Kings Science Academy
Michael Gove Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Members of Parliament have tabled parliamentary questions seeking information relating to the financial management of Kings science academy in Bradford, including requests for details of discussions involving the Department for Education and those involved in the management of the school. The ongoing police investigation means that it would not be appropriate to release details at this time, and this statement seeks to clarify the Government’s responsibilities in this regard.
It is in the public interest to maintain confidence in law enforcement and the criminal justice system, and allow the relevant agencies to carry out their investigation. West Yorkshire police have told the Department for Education that, due to the ongoing investigation, the Government must not release information into the public domain which is relevant to the case. West Yorkshire police must be allowed to complete their investigation into matters at Kings science academy—and make their judgments about referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service—without information that might be relevant to their case being put into the public domain. The parameters of the investigation are, quite rightly, for West Yorkshire police to determine.
Therefore until such time as those investigations are concluded, and a determination regarding the case is reached, it would not be appropriate to release the information held by the Department. This would be consistent with the application of the exemption at section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Teaching Quality
Michael Gove Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt
The most recent evidence I have seen shows that more than 90% of teachers in the independent sector have qualified teacher status, so that is the vast majority. I suggest that the remaining number should be working towards qualified teacher status so that they can transfer their skills to the state sector.
Under a Labour Government, we would not have the scandal of an academy school in Leeds advertising for “an unqualified maths teacher” with just four GCSEs. We would not have the scandal of the Al-Madinah free school where the presence of so many unqualified teachers did such damage to those pupils’ learning. We would not have more than one in 10 teachers in free schools being unqualified.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I have taken the opportunity at the Dispatch Box before to draw to the attention of the hon. Gentleman the fact that the South Leeds academy was advertising for trainees under a provision that has existed since 1982. The letter that acquainted me with those facts was also shared with him. Why has he repeated something that is simply untrue in this House and on other public platforms?
Tristram Hunt
I read the advert and it said, “an unqualified maths teacher.” It was there in black and white. I had at this point—[Interruption.]
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“notes that the Coalition Government is committed to raising the quality and status of teaching; acknowledges the significant progress made since 2010 in achieving those aims; recognises that the part of the Coalition led by the Deputy Prime Minister believes that all state-funded schools should employ teachers with or working towards Qualified Teacher Status; also recognises that the part of the Coalition led by the Prime Minister believes that free schools and academies should retain the freedom to hire the best teachers regardless of whether they hold Qualified Teacher Status; and registers the fact that the number of teachers without Qualified Teacher Status has fallen under this Government.”
I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on his speech and on securing the debate. I agree with him that there is nothing more important than ensuring that we have top quality teachers in all our classrooms. While I have the time, I also congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who has responsibility for children and families, who was last night voted by Dod’s as Minister of the year for the fantastic work that he has done on adoption and child protection. Because that vote depended on support across the House, it is a recognition of the outstanding job that he does. [Interruption.] I will come to the shadow Schools Minister and the West Cardiff question in a moment.
In the meantime, may I also congratulate the country’s teachers. The shadow Secretary of State was typically generous in pointing out that we have the best generation of teachers and heads in our classrooms. Just last week, with the latest GCSE results, we saw that the number of students who were in underperforming schools had dropped in the last year by hundreds of thousands. Across the House there is an appreciation of the superb work done by teachers and head teachers in state education, ensuring that our state education system is better than ever before.
Because I too, like the shadow Secretary of State, am interested in the opinion of teachers, I sent the Opposition’s motion today to a friend of mine who is an English teacher to ask him for his view. He presented me with this analysis of it.
Michael Gove
I will name him in due course.
The motion states:
“That this House believes that no school system can surpass the quality of its teachers; and therefore resolves”.
My friend said:
“A clause following a semi-colon needs an expressly stated subject (as opposed to a merely ‘understood’ one, just as a complete sentence does. In other words, either the semi-colon must be replaced by a comma or the clause after it must be changed to something like ‘and that this house therefore resolves’ or ‘and that it therefore resolves’. As it stands, the construction is ungrammatical.”
He went on to the next phrase, which refers to
“all teachers in all state-funded schools”
and stated that
“one or other of the two ‘alls’ is redundant and should be deleted”.
He then looked at the phrase
“should be qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status”.
He acknowledged that it was
“better, because less awkward-looking”,
but suggested that “should” as well as “be” should be at the beginning of each of the clauses.
He then pointed out that the reference to “ongoing continuing professional development” was tautologous, because continuing professional development is, by definition, ongoing. He also noted that the claim that that was
“in order to support them to excel in the classroom”
was an example of “Shocking grammar.” One cannot support someone to do something—following the word “support” with an infinitive. Rather, one supports someone in his or her attempt to do something. He went on in a similar vein and concluded: “Regrettably, this motion is, in total, a shocking piece of English.”
The reason I mention that is that I have enormous respect and affection for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). He and I are fans of both George Eliot and George Orwell. George Orwell wrote that
“the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers”
because
“the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts… Political language”—
of the kind we see in the Opposition’s motion—
“is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Sadly, that is what the Opposition’s case today is—pure wind without solidity.
The Opposition appear to be arguing that there is some sort of crisis in teaching, specifically recruitment to teaching, but the number of graduates with top degrees is up. Almost three quarters of graduates starting teacher training in this academic year have a first-class or 2:1 degree. That is the highest quality of graduates starting teacher training since records began. It is also the case that the number entering the teaching profession from top universities is up. Some 14% of graduates leaving Oxford in the past three years have chosen teaching as their profession, making it the single most popular destination for students from that university.
The quality of teaching has never been better. Ofsted figures show that it has improved significantly since 2010. Under Labour, the percentage of teaching that was “good” or “outstanding” in primary schools was 69%, but recent figures show that it is now 79%. Under Labour, the percentage of teaching that was “good” or “outstanding” in secondary schools was 65%, but now it is 72%. That is significant improvement under this coalition Government.
Mr MacNeil
The right hon. Gentleman laboured heavily on grammar. I would like to know whether, in the recesses of his mind, he sees grammar as something that is fixed for ever. Does he see grammar as being prescriptive or descriptive?
Michael Gove
That is probably the best intervention we have had for some time on the question of education, because it actually relates to what is taught. I believe that we need proper grammatical rules in order to ensure that words are used with precision. Like all bodies of knowledge, however, it evolves over time. There is no tension between recognising that there are certain grammatical rules and that they change, in the same way as there is no tension between recognising that there are certain literary works that should always be in the canon and that over time they change. For example, Macpherson’s “Ossian” is out of the canon, but Burns will always be in.
Mr Marsden
The Secretary of State talked about sloppy language and various other things. Would he care to define for the House the meaning of the words he just used: “top teachers from our universities”?
Michael Gove
I said, “teachers from our top universities”. Of course, I refer to Oxford university as one of our top universities, but perhaps I should have included Cambridge and Imperial, or Aberdeen and Edinburgh for that matter—there are many. The point I am making is that the Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that we want teaching to be an elite profession and then, when we congratulate those people from elite institutions who go into teaching, decry us for somehow being snobbish. I have taken the hon. Gentleman’s point. In fact, I have expanded it into a logical argument, only subsequently to refute it.
Michael Gove
Yes.
I know what the shadow Secretary of State will say, because I have heard him say it before. He will say, “Okay, Secretary of State. The quality of teachers at the moment—it pains me to admit it—must be good, but I prophesy that the situation will deteriorate. It will deteriorate because of your open-door policy on teaching.” Like his fellow west midlander or black countryman Enoch Powell, Tristram sees the Government letting all the wrong people in. As a result of our dangerously liberal policies, he can see torrents of rubbish being taught in our classrooms. His is what one might call the “rivers of crud” prophecy.
What is the truth? The number of teachers without qualified teacher status is going down under this Government. In 2012, unqualified teachers made up only 3.3% of the teaching work force in all schools, down from 4.5% in 2005. The proportion of unqualified teachers has diminished in every year that we have been in power. That utterly refutes the scaremongering of the Enoch Powell-like figure on the Opposition Front Bench. We know that Labour will say, “Well, it’s going up in academies and free schools.” Labour uses a statistic, and I will leave it to the House to decide exactly how accurate and helpful it is: in its proper scaremongering way, it says that there has been a 141% increase in unqualified teachers in academies and free schools since the election. Like the Fat Boy in Dickens, he wants to make our flesh creep.
The truth is that the number of unqualified teachers in academies has risen only because the number of academies has increased so much. In fact, the proportion of unqualified teachers in academies has halved since 2010, from 9.6% to 4.8%, and the number of qualified teachers in academies has increased by 460%—North Korean levels of achievement under the coalition Government.
Andrew Percy
I am sorry to intervene on the Secretary of State halfway through his assessment of North Korean education. May I take him back to the issue of unqualified teachers under the previous Government? We have heard the repeated myth that they had to be on course to qualification. Will he confirm that under the previous Government schools could employ instructors permanently to teach subjects? As they did in my school, they taught classes and taught subjects on a permanent basis.
Michael Gove
Not for the first time and I am sure not for the last time, my hon. Friend hits the nail squarely on the head. It has now been the case for some time that schools can advertise for and employ instructors, trainees or others.
Michael Gove
We will come to that.
It is important to recognise that situation, because that is exactly what has happened in the school referred to several times in this Chamber and elsewhere by the shadow Secretary of State—the South Leeds academy. When he first raised the issue, I was genuinely concerned, because he said that unqualified teachers might have been hired with just a few GCSEs. If such people were teachers in the classroom, that would be a genuine cause for concern. He alleged that the academy could do that only because of our changes in policy. [Interruption.] No, absolutely not. The South Leeds academy does not have the power in its funding agreement to hire unqualified teachers, because its funding agreement was constructed, written and agreed before the change in policy. The South Leeds academy has advertised for trainees under a policy that has been in place since at least 1982.
I made that point in this House, and I invited the hon. Gentleman to acknowledge that he had made a mistake. I did so as graciously as I could. [Interruption.] No. I hoped that he would take the trouble to check his facts, but he did not. I have received a letter from the chief executive officer and director of Schools Partnership Trust Academies, which is responsible for the school. Of the specific case of South Leeds academy, he said: “The post advertised was for the appointment of trainees to support the teaching of mathematics. This was not made clear in the advert, which was placed in error. Once I became aware of the issue, the advert was withdrawn. A statement was placed on our website to clarify the matter.”
Moreover, I drew that matter to the attention of the shadow Secretary of State in the House. I told him that he was persisting in error, and I gave him an opportunity to retract. He chose not to do so. Will he now take the opportunity to apologise to the South Leeds academy and to the House for getting his facts wrong?
I note that he had the opportunity then to apologise.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. When a Member sits down, as the Secretary of State has just done, is that not the end of their speech?
Madam Deputy Speaker
No. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, the conventions of the House do not allow us to accept presents or to eat in the Chamber.
Michael Gove
My point was a serious one. I have given the shadow Secretary of State and everyone on the Opposition Front Bench the opportunity to correct the record. I hope that we will hear no more of the South Leeds academy and its policy of hiring unqualified teachers, taking advantage of a policy change that we made, because I have had the opportunity, thanks to your generosity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make it entirely clear that he was—inadvertently, I am sure—in error, notwithstanding the fact that I reminded him of the facts.
Kevin Brennan
On a serious point, I have attempted on several occasions to get an answer from the Secretary of State and his Ministers on what the qualifications of the teaching staff of the Al-Madinah free school were from September 2013. On each occasion, I have been told that it would be inappropriate to reveal to the public what the qualifications of the teachers were at that troubled school. If the Secretary of State is going to be transparent and open about teaching qualifications, will he promise to publish those qualifications immediately?
Michael Gove
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. Absolutely; we will ensure that all the information that can be put into the public domain is put into the public domain, unless we are prevented from doing so for legal reasons. I accept the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman’s point. In return, I hope that he will reflect on the points that I have made about South Leeds academy—that it cannot hire unqualified teachers under its funding agreement, that the advert was for the hiring of trainees and that it has advertised in that way since at least 1982—and in due course, whenever it is appropriate, apologise to the school and to the House. Hopefully we can then make progress.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has gone to the trouble of getting a letter from South Leeds academy to make his argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has said that he has been in contact with the Secretary of State’s office constantly to get similar information about Al-Madinah, but he has not bothered to investigate that school in the same way. Why is that?
