Education Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am not going to talk about offender education, although I have to say to the Minister that I was extremely disappointed that at the heart of the recent paper on offender learning was the suggestion that the Government would change the arrangements for the delivery of learning by bringing together into clusters prisons that regularly transfer prisoners between them. That is a practical impossibility. The clustering of prisons was laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, when he was Home Secretary in 1991. It has never happened, and prisoners are sent round nationally. For example, a boy was sent from Feltham on the eve of taking A-levels 18 months after he had started work on them.

Instead, I want to concentrate on something that echoes very much what the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was saying. I have always believed that the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people. Woe betide it if it does not do everything it can to identify, nurture and develop the talents of its people—all its people—as individuals. Unless it does, it has only itself to blame if it fails. Individuals are individuals.

I am glad that the Bill starts at the beginning of the learning process with early-years provision. Clause 1(2) states:

“An English local authority must secure that early years provision of such description as may be prescribed is available free of charge … for each young child in their area who … is under compulsory school age, and … is of such description as may be prescribed”.

I am interested that paragraph 57 of the Explanatory Notes mentions a section being added to the Education Act 2002 to enable the Secretary of State to set by regulation the nature of early education. That contrasts starkly with the Minister’s statement at the start of the debate that the Government were intending to move away from prescription, and from top-down prescription in particular. Early-years provision is too important to be left unprescribed, not least because prescription is a vital ingredient in financial resource planning and allocation. I am very concerned that one should start on such an important journey without making absolutely certain that all the necessary resources are in place.

I am also very concerned, and have been for a long time, that at the heart of any provision should be assessment. I should like to concentrate for the remainder of my time on some elements of assessment. I have mentioned many times on the Floor of this House that at the heart of everything in the educational process is the initial assessment of whether or not a child can engage with the teacher, because if not there is no connection with the educational process. That is why we have recommended the appointment of speech and language therapists to carry out compulsory assessments of every child before they begin school—something that has already been picked up and is being run with in Northern Ireland for every child at the age of two.

I realise, because my noble friend Lady Howe, spoke at length about it, that there is a planned pathway for those with special educational needs, but it is not only those with special educational needs who need this assessment. Every child needs it to start along the way. Furthermore, the lack of communication is the scourge of the 21st century. In the past two years I have visited Walsall, where there is regular assessment of children during the secondary school phase, because it has been found there that some children who can cope with primary school cannot cope with secondary school. That suggests that following on from the initial assessment there needs to be regular assessment throughout the school career.

While I am on that subject, I should like to draw attention to two other subjects that are not mentioned in the Bill but deserve assessment. One is attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, which on balance, I am told, is detected only after the second exclusion for bad behaviour. This is an extraordinary phenomenon. I once discovered in a young offender institution a young boy who had been excluded from his playgroup at age four, and was thereafter never allowed to attend education. It strikes me that the sooner we get ADHD looked at, the better. Four per cent of boys and 1 per cent of girls in school suffer from ADHD, while 48 per cent of all those in young offender institutions suffer from it. Because it is treatable, it is avoidable.

The second subject to which I wish to draw attention for assessment is gifted children. I declare an interest as patron of an organisation called Tomorrow’s Achievers, which funds master classes for gifted deprived children. I am sorry that the Government have ended the gifted and talented budget and schools are cutting back on their enrichment programmes, because extra provision for gifted children seems to be needed more than ever. I do not want a catalogue of things that I am unhappy about because there is a great deal in this Bill that is positive and admirable and that I support strongly. However, again taking note of individuals as individuals, we must give them this early provision, and the assessment of what they need—and what they may be failing in—needs to be carried out throughout the learning journey, otherwise we will not be identifying, nurturing and developing their talent.