proposals as a major chunk of the Government’s agenda? When did that change? Does he agree with what was said then or now? Is it not true that teaching trade unions, Ofqual and the All-Party Group for Education all condemn these proposals as unworkable?
Lord Nash
As I said earlier, we have listened to the consultation and have adapted our proposals accordingly. We have many changes to make to the English education system to render it internationally competitive, and it seems odd to me that when we actually listen and make some changes to one of our proposals, we get criticised.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
My Lords, I would be grateful to my noble friend if he could elucidate on something that appals me, which is the return of coursework, unless it is divided where it would be appropriate; for example, in engineering and subjects of that sort rather than in the academic sphere.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I congratulate my right honourable friend on a very well judged Statement. Can my noble friend help me with a broad, value-added measure? Will the Government consider having a decent base measure for this as key stage 2 is inadequate and very coarse and will distort any measure of performance at key stage 4 if we do not improve on it? As far as the threshold measure in English and maths is concerned, can my noble friend confirm that this will be properly criterion-referenced so that if 95% of our young people achieve that level, they will be awarded it? Can Ofqual please be taught how to do this because it has made a complete Horlicks of it until now?
Lord Addington
My Lords, can my noble friend just elucidate one or two points he makes about standards? My interest in dyslexia will come as no surprise to the rest of the House; 10% of the population is in that spectrum. When he talks about improving standards of English will he undertake to ensure that teachers are better trained to deal with this very large minority group? Furthermore, will he undertake to ensure that the examination system treats this group fairly? Many dyslexics find the idea of one-off exams very intimidating and prefer coursework. You also have the problem of 25% extra time which has been abused. It is such a big group that there must be some consideration given to it.
My other point is: when it comes to heroes and heroines in history, who is judging? Is Henry V a hero because he won Agincourt or a villain because he killed lots of unarmed prisoners when he thought he might be attacked again?
Lord Nash
My Lords, we are investing in training for dyslexia. We have consulted widely on the matter of dyslexic and other pupils with SEN in relation to the examinations. I assure the noble Lord that we will take their needs into account. I shall not attempt to answer his third question, but we think it is important that pupils study not only the broad sweep of history but a variety of figures from the past, of both sexes and of all races.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I welcome the Statement. There is only one part I disagree with: although my noble friend’s regard for the current Secretary of State is admirable, the mantle of the greatest post-war Secretary of State for Education will be held for some time by my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking. I ask my noble friend to reflect on that.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly welcome the removal of the artificial division and glass ceiling on attainment between the higher and foundation tiers, but I have one area of concern: the proposal that instead of seven exam boards there should be only one. Everyone in education knows that the competition between exam boards has been a root cause of grade inflation. Is it true to say that that could not go ahead because of EU procurement laws? If so, will the Secretary of State take that up as part of our renegotiation of terms with our European partners?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I have to tell the House that I met the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for the first time earlier this week over lunch. When I have had several more lunches with him, I may change my view. But in answer to the specific question, it is not true that those changes are driven by EU procurement laws.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, given that it is the Government’s apparent aspiration for the vast majority of, if not all, schools to become academies, what is the rationale for excluding them from the operation of the national curriculum?
Lord Nash
The purpose of the academies programme is to bring innovation and change to the education system. One of the freedoms that academies have is not to abide by the national curriculum. Most do, but an increasing number, including my school, Pimlico Academy, at key stage 3 are moving from it. We are keen to encourage good schools to have the freedom to do that.
Education: Academies and Free Schools
Lord Nash Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this important debate. In particular, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Perry for raising this issue. Few know more about driving educational standards than my noble friend, a former teacher and Chief Inspector of Schools.
This is my maiden speech. I understand that it is customary for new Members of your Lordships’ House to make their maiden speech before conducting any business here. I have in fact already answered three Questions from the Dispatch Box. Indeed, at the beginning of the first Question, I was so nervous that I managed to thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for welcoming me to the House before he had actually had a chance to do so. I hope that I am not going to earn a reputation in this House for doing things in the wrong order. I would like to thank all noble Lords and the staff here for being so welcoming and kind over the past couple of weeks.
Until about eight years ago, my life was focused on business—specifically the venture capital industry—but then I started to get interested in the care of children and young people, and in education. My wife, Caroline, and I set up a charity to support young people. We support a number of after-school clubs, supplementary schools and organisations like that, but it seemed all to come back to schooling. We decided to look at the academy programme and I was introduced to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, a truly great man. He appointed us to sponsor Pimlico Academy and, at that point, our lives changed completely.
The school was, by any definition, failing. It had been in special measures, had very poor behaviour—there was one famous fight outside the school involving 400 pupils—poor results, very low morale among the staff and students, low aspirations, very little for the pupils to do after hours, a building that was falling down, leaked and was infested with mice, and eight days of strikes in the year before we took over, over things any two Members of this House would have sorted out over a cup of tea. Thanks to our excellent team, led by our inspirational principal Jerry Collins, the school has completely turned around, students are happy, well behaved, engaged in school life, their heads are up and their aspirations are high. Teaching is much improved, the results are much improved, and we have only permanently excluded two pupils since we started over four years ago.