Michael Gove
We have taken significant trouble to deal with the situation at Al-Madinah.
Michael Gove
I am seeking to answer the first of the questions that the hon. Gentleman put to me. The head teacher of South Leeds academy wrote to me, but he also sought to inform everyone through a press statement at the time. Because the shadow Secretary of State wanted to make a political point without taking the trouble to check the facts, he made an error. It is because of that that I have asked him to recant.
Chris Skidmore
While my right hon. Friend is speaking of accuracy, facts and the true version of events, does he recall that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) mentioned in his speech that the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was opposed to the use of unqualified teachers? In an article in The Daily Telegraph on 9 December 2013, when asked whether he supported the use of unqualified teachers, the head of Ofsted replied,
“Yes I do. I have done it.”
On the record, the head of Ofsted said that he is in favour of using unqualified teachers. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore retract the statement he made in his speech?
Michael Gove
That is a very well made point.—[Interruption.] I should say to the shadow schools Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), that the credibility with which he speaks on education is undermined by what is happening in his jurisdiction. One reason why Sir Michael Wilshaw and others recognise that it can often be a good idea to employ people who do not at that time have qualified teacher status, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) pointed out, is that there are many teachers in the independent sector who are doing an outstanding job and whom we would want to have in our schools.
One of the direct consequences of the policy that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central spelled out would be that any teacher in the private sector who did not have qualified teacher status would not be able to help the state sector. Where would that leave Liverpool college? Its head teacher does not have QTS, yet it is an outstanding independent school that has been taken into the state sector under our free school programme. Would the hon. Gentleman sack the head teacher and say that decades of outstanding academic achievement are worthless because he knows more about education than the head teacher of Liverpool college?
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that, would he say the same thing to the head teacher of Brighton college, Richard Cairns, who was voted the most outstanding head teacher in the independent sector and was responsible for setting up the London Academy of Excellence? That is another free school that was set up under our programme, and it has just taken children from working-class backgrounds in the east of London, represented by the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who is no longer in her place, and guaranteed their accession to our best universities. Richard Cairns does not have QTS, yet he has run an outstanding independent school and an outstanding state school. According to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, he does not know his own job. Who is better qualified to lead schools, the hon. Gentleman or Richard Cairns and the headmaster of Liverpool college? Should we erect barriers to prevent the excellence that is available in the independent sector from being made available in the state sector? I had thought that the role of progressives was to spread excellence rather than ration it, but it appears to me that the Labour party has abandoned progressivism.
Michael Gove
It might, or it might not, but the point is that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central said in his speech that teachers in the independent sector who did not have QTS would have to acquire it to work in the state sector. That means that state schools could not poach great teachers from independent schools, there could be no effective collaboration between them and we would not be able to lift standards in all state schools by using the expertise that others pay for.
Tristram Hunt
I was at the London Academy of Excellence on Friday with Richard Cairns and its excellent headmaster Rob Wilne, both of whom expressed great support for Labour’s policy of focusing on continuing professional development and raising the status and enhancing the standing of teachers. If I were the Secretary of State, before I talked about the London Academy of Excellence I might actually go and visit it.
Michael Gove
I note that the hon. Gentleman did not respond to my point about Richard Cairns not having QTS, and that he did not take the opportunity of returning to the Dispatch Box to apologise for stating things in the House that were not true. We will draw our own conclusions about his reliability as an expert witness.
Nadine Dorries
As someone who was educated in the state sector and had the privilege of being able to send some of my children to independent schools at some stages, it has always amazed and upset me that independent school children have had the advantage of a different standard of teaching. I have seen that many teachers in the independent sector have not been formally qualified, but they have brought huge inspiration, expertise and skills from their own field. The children have benefited hugely, as the results show.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under Labour policy, no state school could poach an outstanding teacher from an independent school. It would put restrictions on getting the best teachers from the independent sector into the state sector, which makes no sense at all.
I know that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central has a passion for independent schools, having attended one, but he says that he also has a passion for what he calls the “forgotten 50%”—those pursuing vocational education. One problem with his policy is that if we were to implement it, we would be going against the Wolf report on vocational education, which his two predecessors accepted. It stated:
“Many schools believe that it is impossible to bring professionals in to demonstrate/teach even part of a course without requiring the presence of…salaried teaching staff”
or qualified teaching status.
“This further reduces the incidence of high quality vocational teaching, delivered to the standards that industries actually require.”
What happened to the forgotten 50% when the hon. Gentleman was coming up with his policy? He forgot about them.
This morning, Professor Alison Wolf appeared in front of the Select Committee on Education and said:
“I would be desperately sorry if the result of this…move”—
by Labour—
“was to actually make it harder, indeed impossible, to get vocational experts into the classrooms to teach their own subject and show their own expertise, because they are the ones who motivate. The fantastic vocational teaching that you see is done by people who have actually worked in the area, can talk to kids and know what is going to happen and know where it is taking them.”
A direct result of the hon. Gentleman’s policy is to knock one of the principal props of Alison Wolf’s report, which is improving the quality of vocational and technical education for the so-called forgotten 50%—and yet he does not care.
The hon. Gentleman should listen to someone who has been Education Secretary and knows exactly the importance of bringing in the maximum amount of talent and what helping working-class children involves. When the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was on “This Week” in October 2013, he spoke to a musician, Nicola Benedetti, about the importance of securing music teachers who had real talent. He said:
“I think music is a specialist subject. My worry is that many children won’t have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument. If you find someone who is a great musician but they can’t spend three years getting the proper teaching qualifications, I think you should use them.”
I agree with him.
Mr Graham Stuart
When we questioned Alison Wolf about this issue this morning I asked her about a study, which I suggested to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) should be carried out before such a policy is implanted. She said:
“I think it’s important to do that and particularly in respect of vocational courses. I remember a case where in Texas they did something similar and the main people who got sacked were, I am afraid, what they call shop-teachers.”
Is there a danger that we will take out those who are re-engaging people in the classroom, re-engaging children and helping them with vocational courses, if the Labour party does not, at the very least, commit to a piece of research before going ahead with this policy?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is right on both counts. First, the Opposition’s policy would be destructive of high-quality technical education, and secondly, there is not a single shred of academic evidence that could be adduced by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central in support of his policy.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the importance of continuous professional development, but he did not refer to the network of teaching schools that we have established and the brilliant work they are doing. He referred to the Prince’s Teaching Institute, but did not quote what its leader, Bernice McCabe, said this week when she thanked the Government for restoring the status and prestige of teachers, which had been undermined by the previous Labour Government. He made a comparison with what the General Medical Council does with the revalidation of doctors, but what he did not do while talking about professionalism, is his homework. The whole point is that many doctors, like many lawyers, are either self-employed or in partnerships. Where they are directly employed in the public sector under management in hospitals, those who run the hospitals perform the process of revalidation, exactly like headmasters do in schools. That is not by using an external body, but by doing it internally.
I am all for making sure we have employers who are capable of ensuring high-quality continuous professional development, but the truth is that we do have them—they are called head teachers. The hon. Gentleman’s policy does not trust head teachers sufficiently. He want to undermine their autonomy over whom they can hire and whom they can fire, and he wants to undermine their autonomy to choose the type of continuous professional development and evaluation that they believe is right for their teachers.
I know that when I talk about autonomy the hon. Gentleman will say, “Aha. There he is again. Gove is talking about structures, not standards.” Indeed, in his speech he said that he believes in standards not structures. Let me quote from a book called “A Journey”, written by a mutual friend of ours:
“We had come to power in 1997 saying it was “standards not structures” that mattered…This was fine as a piece of rhetoric; and positively beneficial as a piece of politics. Unfortunately, as I began to realise when experience started to shape our thinking, it was bunkum as a piece of policy. The whole point is that structures beget standards.”
How a service is configured affects outcomes. Of all the people qualified to teach Labour politicians how to run and reform public services, there is no one better than the author of those words: Tony Blair. That is why we are implementing Blairite progressive policies, but unfortunately, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central is taking his cue lines from the National Union of Teachers and the educational establishment. That is why everyone who believes in driving quality up, reforming education, and a progressive future for children should reject this nonsensical, ungrammatical and regressive motion.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. One hundred and forty years ago, Benjamin Disraeli said:
“Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.”—[Official Report, 15 June 1874; Vol. 219, c. 1618.]
His words are as true today as they were at the time.
I am glad that the shadow Front-Bench team grasp the central importance of teacher quality to driving up standards in our schools. However, I doubt I am alone in feeling that today we are living through the parliamentary equivalent of groundhog day. Almost exactly three months ago, the Opposition secured a debate on this topic. The House will remember that during the course of that debate I challenged the shadow Secretary of State to supply the evidence showing that employing non-qualified teacher status teachers in our state schools was damaging children’s prospects, or to provide examples of head teachers who were taking on unqualified teachers just to save money or sticking them with low-achieving children. If that evidence was produced, we could then review the impact of non-QTS teachers on educational standards and consider, on that evidence, whether to outlaw them. There was no answer to my question.
Ahead of the speech made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), I was confident that he must have uncovered compelling new evidence on the importance of QTS—that he and his team must have been working through the night to provide devastating proof on why QTS is so vital, and why teachers without QTS should be forced out of a job. I challenged him on that again today and he had no answer.
When I asked the hon. Gentleman at least to consider conducting an inquiry to find evidence before making a decision, he suggested that I was partial because three months ago, and again today, I took issue with him on this matter. If I appeared aggressive in doing so, it was not because I sit on the Government Benches. I could list the issues on which I disagree with the Secretary of State and on which I am happy to challenge him in this House. However, when the Government are right and the Opposition are putting forward an irresponsible policy that is wrong, it is my duty to challenge it.
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for giving way. If there is an iron-clad link between possession of qualified teacher status and automatic success in pedagogy, why does the part of the country with the highest proportion of unqualified teachers, inner London, have the best state education, and why are two schools with 100% QTS teachers in Stoke-on-Trent in special measures?
Mr Stuart
I thank the Secretary of State. The point, if the shadow Secretary of State will listen, is that the evidence is anecdotal. To bring in such a change, if one believes in evidence-based policy making, the hon. Gentleman should do the work first, gather the evidence and make sure he is doing the right thing before outlawing these teachers.
Over the past 48 hours, I have asked any number of experts what studies have been conducted into the quality of QTS teachers as opposed to non-QTS teachers. I have spoken to the Education Committee Clerk to see whether the Committee is aware of any studies, to academic experts such as Alan Smithers at the university of Buckingham, an adviser to my Committee, to the Institute of Education and to Ofsted, but none could identify any empirical surveys in this area.
I turned, then, to the teaching profession itself and contacted the principals of several academies in Hull to hear about their experiences. I spoke to people such as Dr Cathy Taylor, the head of the Sirius academy, who told me that her school employed five teachers without QTS out of a total teaching strength of about 87. Those five include excellent teachers in art and maths, both of whom are completing their teaching qualifications, Members will be delighted to hear, but they also include specialists in ICT and salon services. The Sirius academy has a strong professional development programme, and Dr Taylor was clear that she would never employ more non-QTS staff than could be properly mentored within the school.
I also spoke to Andy Grace, the principal of the Boulevard academy. He does not employ non-QTS teachers on permanent contracts, but the academy employs peripatetic, non-QTS staff to provide expert tuition in fields such as sport, art and music, helping to stretch able students.
Mr McFadden
I agree. The previous Government had a black country challenge for precisely those reasons, and the Secretary of State did not continue with it, which is a great shame given the support that we need.
Apart from good leadership in schools, the second thing we need is that the local authority function to challenge standards and improve must be carried out with passion and a determined focus on school improvement.
Thirdly, we need curiosity and a willingness to learn from what has worked elsewhere. If that means changing the way we do things, then so be it. The only vested interest that matters in this is the vested interest of the pupils themselves. Nothing should get in the way of improving the opportunities for them.
The school environment has changed. The clock cannot be rewound. The future landscape will inevitably be a more varied one, and we must learn from the turnaround experience elsewhere.
My fourth point is directed at the Minister so that she addresses it in her wind-up. Areas that accept a verdict, such as that of Ofsted, as I have urged Wolverhampton to do, also need help in turning things around. There is not unlimited school improvement and turnaround capacity in every part of the country. As I said earlier, we should not shoot the messenger. However, it is not enough simply to pass damning verdicts and then walk away. If Wolverhampton responds by saying that it accepts the verdict in the Ofsted report, understands that there is a problem and wants to turn things around, the Department for Education and Ofsted have a duty to play their part in helping the city to do that.
