Ofsted’s Work with Schools
Debate between Matt Rodda and Robin Walker(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Walker
My right hon. Friend knows more about this issue than almost anyone else in the House, and has made a huge contribution to the debate on skills. He is, of course, absolutely right about the importance of careers advice, and of signposting people towards vocational opportunities in schools. This was the subject of an inquiry and a report that he as Chair bequeathed to me when he moved on. It was about careers education, information, advice and guidance. In that report, we made recommendations that Ofsted should align its work on personal development and its work in this space with the Gatsby benchmarks. The work he did on putting those benchmarks more prominently in our education system, both as Chair of the Select Committee and subsequently as a Minister, was vital to the success of that process, so I congratulate him on that. We absolutely think that needs to be part of this role.
Our one wariness was that we did not want to recommend a huge slew of things that Ofsted should be adding to the inspection process or framework, because we did not want to increase the workload or pressure on teachers and leaders. All these things need to be looked at in proportion, but there is absolutely a place for ensuring that schools provide the right careers advice and range of opportunities to students.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I thank the Chair and the Committee for their excellent work on this very important matter. I also pay tribute to my constituent Ruth Perry, who was an outstanding headteacher. The events at Caversham Primary must never be allowed to happen again. I also commend the work by Julia Waters, Ruth’s sister, and local campaigners and heads in the Reading area, as well as others across the country, who have listened and called for Ofsted reform. I offer my wholehearted support for an end to the single-word judgment, and for wider Ofsted reform, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on our Front Bench. What steps does the Committee Chair believe the Government should take now, given their unfortunate announcement this morning? Does he believe that the response from the Department for Education and Ofsted so far has been remotely adequate, particularly the suggestion about using a former chief inspector to mark Ofsted’s homework, and continuing to ignore concerns raised by him and the coroner about this serious matter?
Mr Walker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has engaged on this issue, and for rightly championing the interests of his late constituent and her sister, who has engaged with this process in good faith throughout. She has had meetings with the Secretary of State and the new chief inspector of Ofsted, and I know that she is not satisfied that the Government have gone far enough. I urge the Government and Ofsted to ensure that the Big Listen is a genuine process that takes nothing off the table, and to respond in depth to the feedback on that.
It is absolutely legitimate for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents to raise concerns about the independence of the person appointed to look into this matter, but I point out that other organisations, including the National Education Union, not notably a friend of Ofsted, have praised the appointee for their independence. This matter will have to be considered carefully. It is vital that the process is seen to be conducted independently of both the current and former management of Ofsted, and that it offers genuine insights into what went wrong at Caversham and how that can be put right. It is important to acknowledge the changes in both the Ofsted and Government responses today—the steps already taken to provide better support to headteachers, and the change in the approach to schools that are rated inadequate on one factor, which will get the opportunity to be reinspected. It is also worth putting on the record that subsequent to inspection, Caversham Primary was rated good, which shows that that approach can and should work.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Matt Rodda and Robin Walker(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Walker
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has also pressed the case for Lydiate Primary School previously. The Department has engaged with the school and Sefton local authority, and we are aware that it was disappointed not to be included in the first two rounds of the rebuilding programme. All local authorities, including Sefton Council, were contacted about how they can nominate schools for the next round. We do expect to announce schools that were successful later this year, but some of them will be informed sooner.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs
Debate between Matt Rodda and Robin Walker(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is right. It may have been during his time in the Department that it ceased to focus purely on recruitment, and pivoted to focus on retention as well. That was an important intervention and an important change. While the levelling-up premium is indeed a valuable tool in targeting support at the areas where it is most needed, we also need to look at our approach to teachers’ workloads, given that the work done before the pandemic managed to reduce unnecessary workloads. We need to look at our wellbeing charter, and we need to look across the board at how we can support teachers. The investment in national professional qualifications, supporting teachers who are mid-career and on their way towards leadership, is a new initiative which the Government have pioneered to ensure that we are investing in members of the workforce not just at the start of their careers, but throughout them.
