Education Performance

Debate between Mark Field and Stephen Metcalfe

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Rosindell, for calling me to speak in this vital debate. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship.

I want to focus on the improving performance of schools in our education system. I speak as a parent, an employer and a former governor of a large secondary school. As a parent, I know that it is vital to us all that our children make the most of the opportunities they have and meet their full potential. As an employer, I need—indeed, we collectively need—a good supply of well-educated, well-motivated and engaged employees at every level. They need not only the ability to learn, but the basic core skills to make their way in the world. As a former governor of a secondary school, I care deeply about the school system and the service that it provides to society. I want to ensure that we always recognise and applaud schools’ efforts.

The Government have made great headway in the short time they have been in post. I particularly welcome today’s statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education on Professor Wolf’s report. However, there are other good things to celebrate, including the £2.5 billion for the pupil premium, the emphasis on vigorous and rigorous academic attainment, the encouragement given to schools to go for academy status and the fact that we are attracting more good graduates into the teaching profession. We also recognise the value of high-quality vocational education.

I want to focus on three issues. The first is the role of the head teacher in improving education performance. It is universally recognised that good schools have good head teachers. An energetic, dynamic head teacher really sets a school’s ethos. Their energy can drive forward improvements, and they set the framework in which the school functions.

One key aspect of that framework is discipline across the whole school, which is as much about the staff as it is about the students. If a head sets out clear and high expectations of the staff, that can quickly filter down into the student body. The consistent application of school rules means that everyone knows precisely where they stand. If that ethos is instilled in staff and students from day one, it can avert the problems that students may otherwise have had later in their school careers.

Teachers, too, have to set down clear guidance for behaviour and stick to it. Whether that guidance relates to uniform policy, behavioural standards or classroom etiquette, it must be consistent. A flaky approach to discipline undermines students so that they do not know where they stand from one day to the next. If schools get their approach right, that can dramatically improve their performance. We must recognise and accept that the head teacher plays a vital role in that.

[Mr Mark Field]

I entirely agree. In our time as Members of Parliament, all of us will have visited schools, and the single most important difference between well-performing schools, which have positive results and a positive attitude among parents, and less well-performing schools is the leadership of the head teacher, as my hon. Friend rightly said. Does he not agree, however, that clamping down on paucity of aspiration, which was mentioned earlier, and having zero tolerance for it, is an important part of that leadership?

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Absolutely—I agree 100%. I picked on discipline as one aspect of the framework that a head teacher can put in place in a school, but aspiration, energy, drive and ensuring that all staff want to get the maximum out of every pupil they come into contact with are also vital. There are other things, but I wanted to focus particularly on discipline.

Unfortunately, a good teacher does not always make a good head teacher, because the two roles require very different skills. I therefore want to ask the Government to examine a system that would allow for greater movement across the senior management team. I am aware of senior managers—members of a school’s top team—who may have had excellent pastoral skills and data manipulation skills, but who have been promoted to the role of head only to find that they did not have the entire skill set to do the job.

Unfortunately, the school and the individual are then left with few options. There is always the nuclear option of going down the competency route, but that is a painful experience for the individual and the school, and it normally results in someone who was a highly skilled professional leaving the service, which means that we have lost a good teacher, their skills and their commitment. Just because someone cannot be a good leader and a head in a school, that does not make them a bad teacher. I would therefore very much like to find a flexible system that would allow someone to recognise that they are perhaps in the wrong role.