I have already arranged to meet the regional head of Ofsted to discuss the matter in the next couple of weeks and I know that relations between the Department and Ofsted have been damaged by the events of the past week. I want the Minister to address this specific point: will she and the Secretary of State back Ofsted in a role that involves not just passing verdicts on schools but helping areas such as the one I represent to turn the situation around and improve opportunities for the future?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Gentleman is giving an outstanding speech and I agree with almost every word that he has said. He has given me the opportunity to place on record my admiration for the work that Sir Michael Wilshaw has led to ensure that HMIS—
Michael Gove
I will ignore that comment.
I am grateful to Sir Michael for the work that he has done in ensuring that HMIS can play a role in school improvement. Another thing we need to do is ensure that we have more national leaders of education deployed. If the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) would like to invite me to visit his constituency to ensure that that work can advance, I would be delighted to accept.
Mr McFadden
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his intervention, and as he has expressed his admiration I would encourage him to tell his Department and those who work for him of that too.
I believe that we should respond to the report and not with the usual series of excuses for educational failure, but by saying that the only interest that matters is that of the pupils themselves. They deserve the best, they deserve the highest ambitions and they must never be written off. I hope that Wolverhampton is up for the challenge, but the city will need help to turn around. I hope that the Secretary of State will follow through on what he has said and give us the help we will need.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The best teachers want to be better teachers. What is changing fastest is the young people themselves and the world that they are being prepared for, both as young people and in the future as citizens and workers. Today, very young children are adept at using a tablet computer, and anyone who goes into a primary school will see electronic devices being used to access information, to draft written text creatively or to make video clips or other inventive things. The world is changing rapidly and teachers need to change too. Pedagogy needs to move with the times. The best teachers have always wanted to be better teachers. That is why in my 30-plus years of what was the chalkface and is now the technology interface, I have always seen teachers talking to each other, keen to share and develop, and keen to learn in the interests of their learners.
Politicians, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) said in a quite brilliant speech, need to be careful in the way they talk about these matters. They need to talk about the real world, not the world of fantasy classrooms, and about what is actually going on out there. Politicians would do well to start by understanding and celebrating what is going on in teacher education and ongoing teacher development. It is worth understanding how important high quality initial teacher training is in getting recruitment right. We have debated this before, and the Government’s obsession with School Direct is imperilling effective teacher recruitment and induction. It may well be that one of the Government’s achievements is to preside over not only a school places crisis, but a teacher supply crisis as well, while continuing with expensive, unproven pet projects.
There is a huge amount of excellent practice in schools and colleges, which any consultation on ongoing teacher development should capture, recognise and build on. Every hon. Member who has spoken has paid tribute to the work of teachers throughout the land, and I add my tributes, but it is important to understand the role of induction and support in teachers’ early years. When I was a principal, I always said to staff that supporting a new teacher effectively was one of the most important jobs they did. Get it right and the benefits are huge. Get it wrong and the problems are massive. We need to recognise how appraisal works at the moment, how the process to support staff going through the threshold works and how the ongoing process of keeping evidence of personal development that is commonplace in our schools and colleges works. Anything new needs to build on this. The hon. Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright) was right: we need to build on what is there to avoid unnecessary bureaucratic problems.
People do not want unqualified doctors to operate on them, so it is hardly surprising that parents do not want unqualified teachers teaching their children. It is about professionalism. Some Government Members seek to suggest that by giving someone qualified status the problem has been solved, but that clearly is not the case. This is about recognising the role of professionalism and professionalising the future in a way that secures the future.
The things that are important in terms of ongoing teacher education are subject knowledge—I have never come across a teacher who does not want to improve their subject knowledge—pedagogy; which is challenging and moves rapidly, particularly at the moment; assessment; and leadership, because many teachers will have leadership roles. Unless school and college leaders are committed to teacher improvement, it will not happen.
Michael Gove
I always enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished figure in further education. Does he agree with me, with the shadow Secretary of State and with Amanda Phillips, the head teacher of a school in Tower Hamlets who recently wrote so passionately about the subject in The Sun, that we need performance-related pay for teachers in order to ensure that we have more effective continuous professional development?
Nic Dakin
My personal view is that performance-related pay rarely works in any sphere of life; all it tends to do is push up the cost of pay without tackling the real issues. I think that separating pay and performance is helpful, because we need to focus on getting performance right. If teachers are not up to scratch, we need to tackle that as a separate issue. I have dealt with that myself. Any good school or college leader will do that day in, day out—it is not easy, but it is done. The link between pay and performance, in my experience, is unhelpful more often than not.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby listed the pioneers. I could add to that list, but time is short. I merely draw attention to the strength of his argument, which needs to be listened to.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
This debate has the entirely laudable aim of raising the status of teachers. There has been a need to do that ever since George Bernard Shaw said “those who can’t, teach”, to which Woody Allen added that those who can’t teach, teach PE.
I have to begin with a confession. I began teaching without any teaching qualifications. Having left university with a philosophy degree, I took a job with Liverpool city council as an estate manager. At that stage, Liverpool city council thought that it needed to employ graduates, but it was apparent after a week that neither the council nor I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I saw an advertisement for Warwick Bolam secondary modern school in Bootle and within a week I was teaching 11 to 16-year-olds in what was a surprisingly good and well-run school. I had to learn quickly on the job because the tradition in Bootle was that the children felt obliged to play up and the teacher had to demonstrate that they could exert control. Failure to do so was a route to a nervous breakdown, resignation and a pretty unhappy life. The children actually preferred not to mess around, but the onus was on me to demonstrate that they could be prevented from doing so.
After two quite happy years in the classroom, I was sent a letter by the Department of Education and Science, as it then was, saying that I was a qualified teacher. By that time I had moved on to Salesian high school, also in Bootle, which had become a comprehensive school, where I taught English, history and social studies. The last of those was a new subject introduced for embittered 15-year-olds who had been badly affected by the raising of the school leaving age and were disgruntled to be there, but it worked.
It gets worse. I was then asked to take on A-level sociology, which I believe to be a much underrated and misunderstood discipline. Unbelievably, I helped to revise and set the extremely testing and highly theoretical A-level syllabus and exams for the Joint Matriculation Board. The students’ A-level results were pretty good—in line with, or better than, their grades in other subjects.
After a happy and successful decade, I moved to a top independent school as head of religious studies, also teaching some Latin, neither of which subjects I had taught before. Only towards the end of my career did I teach philosophy at A-level, which was what my degree was in. In the meantime, I had done a diploma, an MEd and even, for no apparent reason, a course in teaching maths, which I found interesting rather than of any real use in the classroom.
I therefore clearly cannot argue credibly that teacher training is either a sufficient or a necessary condition for being a good teacher. Indeed, I would probably argue that an effortless grasp of some subjects, such as that shown by brilliant mathematicians and the like, often equips people poorly to explain them to lesser mortals who are struggling to comprehend them. I believe that teacher training can help, inspire and provide a fund of ideas that the grind of day-to-day teaching might not. It cannot provide commitment and dedication, which are indispensible to successful teaching, but it can do much that is good.
I refer hon. Members to the recent, surprisingly enlightened, CBI report on our education system, “First steps: a new approach for our schools”. It argues that good schools are those that are well led and have clear and challenging targets, but that have considerable flexibility in how they organise themselves and their staff, and that even an enlightened Secretary of State should back off. It seems to me that today’s teachers would welcome that. They have a prodigious, often unnecessary administrative load, and they are already assessed rigorously in every school worth its salt. To add a national scheme of revalidation for every teacher, as proposed by Labour, seems to me overload on top of overload and would not be welcomed by the profession. It is likely to annoy good professionals, to no real effect. Continuing professional development—we are up for that. However, Government teacher MOTs would simply produce clones, not charisma, if successful and further de-professionalisation and more of a tick-box culture if unsuccessful.
Michael Gove
I intervene just to say that my hon. Friend is making an outstanding case and I would love to hear more.
John Pugh
Well, I am going to close, because other Members want to speak, but the CBI states that the approach that we are taking towards education is rather like the conveyor belt approach abandoned by industry in the 1980s, and we simply have to get away from it. I will finish by quoting the CBI—I do not suppose I will do that many times in my political career. It stated that head teachers and teachers
“are professionals—we should treat them as such”.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Teachers are very special people. They have the future of our children in their hands, and those children need the best teachers that we can train, motivate and value. Although valuing them has been a theme today, we in Britain do not generally value the professional people we hand our children over to, and we should be ashamed of that. As politicians, we often fail to give our communities a lead by telling them why teachers should be valued and how crucial they are to our future.
I am pleased that the Secretary of State—I am sure he will not intervene on me, and I would not accept the intervention—makes regular statements recognising that we have the best teachers ever. Most of them were trained, I would remind him, under the last Labour Government. His betrayal of them, however, is in assuming that almost anybody can march into a classroom and teach our children, which is wrong. I for one believe that teachers should be required to fulfil a proper training programme that leads to a professional qualification, before we stick them in front of a class on their own.
We must ensure that our education system is designed to deliver the skills and knowledge that the young people of today will need to succeed tomorrow, and a crucial requirement of that is ensuring that their teachers are fully equipped and professionally qualified. Education is a dynamic field, but it cannot be greater than the sum of its parts unless teaching as a profession is equally ambitious, and continually strives to improve and provide the skills that our young people need and our employers demand.
To deliver great teachers at all levels we must boost the status and enhance the standards of the teaching profession, attracting the very best—we have done a bit of that recently—the brightest, and the most able into the profession. The first step along that path is to ensure that our teachers are rigorously trained to the highest standards, and that the merits of the qualifications are properly recognised. Without such a step it is impossible to guarantee consistency or the quality of teaching, which in turn jeopardises the entire worth of education.
That teachers must have a first-rate knowledge of the subject and curriculum in the areas they teach is beyond any reasonable argument, and for precisely that reason, teaching should remain a graduate profession. However, possession of subject knowledge is not, of itself, a satisfactory safeguard to ensure the highest possible standards. Making certain that all teachers undergo such training before entering the profession would put minimum standards in place to ensure not only that teachers are in possession of a solid knowledge of the subject matter, but that they understand the associated educational and teaching values that promote high standards of planning, monitoring, assessment and class management. Achieving qualified teacher status confirms that a formal set of skills, qualities, and professional standards, recognised as essential aspects of an effective educator, has been achieved.
Alex Cunningham
I will not.
I am in no doubt that all schools should impose the same rigorous criteria and requirements when appointing teaching staff. Only then can we be certain that young people across the board are afforded the same high standards of education. We currently have one of the best generations of teachers we have ever seen—an opinion backed by Ofsted—and there are numerous examples of great teachers in cities, towns and villages across the country. It is right that we celebrate their success.
Dr Richard Spencer, who teaches at Bede sixth-form college in my constituency, was recently named as one of only 10 teachers in the Science Council’s list of 100 leading practising scientists, adding to the various other honours that recognise his contributions as an excellent teacher. It is important that we learn the lessons from such success stories, spreading best practice to every school, teacher and young person across the country, to drive progress and look at new ways to attract high-calibre candidates into the profession.
Despite the Secretary of State acknowledging the importance of teacher prestige, and the Prime Minister citing research that reveals that teacher quality is the single most important factor in educational progress, I feel that focus has been lost. The coalition has ridden roughshod over teaching standards, downgrading the status of teaching by allowing unqualified teachers into classrooms on a permanent basis. Shockingly—special educational needs co-ordinators aside—there are no requirements for state-funded schools to employ qualified teachers. Although figures vary from school to school, I was appalled to discover that as many as three-quarters of teaching staff in some schools are unqualified.
Unqualified teachers who have not undertaken the same initial teacher training as those achieving qualified teacher status may find themselves ill-equipped to cope in instances involving pupils with behavioural issues, for example, or special educational needs. Although they may be an expert in their subject specialism, that does not negate the need for the vital hands-on classroom experience required to meet properly the needs of those in their care.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The most successful education systems, from the far east to Scandinavia, are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession. South Korea recruits from its top 5% of graduates and Finland from the top 10%, and both have demanding initial teacher education programmes, completion of which is required for entry into the profession. So why not in this country?