Matt Rodda
The Minister is being very generous with his time.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) made a good point about recruitment and retention. Can the Minister tell us a bit more about what he is doing specifically to support the retention of these vital public servants, and, in particular, what he is doing to deal with the loss of teachers in high-cost areas? In the area that I represent, in Berkshire, housing and rental prices are very high, but teachers do not receive any extra compensation for that, certainly in Reading, and many heads are concerned about the drift of teachers away from our area.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. Our reforms of the funding formula to ensure that schools are funded according to the cohorts that they serve and according to their activity are an important element in responding to it, although of course they will take time to come through. However, it is also important that we look at retention more broadly. As I have said, the Department has recognised that in its move towards a recruitment and retention strategy rather than just focusing on recruitment as it traditionally did. I hope that the funds that we are putting into schools this year—a £4 billion, or 7%, increase—will allow them to deliver good pay rises, and will help with teacher retention. Work with the School Teachers’ Review Body is ongoing on that front.
Extra time is part of our strategy, and we are increasing the number of hours in 16-to-19 education by 40 per student per year from September 2022. In our schools White Paper we set an expectation that all mainstream state-funded schools should deliver at least a 32.5-hour week, supporting our ambition for 90% of primary school children to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by 2030, and in secondary schools for the national GCSE average grade in both English language and maths to rise from 4.5 in 2019 to 5 in 2030. The parent pledge set out in the schools White Paper further supports these aims by making clear the Government’s vision that any child who falls behind in English or maths will receive the right evidence-based, targeted support to get them back on track.
I am sure the House will agree that the earliest years are the most crucial stage of child development. We know that attending early education supports children’s social and emotional development and lays the foundation for lifelong learning, as well as supporting their long-term prospects. That is why it is so important that we address the impact that covid-19 has had on the youngest children’s social and personal skills as well as on their literacy and numeracy. On top of spending £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements, we are investing up to £180 million of recovery support in the early years sector.
We will build a stronger, more expert workforce, enabling settings to deliver high-quality teaching and helping to address the impact of the pandemic. This includes up to £153 million in evidence-based professional development for early years practitioners—for example, supporting up to 5,000 staff and child minders to become special educational needs co-ordinators and training up to 10,000 more staff to support children in language and communication, maths, and personal, social and emotional development. That includes up to £17 million for the Nuffield early language intervention to improve the speech and language skills of children in reception classes.
Over 11,000 primary schools, representing two thirds of all primary schools, have signed up, reaching an estimated 90,000 children and up to £10 million is included for a second phase of the early years professional development programme in the current academic year, supporting early years staff in settings to work with disadvantaged children.
Mr Walker
I have a lot to say, so I am going to make a bit of progress now. I have taken an intervention from the hon. Lady already.
Regular attendance at school is also vital for children’s education, wellbeing and long-term development. Our priority is to maximise the number of children regularly attending school. We recognise that the lessons learned during the pandemic must help us to strengthen and improve the overall system, which is why we recently published guidance for schools, trusts and local authorities, setting out how we expect them to work together to improve attendance.
The Secretary of State has also established an alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care and allied services, who have taken pledges to raise school attendance. That includes work by Rob Tarn, the chief executive officer of the Northern Education Trust, a multi-academy trust serving areas with high levels of disadvantage, to work with other trust leaders to identify and disseminate best practice. Alongside that, we are running a series of effective practice attendance training webinars, which have been accessed by more than 12,000 school staff so far. Our team of expert attendance advisers also continues to work closely with a number of multi-academy trusts and local authorities with high levels of persistent absence to review their current practice and develop plans to improve.
I am pleased to confirm that legislative measures to establish a registration system for children not in school were included as part of the Schools Bill introduced by Parliament on 11 May 2022, which is currently in the other place. These measures will help local authorities to ensure that all children are safe and receive a suitable education. Through our attendance action alliance, the Children’s Commissioner has also begun a review to understand more about children missing education, and where and why they may be falling through the gaps. She has consulted the alliance on her initial findings, but her review is ongoing.
We know that the worries that children and young people may have about their progress at school and how this affects their future are important factors in their wider wellbeing, and subject learning is part of what children and young people enjoy most about school. That is why the additional support we have put in place to ensure that children feel supported in their education, and on track with their learning and wider development, is so vital and integral to their mental wellbeing.