Although the academy achieved an “outstanding” Ofsted rating two years after it opened, we still have a long way to go if the school is to become the truly great school that we intend it to be. To help achieve this, my wife, Caroline, has led a project to develop a new key stage 3 curriculum which is now being taught in Year 7 and a new primary curriculum to go into our primary schools. This is a more content-rich and coherent curriculum which we believe will give our students the knowledge, skills, understanding and cultural literacy they need to be successful.
Our fundamental belief, which I believe is also the fundamental belief of this Government, is that our children and young people are capable of far more than we have hitherto asked of them. If you had seen, as I have, 11 year-olds in a charter school in the Bronx in New York, on an estate every bit as challenging as any here in London, seriously engaged in a lesson on the great philosophers, you could not doubt that. Nothing I have been involved in, in my business life, comes close to the experience of sponsoring an academy and I will be eternally grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and to another wonderful man, the late Sir Simon Milton, for giving us the opportunity.
I was delighted when I was asked to be a non-executive director of the Department for Education. When we arrived as non-executives in 2010 there was no doubt that the senior civil servants thought we were people to be managed rather than engaged with, but over time we have worked increasingly well together and are now all working closely as a team. So when, rather surprisingly, my right honourable friend asked me to do this job, it was something that I just had to do because it seemed like a natural progression.
A society where 40% of our young people do not even get the basic qualifications, where we have 1 million NEETS, where it takes two years and seven months from entering care for a child to be adopted and a year longer for a black child, where many of our children who leave care rebound quickly into the criminal justice system, where children with SEN are sometimes misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all and where their parents have to fight every step of the way to get the provision they need, where children go missing from care and end up the victims of dreadful sexual exploitation and where gangs of our young people are committing vicious murders on each other in our streets as happened only a week ago to one of our former pupils in Pimlico, such a society struggles to call itself civilised. It is a great honour to be a Member of your Lordships’ House, which I know cares deeply about these issues.
Turning to the subject of the debate tonight, it has been delightful to hear such a consensus in favour of academies and free schools. All my best points have, of course, already been made. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her welcome and assure her that I intend to take a listening approach; I, too, look forward to debating with her on many future occasions. I would also like to thank the previous Government for taking the CTCs initiated by my noble friend Lord Baker and developing them under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, into the academy product, a product that this Government have unashamedly developed in terms of numbers and also across primary academies, free schools, UTCs, special academies and studio schools.
At the risk of repetition, I will give a few statistics. There are now 2,673 academies open in England, of which 618 are sponsored and 2,055 are converters. Over 50% of all secondary schools are academies and there are 505 sponsors. Some 25% of sponsored academies in chains have an “outstanding” Ofsted rating. Sponsored academies are improving their GCSE results five times faster than other schools. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells will be pleased to hear that 89 converter academies are now sponsoring other schools. There are 80 free schools open, with a total capacity of 34,000 pupils, and over 100 more are due to open later this year and beyond. Half of the free schools open are in the 30% most deprived communities and over half are in areas of severe basic need. Free schools are in great demand: 75 per cent of the schools which opened in September 2011 were oversubscribed for entry last year. However, I note the comments made by the right reverend Prelate about the need for more free schools in BAME communities.
My noble friend Lord Baker spoke somewhat passionately about UTCs. Five of these are now open and 26 more are planned. There are 17 studio schools open with 16 more planned, and 63 special academies open with 50 more planned. We have opened the first alternative-provision free school, and the first specialist maths school is due to open in 2014. I would like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, that we intend to continue with the pace of reform. The Government understand, as several noble Lords have acknowledged, that parents know what is best for their children. They must have choices and if there are not the schools that they want in the area they must be free to create more.
I am delighted to hear what my noble friend Lady Perry said about professional judgment always trumping bureaucratic prescription, and what my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said about the importance of freedom for teachers. This Government believe that teachers, head teachers and governors, not politicians and bureaucrats, should decide how schools are run and should have the freedom to make a difference to the lives of their pupils. The best ideas in schools come from schools themselves. I have noticed that the best schools often have the same characteristics: a broad and balanced curriculum, high aspiration, a longer school day, plenty of extracurricular and sporting activities, and good engagement with the local business community. We are keen for all schools to emulate what the best schools do. The evidence from abroad shows that strong autonomy for teachers, combined with accountability, delivers results. On accountability, I note the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, about the Ofsted inspection regime, and his other concerns, which, I can assure him, the Government take seriously. Regarding what my noble friend Lord Lucas said, I can assure him that we will take a tough approach to academy failure.
Academies are having a dramatic effect on results, particularly where new sponsors have taken on formerly underperforming schools. These sponsors challenge traditional thinking and have no truck with a culture of low expectations. There are plenty of examples of schools that have improved their performance over the past year alone by over 20%. However, there is still much more to do. We have already turned 200 of the worst-performing primary schools into academies supported by a strong sponsor. However, too many children are still suffering from a mediocre education. We therefore want to go further, as my noble friend Lady Perry said, and tackle more underperforming primary schools and pair them up with a high-quality sponsor. My noble friend Lord Moynihan made the vital point about the importance of governors. I can assure him that this is something that we will focus on intensely.
After attempting to answer three Questions not on my specialist subject, it has been a delight to respond to this debate on the contribution of academies and free schools in this country. It has been a most excellent debate and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.