According to Ofsted, an
“outstanding teacher generally has exceptionally strong subject knowledge and exceptionally good interactions with students and children, which will enable them to demonstrate their learning and build on their learning. They will challenge the youngster to extend their thinking to go way beyond the normal yes/no answer. They will be people who inspire, who develop a strong sense of what students can do and have no limits in terms of their expectations of students.”
During its inquiry into teaching, the Education Select Committee took evidence from children who told us that the ability to make lessons engaging and innovative and to keep discipline in the classroom were priorities.
In the 2007 study, “How the world’s best-performing school systems came out on top”, McKinsey found that
“a high overall level of literacy and numeracy, strong interpersonal and communication skills, a willingness to learn, and the motivation to teach”
were pre-identified characteristics used in successful education systems around the world for the recruitment of teachers. Those skills identified by our international competitors, Ofsted, McKinsey and our children need to be developed. To make the most of those skills, teachers need ongoing support and development, and that is the point of tonight’s motion.
Michael Gove
In that context, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the shadow Secretary of State and me that performance-related pay would be a way of supporting that continuous professional development?
Bill Esterson
When an Education Minister came before the Committee, they ruled out the introduction of performance-related pay.
Evidence to the Select Committee shows that, especially for children who lack support at home, the difference that a good or outstanding teacher can make compared with a mediocre or poor one is startling. For all pupils, there is a GCSE grade difference of more than one for those taught by the best teachers compared with those taught by the weakest. Research from Harvard and Columbia universities suggests that children taught by the best are more likely to participate in further education, to attend better colleges, to earn higher salaries and to save more for retirement.
We also have evidence from London Challenge of the difference that can be made by sustained investment in teaching and school leadership. The system of support and mentoring across London under the last Labour Government saw London’s schools move from below the national average to being the best in the country. The London Challenge included a significant emphasis on support and coaching for teachers and school leavers and led to a culture change across schools and the city—one in which many staff bought into the idea that their pupils would benefit if they worked on their own teaching performance.
As well as good teachers, we need good leaders. In any organisation, it is the leadership that sets the tone for how the staff operate, and schools are no different. Having a good leader who can get the best out of everyone is vital to ensuring that teaching is of the highest standard. Good leaders in schools can support unsatisfactory teachers and help them to become good, and those same leaders can inspire good teachers to become outstanding.
Teachers have told me that they should continue to work on their skills but that the profession should be driving the improvements, rather than having them imposed on it. Of course, that makes sense. If we help teachers to continue to develop throughout their careers, they are more likely to do so, which is why my hon. Friend is suggesting that we work with and be led by the profession. If teachers believe in what they are doing, they will be committed to their own development, and those same teachers told me that being qualified was a vital first step to ensuring the best standards in our schools. Subject knowledge is essential to the teaching of a subject, but it is not nearly enough.
I told the House earlier what Ofsted had said, what McKinsey had found, and what children have said that they want. All the evidence points in the same direction: those who want to be teachers need to be trained properly. Their training must ensure that they understand how to teach and how to enable children to learn, and—as most teachers tell me—it should continue, as an element of their ongoing desire to do the best that they can for the benefit of our children.
Kevin Brennan
Not at the moment.
We all remember the Secretary of State’s infatuation with the Swedish model. He even wrote about it in The Independent newspaper, under the headline “Michael Gove: We need a Swedish education system”. He was saying that we needed free schools—eventually to be run for profit, presumably, as in Sweden—and unqualified, low-paid teachers. His praise for Sweden was effusive. He went on to say that
“what has worked in Sweden can work here.”
We do not hear much about Sweden from him now. I think I can say, without fear of being accused by the statistics authority of abusing the PISA statistics—unlike the Secretary of State, who was rapped on the knuckles for doing so when talking about the PISA statistics for this country—that Sweden has plummeted down the PISA tables after pursuing the very reform programme that the Secretary of State is now adopting in this country, including the use of unqualified teachers. Perhaps the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), might like to look at that evidence with his Committee. Sweden is now as invisible in the Secretary of State’s speeches and articles as the Schools Minister is in this debate on teaching.
It would be helpful if the Government were willing to tell us what qualifications the teachers have in the schools that are causing concern. I have asked him about the Al-Madinah free school in Derby. On 16 October last year, in response to a parliamentary question about the qualifications held by teachers in free schools, I was told:
“Data on each qualification held by each teacher is not collected.”—[Official Report, 16 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 746W.]
I thought that that could not be right, so on 18 November 2013 I asked whether the Secretary of State would
“publish in anonymised form the qualifications held by each member of the teaching staff at the Al-Madinah Free School”
at the beginning of last September’s term. I was told:
“It would be inappropriate to publish any details until the Secretary of State for Education has concluded the next steps in this case.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 729W.]
On 6 January this year, when those next steps had been taken, I asked again for details of the qualifications. I was told that it would be “inappropriate” to publish any details of staff qualifications. On 14 January, I asked why it would be inappropriate, and received an answer simply repeating that it would be inappropriate to answer the question.
Lloyd George was once driving around north Wales and he stopped his car to ask a Welsh farmer for directions. He said, “Where am I?”, and the farmer replied, “You’re in your car.” That is exactly the method used by the Department for Education to answer parliamentary questions. The answers are short, accurate and tell us absolutely nothing that we did not already know. The Secretary of State said today that he was going to release that information, and I know that he will do so because he is a man of his word. I look forward to receiving that information tomorrow.
A YouGov poll has shown that 89% of parents do not want their child to attend a school whose teachers do not have professional teaching qualifications. Before the Secretary of State goes on again about unqualified teachers in the private sector, he might want to reflect on the fact that the latest Ofsted report shows that 13% of schools in the selective fee-paying sector were judged “inadequate”.
As our motion says, no school system can surpass the quality of its teachers. Before I finish, I want to turn briefly to the issue of the South Leeds academy. The Secretary of State has kindly passed to me the letter that he received yesterday, which he presumably solicited ahead of this debate. In the letter, the academy accepts that it placed the advert to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) has referred, but says that it was
“placed in error by a new and inexperienced clerical assistant”.
We accept that explanation. What it also says in that letter, which the Secretary of State did not highlight, is that the academy trust involved says that the School Partnership Trust Academies
“always seeks to employ teachers with qualified teaching status.”
It agrees with us, not with the Secretary of State. We should be employing teachers with qualified teacher status. He is wrong; we are right, and the SPTA agrees with us on that issue.
Kevin Brennan
I do not have the time unless the Secretary of State wants to eat into the time of his Minister.
Kevin Brennan
The Secretary of State is eating into the time of his Minister.
Michael Gove
Will the hon. Gentleman now withdraw the allegation against the South Leeds academy made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt)?
Kevin Brennan
Everything that my hon. Friend said was entirely accurate and has been confirmed by the letter. As I have said, we completely accept the explanation given in the letter. We accept everything that my hon. Friend has said, and the Secretary of State should accept that his support for unqualified teachers in taxpayer-funded schools is not supported by the School Partnership Trust Academies because it is wrong.
Given that the Secretary of State has given me some extra time, I will conclude my speech. As our motion says, no school system can surpass the quality of its teachers. That is why we need qualified quality professionals in our classrooms and better continuing professional development with revalidation to allow teachers to excel in their vocations. Yes, teaching is a vocation, as anyone who has watched programmes such as “Educating Yorkshire” or “Tough Young Teachers” or who has taught at any time in a school will know. That is why, despite the undermining of the teaching profession by the man who should be its greatest champion and advocate—the Education Secretary—teachers continue to put in hours long beyond their contractual obligations to help educate our children and build the future of this country. However, they cannot do that for ever without support and while being undermined, which is why we should strengthen, not weaken, their professional status, care about the time bomb of low morale, which this Secretary of State has armed, and pass this motion. Teachers and parents want a new direction and new leadership in education.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Gove Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
1. What assessment he has made of the performance of primary schools which have attained academy status.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I associate myself and those on the Front Bench, Mr Speaker, with your generous words towards Paul Goggins and his family. We all wish him a very speedy recovery.
In 2013, the proportion of pupils who achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics improved significantly more in sponsored academies than in local authority schools.
Mr Nuttall
I wish you, Mr Speaker, and the whole House all the best for 2014.
I am most grateful to the Secretary of State for that reply. Having been judged inadequate by Ofsted in each of the past two years, Elton primary school in my constituency is now the subject of a consultation with a view to its becoming an academy. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me and those parents who have concerns that all the evidence suggests that such a move is more likely to be beneficial than detrimental to their children’s education?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Parents are naturally nervous whenever there is a change of management or leadership in any school and so they should be—they care about their children. The evidence points to the fact that when primary and secondary schools have been converted to academies, they have made significant improvements. One of the most controversial academy conversions happened in Haringey when Downhills school was taken over by the Harris chain. That met furious opposition from the unions and some Labour MPs, but children in that school are now flourishing at last, as are children in so many other academy schools.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Does not the evidence show that the most important factor is the quality of teaching in our schools? Thousands of schools around the country have chosen not to go down the academy route. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Ranworth Square primary school in my constituency, where the majority of children are on free school meals but where last summer 93% achieved at least a level 4 in English, maths and writing?
Michael Gove
That is a significant achievement and I am delighted to be able to congratulate the head and the team of teachers at that school. Many schools that I hugely admire have chosen not to go down the academy route. Thomas Jones primary in west London is one of the most outstanding schools in the country—100% of its children reach the level to which the hon. Gentleman refers—and is not an academy. For schools that are foundering or facing difficulties, however, academy solutions have, in an overwhelming number of circumstances, brought the improvement in results that we would all love to see.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State update the House on what steps he has taken to enable good primary schools to expand, and parents to open new primary schools, in areas where new housing has created high demand for places?
Michael Gove
To facilitate expansion, we have made sure that all local authority schools receive additional support through the targeted basic need and basic need funding, which the Government have made available in more generous terms than any previous Government. We have also seen 174 new free schools open, giving parents a choice of new, high-quality schools to ensure that their children have the best possible start in life.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
When a primary academy in a village goes belly up and all the parents start moving their kids, who will step in to bail out that school and ensure that the village retains a school for the future?
Michael Gove
Without knowing the specifics of the case to which the hon. Gentleman alludes, I am cautious about venturing into too much detail. Whenever any school enters difficulties, whether it is run by an academy chain or a local authority, the Department for Education is always ready to ensure that an appropriate sponsor is in place to rescue that school.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
How many academies were there in May 2010, how many are there now and what has been the improvement in educational attainment as a result?
Michael Gove
There were just over 200 academies in May 2010—203, I believe—and there are now more than 3,000. As Ofsted reported in its most recent annual report, the biggest increase in the quality of good and outstanding lessons ever in the history of the inspectorate has occurred under this Government.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
2. How many applications his Department has received to establish free schools; and what proportion of such applications have been successful.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
The Government received 1,103 applications to establish free schools in the first four rounds of applications and 27% of those applications were approved.
Caroline Lucas
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his response. Why has his Department been using all its legal might to prevent the release of free school applications and decision letters, even after the Information Commissioner ruled that there was a strong public information argument in favour of releasing them? Surely if public money is being used, in the public interest there has to be an absolute right for that information to be put in the public domain.
Michael Gove
I note what the hon. Lady says, and we have extended the freedom of information legislation to cover academies, which was not the case before this Government came to power. It is, however, important that we protect those individuals who made proposals for schools that were not accepted, from the programme of intimidation that has been directed at many brave teachers by the National Union of Teachers and other extreme left-wing organisations. I make no apologies for protecting from intimidation those public-spirited people who wish to establish new schools.
One of the great things, however, about the free schools programme is that it implements Green party policy. In 2010, in the Green party education manifesto, the Green party leadership said that we should
“Move towards ending the need for private education by creating a programme of voluntary assimilation of private schools into the state sector.”
That is just what we have done.
Mr Speaker
The Secretary of State’s authorship of the Green party manifesto is not required.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I hope that the Secretary of State will shortly announce the approval of the Maiden Erlegh free school in my constituency, but is he as concerned as I am by Labour’s secret plan to review free school premises and buildings? Is that not simply a back-door way to destroy the free school movement? [Interruption.]
Michael Gove
I share my hon. Friend’s concerns absolutely. We all know that, despite the occasionally brave forays into no-man’s land by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has tried to defend parent-led academies, the majority of Labour Members—as we can hear from their catcalls and jeers—oppose free schools and greater parental choice and support the attempt of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) to undermine those schools. We will fight them every step of the way.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
On behalf of the Opposition, I should like to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your words about our colleague, the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), and his wife, Wyn. Our thoughts and prayers are with them for a speedy recovery.