I wish to be clear that children and young people are not alone on this journey and the onus is not on them to catch up; it is something that the whole school and the whole education system is looking to achieve together. It is our priority to support education settings to do so. The things we are doing to support schools are reflected more widely in our schools White Paper.
We have provided specific support for teaching about mental health and wellbeing as part of health education. Taking part in enrichment and extra-curricular activities is well known to support children’s wellbeing, but we know that participation fell during the pandemic. The longer, richer school week that we are securing through the White Paper will help to ensure that all pupils have the chance to have a wide range of experiences, including in sport, music and the arts, and we are supporting the expansion of opportunities to take part in specific schemes such as the cadets and the Duke of Edinburgh award.
We are also updating our behaviour in schools guidance to support schools to create calm, safe and supportive environments, which are important to pupil mental health and wellbeing. The guidance recognises that reasonable and appropriate adjustments may need to be made for pupils and that schools may wish to ensure that their staff are trained on matters that may affect pupils’ behaviour, including special education needs, disability or mental health needs. The guidance also makes it clear that following a behaviour incident staff should take into account any contributing factors and whether a pupil has mental health needs, and consider what support is required.
Matt Rodda
I am grateful to the Minister for his time. In a very difficult incident in my constituency, a young boy was brutally stabbed—the Minister may well have come across the case some time ago. I have received from a retired teacher who used to be a local education authority adviser a fascinating suggestion that I wish to put the Minister: is it possible to include in personal, social, health and economic education warnings about knife crime, and education about its dangers and the combination of the threat of knife crime with social media, which happened in the tragic case in my constituency? It seems to me to be a worthy and important idea to explore. It is complicated so I would not expect the Minister to give an answer right now, but is he willing to write to me on this important matter?
Mr Walker
I am happy to do that, and if it would be helpful, I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to follow up and talk through that case in a separate discussion, because it sounds like an important case.
To ensure that schools are able to put in place whole-school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, we are providing £10 million to extend senior mental health lead training to even more schools and colleges. That training will be available to two thirds of eligible settings by March 2023 and to all state schools and colleges by 2025.
The Government are expanding and transforming mental health services for all, with additional investment of £2.3 billion a year through the NHS long-term plan. As part of that work, we are funding mental health support teams to provide specific support, to make links to other health provision and to help to support school staff to deal with issues. Because of the £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support that was announced in 2021, some 2.4 million children and young people now have access to a mental health support team, and more teams are on the way, with numbers set to increase from 287 teams today to more than 500 by 2024.
I recognise that people throughout the country are worried about the impact of rising prices, with many households struggling to make their income stretch to cover the basics. Although we cannot insulate people from every part of cost rises, we are stepping up to provide support, as we did during the pandemic. This year alone, we are increasing core schools funding by £4 billion compared with 2021-22. That is a 7% per-pupil boost in cash terms that will help schools to meet the pressures that we know they face, especially in respect of energy costs and pay.
I recognise the strength of feeling when it comes to our childcare system. We want families to benefit from the childcare support they are entitled to, thereby saving them money and helping them to give their children the best start in life. I am proud to be part of a Government who have extended access to early education and childcare to millions of children and parents over the past decade.
In 2013, the Conservative-led coalition Government introduced 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds. So far, this has helped more than 1 million children to get a much-needed boost to their early education. To ensure that all children are ready for school, all three and four-year-old children continue to be eligible for 15 hours of free early education a week, and nine out of 10 took up the entitlement last year.
In 2017, the Conservative Government announced 30 hours of free childcare for working families, to save families up to £6,000 a year. Because of that, thousands of parents have been able to return to paid work or increase their hours, while saving thousands of pounds a year. We have also introduced tax-free childcare, which provides working parents with up to £2,000 of support to help with childcare costs for children under the age of 12. With universal credit, parents can claim back 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared with 70% under the old system.
We invest a significant amount of funding in early education and childcare, including more than £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements for two, three and four-year-olds. In 2022-23, we have increased the hourly funding rates for all local authorities—by 21p per hour for the two-year-old entitlement and, for the vast majority of areas, by 17p per hour for the three and four-year-old entitlement.