In December, we learnt that the Prime Minister’s flagship Discovery free school will be closed. The failings of this episode have let down the people of Crawley, who will hold the Government to account. We know that the Discovery school was opened against the advice of the Montessori Schools Association, so will the Secretary of State tell the House how many free school applications Ministers have approved against the advice of Department officials?
Michael Gove
The advice of officials in this case was quite clear, and we accepted it. That is why the Discovery free school was opened.
Tristram Hunt
That says it all, does it not? We in the Opposition are in favour of innovation and autonomy in schools, but all we ask is that that is underpinned by basic safeguards and standards. National Audit Office reports reveal that low-scoring applications were waved through by Ministers against official advice, so let me give the Secretary of State another chance to set the record straight. Did Ministers approve applications for the Al-Madinah free school, the Discovery free school or the Kings Science academy free school against the advice of officials—yes or no?
Michael Gove
If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would know that I answered the question that he has just asked first time round. I pointed out that the advice from officials was to open the Discovery school. It was also the advice of officials to back Kings Science academy and to back Al-Madinah school. In all three examples, we took the advice of officials, but let me make it clear that it is entirely appropriate for Ministers to overrule officials at any given point. Officials advise and Ministers decide. But in these three cases, we took the advice of officials and appropriate safeguards were in place. One of the problems that Opposition Front Benchers have is that they support free schools in the abstract, but when it comes to the tough decisions necessary to improve education in this country, at the first whiff of grapeshot, they shy away and surrender.
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Ind)
The Secretary of State will be aware of the delight with which the rebuilding of Newark academy has been greeted in Newark, yet the establishment of the free school at the same time seems to be competing for small numbers of students who are needed inside the maintained schools. How does he answer that charge?
Michael Gove
I will look closely at the particular case that the hon. Gentleman raises. I know that he has been an effective champion for good school provision in Newark, and I shall ensure that I look closely at the pupil numbers to which he alludes.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
3. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality and quantity of apprenticeships.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
4. What systems his Department has in place for management of failing academies and free schools.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
The Department monitors schools through scrutiny of performance data and Ofsted reports. All free schools are visited by an education adviser in the first and fourth term of opening. Concerns are investigated immediately. It is for an academy trust to ensure that appropriate action is taken to bring about rapid improvement. If it does not, we use the intervention powers in the funding agreement.
Mr Stuart
The recent action taken on Al-Madinah and the Discovery New School by Lord Nash, the Under-Secretary of State, followed his setting out in detail the requirements those schools had to follow in order to turn themselves around and required his personal supervision of those schools. What role will school commissioners have in future to ensure that we no longer have Ministers trying to run schools from a desk in Whitehall?
Michael Gove
Inevitably, we inherited a situation in which funding agreements were the principal method of ensuring that both academies and free schools acted in conformity with the principles that all of us would expect. We are not intending to abandon the principle that it should be for Ministers to sign and, if necessary, revisit funding agreements, but a new system of regional schools commissioners working to the Office of the Schools Commissioner can ensure that we have the local intelligence that we need in order to respond more quickly, and that there is a greater number of high-quality sponsors to help drive school improvement.
Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Fulwood academy in Preston had a recent Ofsted report that stated that pupil achievement, quality of teaching and leadership and management were inadequate. The head teacher Richard Smyth has received extra funding for free school meals, disabled pupils and special educational needs. Why should that man remain in post when he has been at the school for three years and is himself inadequate?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to those concerns about the principal. I am aware that there are concerns more broadly about Fulwood academy, and I will write to him about what we propose to do.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
The key point is how swiftly responses are made to those schools that are failing. Does the Secretary of State agree that the important thing is leadership and management, and that includes the role of governing bodies, which should contain fully skilled governors to do the job?
Michael Gove
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am grateful to him for his work not just on the Education Committee but more broadly in making it clear that we need to recruit an even stronger cadre of school governors. I pay tribute to the many thousands of superb school governors that we have in place at the moment, but we need to attract more people, particularly from business, to take on that role in what is an increasingly autonomous school system.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State said to the Education Committee that he would consider publishing the list of failing free schools and saying whether they had been approved against the advice of officials. Will he give us that list now?
Michael Gove
I was asked earlier by the shadow Secretary of State whether I would specifically refer to the three schools that have, understandably, been brought to the attention of the public because of their difficulties. I made it clear to him, as I am happy to make it clear to the hon. Gentleman, that in all of those cases, the advice from officials was clear that the school should open.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
5. What progress he has made on encouraging the take-up of academic subjects at GCSE and A-level.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
7. What steps he is taking to ensure accountability and oversight of all publicly funded schools.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
We have reformed Ofsted’s inspection framework to make it clearer, tougher and fairer. We are also introducing new, more intelligent accountability measures in school league tables.
Michael Gove
The EFA is not the only means of oversight for free schools. As we know, Kings Science academy has been the subject of a specific investigation by the EFA. We also know that the Al-Madinah school, which has come to the attention of the Department and Ofsted, has also been facing a difficult scrutiny process.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My right hon. Friend, along with Lord Nash, has been assiduous in responding to colleagues’ concerns about academy chains. Will he consider changing some of the Education Funding Agency’s requirements so that in future pre-warning actions can be delivered when schools go into improvement status, not just into special measures?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is important that we are energetic in using the warning notices. More than half of local authorities have not used warning notices when schools have been underperforming, but where the best local authorities have used such notices, and indeed where the Department, on the advice of the EFA or others, has used them, we have seen real improvement.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe that it is acceptable for head teachers of academies to refuse to respond to complaints taken up by MPs? If he does not, when will he act to ensure that MPs receive proper responses?
Michael Gove
I think that MPs deserve proper responses from all those charged with spending public money. I will look more closely at the specific case the hon. Gentleman mentions, but it is important to recognise that the principals of academies are more accountable than the heads of local authority schools—[Interruption.] “Facts are chiels that winna ding”. That is as a result of the greater accountability they face, and not just to the taxpayer through the EFA, but to the Charity Commission. We should be satisfied that the improved governance that academies and free schools have means that they are more directly accountable to taxpayers and elected representatives.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend reassure the House that the changes to the accountability system for schools will benefit all their pupils, not merely those on the C-D grade borderline?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is typically acute in getting to the heart of the matter. The change to judging schools on how well each student progresses from the moment they arrive until the moment they take their GCSEs, across a broad range of eight GCSEs, will mean that not just academic excellence but creativity and technical accomplishment will be counted in determining how well each school has improved—and of course we will move away from the distorting impact that a focus on the C-D borderline has had in the past.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
9. What steps his Department is taking to tackle the rising costs of child care.
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
12. What steps his Department has taken in relation to the principal of Kings science academy in Bradford following the conclusions of his Department’s audit report.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Responsibility for a principal’s performance rests of course with the governing body of an academy, not the Department for Education. One thing I should say is that, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there is an ongoing police investigation, which I have to be careful not to prejudice.
Mr Ward
That is disappointing, because of course the head of a maintained school would have been on his bike long ago. May I ask the Secretary of State about a comment made by a spokesperson for Alan Lewis who said:
“At no time has Mr Lewis had responsibility for the financial management or governance of the academy”?
If, as I have been told, the report by the auditors recommended to the school by Mr Lewis was presented directly to him and amended as a result of his comments, does the Secretary of State agree that that provides evidence of involvement in both financial management and governance within the school?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and for the dogged and persistent way in which he has sought to ensure that we can improve the situation at Kings science academy. I would say that Mr Lewis was responsible for commissioning a report, to which the hon. Gentleman quite rightly draws attention, that has played a part in helping to ensure that Kings science academy moved from a difficult position to a better one, but I must stress that I do not want to say anything that might prejudice an ongoing police report.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I can understand why the Secretary of State wants to protect his flagship policy, but we have had mismanagement, nepotism and fabricated invoices. Mr Lewis is not just a benefactor; he is a landlord who will receive £12 million in rent in years to come from the school, as well as a vice-chair of the Conservative party and a major Tory donor. Is that anything to do with the fact that the Secretary of State has refused to take any action whatsoever against anyone since this scandal broke?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. It is important to place on the record the fact that Mr Lewis is receiving for the property an appropriately guaranteed market rent—less than he was receiving for it beforehand. It is important to stress that, and it is also important to state that as soon as my Department was made aware of allegations of the misappropriation of public money, it contacted Action Fraud and a police investigation is now ongoing as a direct result. I should also add that my Department was in touch with the economic crime unit of West Yorkshire police to ensure that appropriate steps had been taken; it was reassured that those appropriate steps had been taken. The law must follow its course. It is entirely right for the hon. Gentleman to raise questions in Parliament, but it would be entirely wrong for me to prejudge the police investigation.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
13. What assessment he has made of the benefits and disadvantages of the use of tablet devices in schools.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
It is important that I draw to the House’s attention the fact that Ofsted, the Government’s school inspectorate, has changed its guidance to clarify the vital importance of not favouring one style of teaching over any other. In the most recent guidance that Ofsted has issued, it stresses that inspectors must not give the impression that Ofsted favours a particular teaching style.
I use the opportunity that you have given me at the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, to emphasise that point in order to stress to all teachers that we want them to deploy their creativity, skill and intelligence to raise standards for all children, and not to stick to any outdated rubric in doing so.
Miss McIntosh
I welcome the Government review of less well-funded local education authorities, such as North Yorkshire, but there is a very urgent problem with transport for 16 to 18-year-olds attending sixth-form or higher education colleges. Will the Secretary of State address that problem as urgently as possible?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue. We are looking not only at how we can better support all schools in sparse, rural areas, but specifically at how disadvantage funding for institutions that educate 16, 17 and 18-year-olds can better take account of transport costs.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Has the Minister had any recent discussions with ministerial colleagues about the law on child neglect? Is he giving any consideration to updating what many professionals argue is an outdated law that can hamper their ability to intervene and protect vulnerable children?
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
T3. Ofsted inspections often critique, but usually deliver only advice from a small bag of short-term fixes, many of which have failed before. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how Ofsted can be given the power to deliver 10-year strategic interventions to help schools deliver school readiness at four and 11, so that improvements are sustainable, unlike Ofsted’s short-term fixes?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. I believe that we will have an opportunity to meet and talk tomorrow. I met some great head teachers from his constituency last year and their direct testimony weighed heavily with me. I know that he has talked to them about how we can ensure that Ofsted provides even more support in the future. Other schools have noticed a significant change in the way in which Her Majesty’s inspectors provide support after an inspection, which is sometimes necessarily tough and stringent.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
T7. Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), will the Secretary of State tell the House now which free schools were approved against the advice of officials? Will he commit to publishing a full list of them?
Michael Gove
I pointed out that three schools had been the subject of concern for the Education Funding Agency and others, and as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the overwhelming majority of schools put forward for approval were turned down. Something like 17% of the lowest-scoring schools were approved, but no school that has subsequently caused concern to the EFA or anyone else was approved against the advice of officials.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T9. I thank the Secretary of State for listening to North Yorkshire MPs about the sparsity factor in the schools formula. Will he meet me about Upper Wharfedale school, deep in the Yorkshire dales, which is suffering from cuts in bus services for out-of-catchment parents and high demand for special educational needs places?
Michael Gove
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that school and its students.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
T8. When does the Secretary of State expect that builders will start on site rebuilding Carr infant school in York, which he wrote to tell me about last June? The school asks whether it will now get a dining room big enough for all 320 pupils who will become eligible for free school meals under the Deputy Prime Minister’s proposal.
Michael Gove
A feasibility study is being undertaken, and building work should commence within 12 months. I should say that thanks to the reforms introduced in our free schools programme, schools are being built more cheaply and faster than ever before under this Government.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
As was previously mentioned, Discovery new school in my constituency had its funding withdrawn last month. Would my right hon. Friend consider a reapplication for continued funding from a reconstituted trust?
Michael Gove
We will look at any proposition to open a free school to ensure that it will provide welcome additional capacity. The decision that we took with respect to Discovery was difficult, but it emphasises one thing about this Government: we acknowledge that some schools will fail and some will fall into difficulties, but we have been faster and more determined than any previous Government in turning around or closing failing schools. The fact that things will go wrong in the education system is an inevitability, but having an Education Secretary who is prepared to act quickly and determinedly to deal with that is not an inevitability, it is the dividing line between the Government and the Labour party.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware that since his decision to make school-based work experience placements optional rather than compulsory, an estimated 64,000 school pupils have missed out on work experience in the past year? Will he explain why he is taking opportunities to access the world of work away from young people, particularly when we have almost 1 million young people unemployed?
Michael Gove
We have not abolished work experience, we have removed work-related learning at key stage 4. That was a recommendation of Alison Wolf’s report on vocational education, which the Opposition Front Benchers welcomed 100%. If the hon. Lady has a problem with that policy, she should take it up with them instead of merely reading out a question from a Whip who has not bothered to do his research.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
British success in the north American war of 1812 to 1814 was as important to this country as the victories at Trafalgar in 1805 and Waterloo in 1815. Does the Secretary of State agree that it should be part of the history curriculum, particularly as this August will be the 200th anniversary of when the White House was burned down by the East Essex Regiment?
Michael Gove
On all the visits that I have made to my hon. Friend’s constituency, I have always had cause to thank people not just for the superb way in which history is taught in Colchester and across Essex but for the distinguished contribution that public servants in Essex, both in uniform and out of it, have made to this country. The war of 1812 to 1814 was a cousins’ war, and it is only appropriate that we remember that as we attempt to—[Interruption.] I see that one of my ain folk is objecting to that. All I would say, brother mine, is that in the shadow of Burns week, we should extend the hand of amity, as I do to my American cousins. Even as we remember their valour, we should also celebrate the fact that we work together in the brotherhood of man today.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise is struggling desperately to understand the impact of his policy on the most deprived 18-year-olds, so let me tell him about the impact of that policy in Chesterfield. It means that 655 students in this year’s cohort would not get the funding, which the principal of the college in Chesterfield tells me will directly impact on those students who do not achieve well in GCSEs, and clearly be very divisive. The principal told me that the assumptions made for this policy are alarmingly naive and fundamentally incorrect—
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
What would be a realistically ambitious date by which to expect significant improvements in England’s programme for international student assessment scores?
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that he intends to visit Northern Ireland very soon, and that he will meet educationists there and convince them and confirm that A-level and O-level students will not be wrongly or poorly affected because of their A-level qualifications or transport ability, regarding qualification to colleges and universities on the mainland UK?
Michael Gove
I absolutely will. It is vital that we reassure students and teachers in Northern Ireland that the qualifications they sit will be valued, and that access to universities in the rest of the United Kingdom will be upheld. I am proud that our kingdom is united, and that there are students in Northern Ireland who see themselves as part of a family of nations and a community of learning across these islands. I will uphold their right to equal access to institutions of higher and further education in these islands as long as I hold this office.
Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)
Proposals and actions for a royal college of teaching continue apace. Although I am sure the Secretary of State would agree that it is not for politicians but for teachers to drive that potential body, can he provide assurance that the Government will give all appropriate support and as fair a wind as possible to the proposal, which could be a game changer for teaching and, of course, ultimately for our children?
Michael Gove
The more that teachers take control of their own destiny, and the more the profession is in charge of improving education, the better. I think the best thing about a college of teaching is that the Government stand well back and wish it well.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
One of the discoveries in the OECD PISA research is that Britain is one of only five countries in that study where a child’s achievement in reading is more closely connected to their parents’ education and achievement than to any other factor. What will the Secretary of State for Education do about the poor achievement in reading by children of poorly educated parents?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and that is one reason why we are working with schools across the country to ensure that children have the chance to decode fluently through the phonics screening check highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb). That is why I have encouraged every primary school to expect that children will read at least 15 if not 50 books a year, and why I believe we must ensure that the scandalous level of educational inequality to which the hon. Lady draws attention is at the heart of everything the Department for Education does. Whether it is the pupil premium, which was drawn up and brought into Government by my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and the Deputy Prime Minister, or the academies and free schools programme that we are highlighting, everything we do is intended to erase the scandalous level of educational inequality that we inherited and to which I know the hon. Lady objects.
Funding Allocations
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I am today announcing capital funding to provide the extra places needed for our growing population, and to implement the universal infant free school meals entitlement. I am also pleased to publish Sebastian James’s review of progress since his original 2011 report on education capital. I am also announcing the Government’s main school funding allocations for 2014-15 through the dedicated schools grant (DSG) and the education services grant (ESG).
This Government’s overriding priority for capital investment is to ensure every child has a place at school. Demographic pressures have put strain on schools in many parts of the country. That is why we have more than doubled funding for new places to £5 billion in this Parliament. By May 2013, this investment had already helped to create an additional 260,000 school places with more still to come.
Today I am announcing further funding for new school places up to 2017. We are giving local authorities longer-term allocations for new school places, which will give them more certainty in their planning. We are targeting funding more effectively, based on local needs, through using data we have collected from local authorities about the size of schools and forecast pupil projections. We are also analysing local authority capital expenditure on new school places, so that there is greater accountability and transparency around how they use these funds.
The major investment I am announcing today will enable local authorities to make sure that there are enough school places for every child who needs one in the years to come. The number of pupils in England is rising and is set to continue to rise well into the next Parliament. Ensuring that every child is able to attend a good or outstanding school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system. To achieve this we will provide an additional £2.35 billion to support local authorities to plan and create new school places that will be needed by 2017. This is additional to the £5 billion that has been allocated between 2011-15. Extending the allocations to a three-year period will allow local authorities to plan strategically for the places they need. I have listened to the particular challenges faced by London, and therefore the methodology used to allocate funding for 2015-17 takes into account the higher costs of building in the capital.
I am also announcing further details about capital investment in 2014-15 to support universal free school meals for children in reception, year 1 and year 2 in state-funded schools. As part of the autumn statement the Chancellor confirmed £150 million of capital funding for improving school kitchen and dining facilities in order to offer every infant pupil a free nutritious school meal at lunchtime. Universal free school meals for primary school pupils were a key recommendation of the independent school food plan produced for the Department by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent in July 2013. The aim is to improve academic attainment and healthy eating, and save families money.
Turning to revenue funding, the distribution of the dedicated schools grant (DSG) to local authorities will continue to be based on the current “spend-plus” methodology for 2014-15, set out in three spending blocks for each authority: an early years block, a schools block and a high-needs block. The underlying schools budget will be kept at flat cash per pupil for 2014-15. To protect local authorities with falling pupil numbers we will continue with arrangements to ensure that no authority loses more than 2% of its budget in cash terms.
Although the overall schools budget will stay at the same level on a per pupil basis before the addition of the pupil premium, the actual level of each school’s individual budget will vary. To protect schools from significant budget reductions, we will continue with a minimum funding guarantee that ensures that no school sees more than a 1.5% per pupil reduction in 2014-15 budgets—excluding sixth-form funding—compared with 2013-14 and before the pupil premium is added.
As part of the DSG, I am announcing 2014-15 revenue funding allocations to local authorities to secure early learning places for two-year-olds from lower income households. From 1 September 2013 early learning became a statutory entitlement for around 20% of two-year-olds across England, which will extend to 40% of two-year-olds from September 2014. To deliver this, the Government are today allocating £760 million to fund the extended programme in 2014-15.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced on 10 December 2012, that all state-funded schools in England will be withdrawn from participating in the CRC energy efficiency scheme from April 2014. This means that local authorities will no longer be required to administer the CRC energy efficiency scheme on behalf of schools. A deduction of £50.5 million will be made from the DSG for 2014-15 to compensate the Exchequer for the loss of revenue resulting from local authorities no longer needing to meet the costs of purchasing carbon allowances for schools under the scheme. As schools will no longer need to meet these requirements, they will be no worse off as a result of this change.
The distribution of the education services grant (ESG) is based on a total figure of £1.03 billion transferred from local government funding as announced in December 2012. The new grant will be allocated on a simple per pupil basis to local authorities.
Details of today’s announcement will be sent to local authorities and be published on the Department for Education website. Copies will be placed in the House Library.
Care Leavers
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Today I am announcing the Government’s intention to propose an amendment to the Children and Families Bill that will make a significant change to the legislation regarding care leavers. This amendment will be tabled for the House of Lords Third Reading of the Children and Families Bill.
The amendment will place a new legal duty on local authorities to support every care leaver who wants to stay with their former foster parents until their 21st birthday (“staying put” arrangements). This duty will come into force from April 2014 and we will be giving local authorities £40 million over the next three years to put the support arrangements in place.
A growing number of local authorities already offer young people the choice to stay but with little financial support it can be challenging for their foster families. Now all councils will have to follow their example.
This is a further reform to our much wider package of support for care leavers, including changes to the rules so 16 and 17-year-olds remain in care until they are ready to move out, and much greater financial support for young people leaving care at 18.
Children in care typically have much lower educational outcomes and are more likely to be out of education, work and training. Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of reforms the Government have made to improve both the stability and outcomes for young people leaving care.
We have:
launched the care leavers’ charter—a contract between local authorities and young people leaving care—which sets out the support they can expect right up to the age of 25, with over 120 local authorities now signed up;
introduced the junior independent savings account for all care leavers, with over 40,000 accounts now open with a £200 contribution from Government;
published the cross-Government care leavers’ strategy, which for the first time sets out in one place the steps the Government are taking—from housing to health services, from the justice system to educational institutions—to support care leavers to live independently once they have left their placement;
written to all local authorities asking them to dramatically improve financial support for care leavers, resulting in tripling in the number of councils now paying £2,000 or more through the setting up home allowance;
improved accountability by publishing an annual data pack, outlining statistics
on care leavers’ education and employment status, and from this autumn Ofsted’s local authority children’s service inspection framework will place extra emphasis on the outcomes of care leavers.
Supporting care leavers to stay with their former foster carers will allow them to leave stable and secure homes when they are ready and able to make the transition to independence. It will also help them enter adult life with the same opportunities and life prospects as their friends. I hope this significant change we are proposing for care leavers will have widespread support.
PISA Results
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for your words about the tragedy in Glasgow. Of course, the whole House wishes to associate itself with your expressions of concern and condolence.
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the PISA—programme for international student assessment—league tables of educational performance published today by the OECD. Before I go into the detail of what the league tables show about the common features of high-performing school systems, may I take a moment, as I try to in every public statement I make, to thank our teachers for their hard work, dedication and idealism. Whatever conclusions we draw about what needs to change, I hope that we in this House can agree that we are fortunate to have the best generation of young teachers ever in our schools. The data show that the new recruits now entering the classroom are better qualified than ever before. I would like in particular to thank those head teachers who are, through the new school direct programme of teacher training, recruiting more superb new graduates to teach in our state schools.
Although the quality of our teachers is improving, today’s league tables sadly show that that is not enough. When people ask why—if teachers are better than ever— we need to press ahead with further reform to the system, today’s results make the case more eloquently than any number of speeches. Since the 1990s, our performance in these league tables has been, at best, stagnant, and, at worst, declining. In the latest results, we are 21st in the world for science, 23rd for reading and 26th for mathematics. For all the well-intentioned efforts of past Governments, we are still falling further behind the best-performing school systems in the world. In Shanghai and Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong—indeed even in Taiwan and Vietnam—children are learning more and performing better with every year that passes, leaving our children behind in the global race. That matters because business is more mobile than ever, and employers are more determined than ever to seek out the best-qualified workers. Global economic pressures, far from leading to a race to the bottom, are driving all nations to pursue educational excellence more energetically than ever before. Today’s league tables show that nations that have had the courage radically to reform their education systems, such as Germany and Poland, have significantly improved their performance and their children’s opportunities.
No single intervention, or indeed single nation, has all the answers to our education challenges. But if we look at all the high-performing and fast-improving education systems, we find that certain common features recur: there is an emphasis on social justice and helping every child to succeed; there is a commitment to an aspirational academic curriculum for all students; there is a high level of autonomy from bureaucracy for head teachers; there is a rigorous system of accountability for performance; and head teachers have the critical power to hire whom they want, remove underperformers and reward the best with the recognition they deserve. Those principles have driven this coalition’s education reforms since 2010.
The first reform imperative, of course, is securing greater social justice. It is notable that all the high-performing jurisdictions set demanding standards for every child, whatever their background. Germany, in particular, has improved its standing in these league tables by doing more to promote greater equity to ensure that more children from poorer backgrounds catch up with their peers. The good news from the PISA research is that in England we have one of the most progressive and socially just systems of education funding in the world, but we in the coalition Government believe that we must go further to help the most disadvantaged children. That is why we have made funding even more progressive with the pupil premium. We have extended free pre-school education to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds and changed how we hold schools accountable so they have to give even greater attention to the performance of poor children. I hope that today the Opposition will acknowledge those steps forward and give their support to our accountability reforms.
The second imperative is a more aspirational curriculum. In successful Asian nations, all students are introduced to more stretching maths content at an earlier age than has been the case here. In the fastest-improving European nation, Poland, every child now follows a core academic curriculum to the age of 16. Our new national curriculum is explicitly more demanding, especially in maths, and it is modelled on the approach of high-performing Asian nations such as Singapore. The mathematical content is matched by a new level of ambition in technology, with the introduction of programming and coding on the national curriculum for the first time.
In our drive to eliminate illiteracy, we have introduced a screening check at age six to make sure that every child is reading fluently. Our introduction of the English baccalaureate, which is awarded to students who secure GCSE passes in English, maths, the sciences, languages and history or geography, matches Poland’s ambition by embedding an expectation of academic excellence for every 16-year-old. I hope today that those on the Labour Front Bench will confirm their support for our new curriculum, the phonics screening check and the English baccalaureate. Our children deserve to have those higher standards adopted universally.
The third reform imperative is greater autonomy for head teachers. There is a direct correlation in the league tables between freedom for heads and improved results. That is why we have dramatically increased the number of academies and free schools, and given heads more control over teacher training, continuous professional development and the improvement of underperforming schools. The school direct programme, by giving heads control of teacher recruitment, has improved the quality of new teachers. The creation of more than 300 teaching schools has put our most outstanding heads in charge of helping existing teachers to do even better. The academies programme has allowed great heads, such as those in the Harris and Ark chains, to take over underperforming schools such as the Downhills primary in Tottenham. I hope today that those on the Opposition Front Bench will signal their support for these reforms and show that they, like us, trust our outstanding heads to drive improvement.
The fourth pillar of reform is accountability. Those systems that have autonomy without accountability often underperform. Accountability has to be intelligent, which is why we have sharpened Ofsted inspections, recruited more outstanding serving teachers to inspect schools and demanded that underperforming schools improve far faster. The old league table system relied too much on a narrow measurement of C passes at GCSE, which generated the wrong incentives and wrote off too many children. We have changed league tables to ensure that every child’s progress is rewarded. We have also ensured that children are not entered early, or multiple times, for GCSEs simply to influence league tables. I hope today that those on the Opposition Front Bench will endorse those changes and join us in demanding greater rigour and higher standards from all schools.
The fifth pillar of reform is freedom for heads to recruit and reward the best. Shanghai, the world’s best-performing education system, has a rigorous system of performance-related pay. We have given head teachers the same freedoms here. I hope today that we can have a clear commitment from all parts of the House to support those brave and principled heads who want to pay the best teachers more.
The programme of reform that we have set out draws on what happens in the best school systems—identified today by the OECD—because we want nothing but the best for our children. Unless we can provide them with a school system that is one of the best in the world, we will not give them the opportunities that they need to flourish and succeed. That is why it is so important that we have a unified national commitment to excellence in all our schools and for all our pupils. I commend this statement to the House.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State both for making Government time available to discuss this important topic and for his statement, which I received 11 minutes ago. I am disappointed that he has adopted—both today and in various media outings—such a partisan approach to the data from PISA. Rather than throwing chum to his Back Benchers, he should concentrate on the lessons we can learn from today’s important study.
The Secretary of State cannot have it both ways. If, as he said in The Daily Telegraph, the Labour party should take its share of the responsibility for these results, would he not agree that it should also take responsibility for, in his words, delivering the
“best generation of teachers this country has ever seen”?
It is clear that for all the hard work of our head teachers, teachers, parents and learning support staff, whom the Secretary of State rightly praised, we have a long way to go in English, maths and science to match our global competitors. These findings are a wake-up call for our schools. The PISA data reveal the continuing strength of east Asian countries and although there are important cultural differences that we should seek to understand, there are also pointers to reform in our schools system. So, can the Secretary of State confirm that part of the success of Singapore and Shanghai is down to the high quality of teachers in the classroom?
In Shanghai, all teachers have a teaching qualification and undergo 240 hours of professional development within the first five years of teaching. Under the Secretary of State’s deregulation agenda, the South Leeds academy can advertise for an “unqualified maths teacher” with just four GCSEs. We have seen a 141% increase in unqualified teachers in free schools and academies under this Government, so will he join the Schools Minister and me in working to secure qualified teachers in our classrooms?
Secondly, can the Secretary of State confirm that part of the east Asian education system is that schools work together, collaborate and challenge each other? Under their system, no school is left an island. Will he now abandon his aggressive discredited free-market reforms to schools and follow the Labour party’s lead in developing the kind of middle tier that brings schools together to work with, challenge and collaborate with one another?
In 2008, the Secretary of State informed the Daily Mail, his journal of choice:
“We have seen the future in Sweden and it works.”
Will he confirm today that that is no longer the case? In fact, no other country has fallen as abruptly as Sweden in maths over a 10-year period. Across all three measures—reading, maths and science—since 2009 Sweden has performed very poorly indeed. Many in Sweden regard the ideological programme of unqualified teachers and unregulated free schools as responsible for the drop in standards. The lesson from PISA is clear: we need freedom with accountability, autonomy with minimum standards, or else we end up with the chaos of the Secretary of State’s Al-Madinah school.
Finally, does the Secretary of State believe that a culture of zero tolerance for low expectations in other education systems produces high results across the board and that no child should be left behind? Will he use this opportunity to join the Deputy Prime Minister and me in condemning the unpleasant whiff of eugenics from the Mayor of London and instead use the opportunity provided by the PISA data to pursue excellence for all, academic and vocational, in all our schools?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He taxed me for demonstrating partisanship and indulging in personal attacks. I am glad that we had the opportunity to witness four minutes entirely free from those sins.
First, let me turn to the whole question of qualified teachers. It is the case that there are now fewer unqualified teachers in our schools than under Labour. In 2009, there were 17,400 unqualified teachers, in 2010, just before Labour left office, there were 17,800 and there are now only 14,800, a significant reduction. Indeed, those teachers who are now joining the profession are better qualified than ever before. In 2009, just before the Labour party lost office, only 61% of teachers had a 2:1 or better as their undergraduate degree. Under the coalition Government, the figure is 74%, which is a clear improvement that has been driven by the changes that we have introduced. It has been reinforced by the introduction of the school direct system, which I invited the hon. Gentleman to applaud and welcome—he declined to do so—and which has secured even more top graduates with a 2:1 or better, including a first, in our schools.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned Sweden. Unfortunately, it is the case that in Sweden results have slid, but as I said earlier, not only do we need to grant greater autonomy, as has been done for school leaders in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and elsewhere, but we need a more rigorous system of accountability. We heard nothing from him on how we would improve accountability. There was no indication as to whether or not he supports, as he has indicated in the past, our English baccalaureate measure. There was no indication from him, as there has been in the past, as to whether or not he supports A-level reform, and there was no indication, as there has been in the past, that he believes in a rigorous academic curriculum for all. The terrible truth about the situation that we face in our schools is that Labour does not have a strong record to defend, and it does not have a strong policy to advance. That is why the coalition Government are committed to reform, and that is why, I am afraid, the hon. Gentleman must do better.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Today’s figures are extremely sobering. They are an indictment of the previous Government’s education policy. There was a massive investment in education, a huge effort was put into education, and we went nowhere. We need to hear from the Secretary of State how his reforms will ensure that in future years—probably not so early as three years from now, but six years from now—we see the change that we require. In particular, will he tell us what he can do to promote maths and science for girls, because we cannot have so many females left behind in this country?
Michael Gove
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education for his wise words. He is absolutely right—there was a significant increase in investment and, as I mentioned in my statement, we have one of the most socially just systems of education funding in the developed world. However, we did not move forward as we should have done. My hon. Friend asks, of course, when we will see the fruits of our reform programme. As Andreas Schleicher of the OECD asked yesterday: is it too early on the basis of these results to judge the coalition reforms? Absolutely, we could not possibly judge the coalition Government on these results, he said. We are “moving from” ideas “to implementation”, and 2015 would be the very earliest.
My hon. Friend makes the vital point that we need to do more to promote mathematics and science. The English baccalaureate does that. The increased emphasis in many academies and free schools that have opened under the Government does that, but there is still more that we can do, and I shall meet representatives from higher education and our best schools just before Christmas to see what we can do to encourage more girls to do even better in mathematics and science.
Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
I think that our young people deserve slightly better than the regrettable remarks from the Chair of the Select Committee.
In the four years in which I was privileged to serve as Education and Employment Secretary, I tried to persuade the world that it would take time before change achieved results. The world decided that it would hold me to account for the measures that I took. What makes the Secretary of State, after three years and seven months, think that he should not be held to account?
Michael Gove
I absolutely do believe that we should be held to account for the changes that we have made, which is why I look forward to Ofsted’s report in a fortnight. It will report on what has changed in the course of the past year, and it will reflect, I believe, improved teaching standards in all our schools. Earlier, I ran through some figures—I know that the right hon. Gentleman took note of them—that recorded the increased number of highly qualified teachers in our classrooms. As I mentioned, Andreas Schleicher pointed out that it would take time for the changes that we have introduced to take effect. Just as members of the Opposition Front Bench want to take account of PISA and the OECD, so they should take account of Andreas Schleicher’s comments, which seem to me to be fair and proportionate, and all of us should draw the right lessons from them.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
I refer to my interests in the register.
My right hon. Friend is right to conclude that Britain’s poor standing in the PISA rankings is a reflection of Labour’s education policies and its supine relationship with the teacher unions. Does he share my view that university education faculties, which have trained generations of teachers, should take their share of blame? Should not the Institute of Education and Canterbury Christ Church, two of the biggest teacher training institutions, be held to account, not only for today’s poor figures but for the country’s long tail of underachievement? Education academics are quick to condemn much-needed reform, but there is always a deafening silence from them on days—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We must have short questions and short answers.
Michael Gove
Not for the first time, and I am sure not for the last time, my hon. Friend hits several nails squarely on the head.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Twenty years ago, the greatest underachievement in schools in this country was in London and other big cities, which is why the Labour Government introduced programmes such as the London Challenge and Teach First, which the Secretary of State has praised. Andreas Schleicher has talked about autonomy, but he has also talked about collaboration. What have the Government done to implement Ofsted’s report from June, “Unseen children”, which called for new sub-regional challenges modelled on Labour’s London Challenge?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points. It is the case that the London Challenge was a success. Other systems of sub-regional collaboration introduced under the previous Government were less conspicuously successful. If we look at the ingredients of the London Challenge, we find that they were primarily growth in the number of academies, greater autonomy for head teachers and a rigorous approach—[Interruption] —and a greater and more rigorous approach to underperformance in schools that needed new leadership. Through the academies programme, we have ensured that schools across the country that have underperformed are under new leadership. It has been called the “forced academies programme”, and there has been no support for it from those on the Labour Front Bench. I hope that now they will show their support for this rigorous attempt to tackle underperformance, but I fear that they will remain silent, and will continue to have their strings pulled by their union paymasters.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State accept that instead of always looking abroad for good practice he might come to my constituency, where the quality of education is superbly high, as it is in neighbouring constituencies in Hampshire, and he could look at how it achieves the excellence from which my daughter benefited?
Michael Gove
I visited Eastleigh several times in the past 18 months, and I learned a great deal. It is the case, as the hon. Gentleman points out, that in Hampshire there are many excellent schools and sixth-form colleges. It is absolutely right that we should applaud success and excellence in this country as well as abroad.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Last week, I met Swedish journalists on behalf of the Education Committee, and it is true that they are really worried about their dramatic fall down the international league tables, which they partly blamed on the free school experiment. They told me that their equivalent of Ofsted had closed 20 such schools since September. Does the Secretary of State not agree that it is time to learn from such mistakes and puts schools and pupils before ideology?
Michael Gove
It is absolutely the case that there is a difference between Sweden and this country. Sweden did not have an equivalent of Ofsted until 2008, and it does not have the external system of accountability through testing that we have had in this country. Autonomy works, but only with strong accountability, which is why it is important, and why I hope the hon. Lady will encourage her Front Benchers to support the English baccalaureate.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
The Secretary of State said that a common feature of high-performing schools is their ability to remove underperforming teachers, but between 2001 and 2011 only 17 of England’s 400,000 teachers were judged to be incompetent by the General Teaching Council. What can he do to fight trade union protectionism of failing teachers, and root out all the dead wood?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have introduced a system of more effective performance management and performance-related pay. I hope that the Labour party will support it in the interests of all students.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is important that the message goes out that the reaction to the PISA results is positive? The teaching profession and the people who work in and run our schools must know that we have a good education system. It is not perfect, but we undervalue the work that many of our teachers do. At the moment, however, they do not do enough for the 30% lowest-achieving students. That is where we should concentrate our activity.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
A head teacher recently told me, “The Secretary of State is a dreadful person, and absolutely hopeless, but his policies are absolutely right and I’m implementing them with gusto.” Is it better to be right rather than liked?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is both right and liked universally across the House. If I agree with him, I hope that I am right, but I can never aspire to be as liked or as popular as he is.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
When did the Secretary of State last meet the Minister for Education in Northern Ireland to discuss educational performance with an emphasis on the fairer distribution of financial resources?
Michael Gove
I had the opportunity to talk to Minister O’Dowd several months ago, when I also talked to the Welsh Education Minister. It is striking that Northern Ireland is broadly at the same level as England in these results but Labour-run Wales is significantly behind. I think that we can draw the appropriate conclusions about that. I hope to visit Northern Ireland in the new year to talk to head teachers and others about how we can work together to ensure that our examination systems are aligned in a way that promotes social mobility across all these islands in the interests of a truly united kingdom.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for yesterday meeting Kate Forbes, an excellent young English teacher from Bourne academy in my constituency, to discuss her ideas for the implementation of grammar in the secondary system. It is people like Miss Forbes, who share his determination that the child should come first, whom we should be listening to in implementing his reforms.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was a pleasure to meet the teacher from his constituency, who is wholly committed to implementing the reforms we have introduced, utterly committed to raising standards for every child and, to my mind, representative and emblematic of the idealistic and supremely talented young people now entering teaching.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State think that the Singapore authorities would employ untrained teachers, and does he back their system, which sees children put under immense pressure to work from dawn to dusk and beyond to compete with their peers and with us?
Michael Gove
I think that we can learn a great deal from Singapore’s education system, not least the way in which its principals have great flexibility over whom they employ and how they reward them. As for working harder, I think that we have to acknowledge that we all must work harder to ensure that our children have more opportunities in future. We need to explore ways of extending the school day and ensuring that there are greater opportunities for all our children to learn more.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
We have inherited a situation in which the best indicator of a child’s future educational achievement is the parents’ income. Does the Secretary of State agree that until the attainment gap is narrowed, the UK will be unable to make significant leaps up the international league tables?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the weaknesses in our education system, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) pointed out, and indeed in our whole nation, is the fact that we labour under the problem of having a stratified and segregated schools system, and it is more stratified and segregated than most. One of the things that is helping to tackle that, of course, is the investment in the pupil premium, championed by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Schools, which we are happy to implement as part of a coalition Government.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2010 the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) promised to learn from the best education systems in the world with the most highly qualified teachers, so why have the Government removed the requirement that teachers be qualified to degree level?
Michael Gove
As I pointed out in response to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), there are now more highly qualified teachers than ever before in all our schools. I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in championing the reforms we have made, which have brought hope to her constituents, who I am afraid suffered in the past as a result of a failed, leftist, National Union of Teachers orthodoxy, which I hope that she, like me, as a Blairite, will now vigorously condemn.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
Is it any wonder that Britain’s youth have not been prepared for the global race? Under Labour, one in every three pupils left primary school unable to read and write, the number of pupils sitting hard-core subjects halved and our employers totally lost faith in our exam system.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the things that has changed under this Government is that more students than ever before are studying physics, chemistry and biology, and we have seen a revival in the number studying modern foreign languages and an increase in the number studying geography and history at GCSE. Those are the subjects that give students the chance to succeed and that advance social mobility. I hope that Opposition Front Benchers will at last endorse the English baccalaureate, which has driven those changes.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
May I remind the Secretary of State that in the mid-1990s some schools in my constituency had roofs that leaked and fewer than 10% of their pupils got five or more good GCSEs? Will he acknowledge that at the core of the many improvements that have taken place since has been a teaching work force who are both highly motivated and properly qualified?
Michael Gove
I have enormous respect for the right hon. Gentleman. He is right that one of the things we need to do is ensure that there is proper investment in every part of our schools system. That is why it is so important that the PISA report confirms that we have one of the most socially just systems of education funding. It is also critically important that we have reduced the cost of new school building so that we can spread our investment more equitably. He is right about more highly qualified teachers, which is why it is good that there are more graduates with better degrees than ever before in our schools.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The Secretary of State has rightly highlighted the need for exam reform, but when I taught year 1 it was obvious that too many children turned up ill-prepared and ill-equipped for school compared with their peers, so early intervention is really important. I urge him to look closely at the imagination library model we have set up in North Lincolnshire, which now provides free books every month to 3,500 children in the area.
Michael Gove
It sounds like a fantastic initiative, and it reinforces the additional investment we have made in the early years.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
Is there any connection between the fact that the UK is struggling in international league tables when trying to develop a globally competitive work force and the fact that there are unqualified maths teachers in our schools?
Michael Gove
We have more highly qualified teachers in our schools than ever before, particularly in mathematics.
Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend remember visiting Falmer high school in my constituency, which has now been replaced by the excellent Brighton Aldridge community academy, which is driving up standards and improving chances for young people who really need it?
Michael Gove
I do remember visiting that school and applaud my hon. Friend’s commitment to advancing educational achievement for all students. Let me take this opportunity to thank Rod Aldridge and all the sponsors behind the academies programme, who have done so much to tackle underperformance in our weaker schools. They are heroes.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has said that accountability should be intelligent, but for too many schools in my constituency the Ofsted inspections over the past decade have not felt intelligent. They have failed to take account of the progress that has been made and the ability of the schools to progress further, focusing instead on an attainment level. Is it not now time to reform the process so that real improvement can be supported and encouraged further?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The chief inspector agrees with her, as do I. We are changing the way schools are measured in league tables in order to ensure that it is progress that matters, rather than simply raw attainment. Ofsted inspections are becoming more sophisticated, with more serving senior leaders conducting them.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
We see in these results that in the highest-performing countries children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more than twice as likely as similarly disadvantaged children in the UK to make it into the world’s top quartile in mathematics. Does that not demonstrate how necessary it is that we have the additional pupil premium money, ensuring that every child has a decent chance to get on in life?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The investment in the pupil premium, the investment in additional pre-school education for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds and a concentration on helping students who are falling behind in year 6 at the end of primary school to catch up—all policies championed by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Schools—are integral to advancing social mobility.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the most serious issues is the disparity between the achievement of boys and girls in maths and science, which is the result of deep-seated cultural and educational bias within the system. One of the ways of addressing that is to engage businesses, particularly manufacturing, in schools and to have schools assessed on their ability to get students into vocational as well as academic occupations. Unfortunately, the Government have not been prepared to take up the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recommendation on that. Will the Secretary of State look at it again?
Michael Gove
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is vital that we build on and improve the links between business and schools. The university technical colleges programme is designed to do just that, but there is much more we can do. I have been talking recently to Sir Charlie Mayfield, of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, to see how we can go even further. Of course, it is vital that we all embed the reforms set out in Alison Wolf’s report, which are designed to improve technical education and ensure that all education is more relevant to the work of business.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Last week I attended an inspirational awards evening at Hall Mead academy in my constituency, where the pupils are high achievers not only in academic subjects but in sport, drama, music, art and social and interpersonal skills. Does that not demonstrate how the Secretary of State’s reforms have given head teachers the freedom to enable their standards to rise continuously?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no tension between academic excellence and a rich range of extra-curricular activities; in fact, they reinforce each other, as the best schools recognise, including the academy in her constituency.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Between 1998 and 2010 in constituencies like mine, there were significant improvements in educational attainment and the quality of school buildings and equipment, due partly to the hard work of teachers, the support of the local authority, and the core funding that was put in. What is the Secretary of State doing to promote collaboration between these excellent and outstanding schools and head teachers and other schools, and what happened to the promise of £35 million in 2010?
Michael Gove
We are doing that through academy chains, multi-academy trusts, and the establishment of teaching school alliances. There are now more than 300 teaching schools, which have head teachers who are working with underperforming schools to provide continuous professional development and to enhance the quality of every interaction between every teacher and every child. The programme is being led by the inspirational head of the National College for Teaching and Leadership, Charlie Taylor.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
I gather that this morning my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to listen to the piece on the “Today” programme about maths in Singapore. It is difficult to believe that children in Singapore necessarily have any greater cognitive skills than their UK counterparts, so I wonder what work is being done to look at the process and technique of teaching mathematics in Singapore to see whether any lessons need to be learned.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Some schools, including academies and free schools such as those established by the ARK chain, explicitly use the Singaporean mathematics curriculum, but our new national curriculum has also been informed by practice not only in Singapore but in other high-performing jurisdictions.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
These figures will mask a lot of differences between the performance of children from different economic backgrounds. Given that children from poor backgrounds tend to perform much less well because of economic and educational disadvantage, what steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the performance of those children is improved and that resources are made available to them?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He is a teacher himself, so he knows how important it is to make sure that learning is targeted at children in an appropriate way to recognise the different abilities that different children have at different stages in their lives. Through the pupil premium, we are making sure that more money is spent at every stage of a child’s life if they come from a poorer background. We are also changing the way in which league tables operate so that more schools have to pay more attention to children from underprivileged backgrounds to ensure that we get the most out of them.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
An outstanding school is invariably led by an outstanding head teacher. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that every school has an outstanding head teacher? Will he consider introducing a system that allows excellent teachers who have been promoted to head teacher to move back down if they do not have the necessary skills to be an excellent head?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is not necessary to be an outstanding head teacher to be an outstanding contributor to excellence in one or in many schools. It is important that we recognise the different ways in which teachers can be celebrated. Our system of performance-related pay will ensure that people who are outstanding and want to lead and to exemplify great teaching will be rewarded appropriately. I therefore hope that Labour Members will support it.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State keeps claiming that there has been a reduction in the number of unqualified teachers, but will he confirm that there has been a whopping 141% increase in unqualified teachers in academies and free schools and explain how that will improve our international standing?
Michael Gove
There has been a significant reduction in the number of unqualified teachers overall. However, some schools in the free schools programme were formerly independent schools that did not have teachers with qualified teacher status. For example, University College school in Hampstead has had teachers who did not have qualified teacher status, as have outstanding schools like Liverpool College that are now in the state system. I am very glad that, thanks to the work of Lord Adonis in the other place, schools like Liverpool College have now entered the state system. We are nationalising these private schools, and that is a worthwhile, progressive goal with which, I hope, Labour Front Benchers would agree.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
What lessons does the Secretary of State take from the widening discrepancy in the PISA tests between English pupils and pupils in Labour-run Wales?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I am afraid that in Wales, a country for which I have enormous affection, the Welsh Labour Government chose to abandon league tables and external accountability. The current Welsh Administration are unfortunately not matching our commitment to spending in schools. The conclusion that we can draw is that if people want to know what our education system would be like if the country were foolishly to vote Labour at the next election, they need only look over the Severn to see a country going backwards.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State explain how the appointment of an unqualified maths teacher will help to design and deliver a course with a more stretching mathematical content?
Michael Gove
The fact that there are more highly qualified teachers in our schools than ever before is a very good thing that I hope the hon. Lady would support. If she is referring to South Leeds academy, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) did, the advertisement was misleading: it was not advertising for unqualified teachers but advertising for classroom assistants who would train in due course, as classroom assistants currently do. If the hon. Gentleman contacted the school, he would know that he has made a mistake. I hope that he will contact the school to apologise for his unfair and inaccurate depiction of the situation and show himself to be big enough to apologise for having got something wrong.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend explain why, while English schools have sadly fallen down the league tables, GCSE rates have soared?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Last time the OECD issued a report, I am afraid that Opposition Front Benchers rubbished it because, so they said, GCSE results improved under Labour. It is therefore clearly the case that our children are significantly more literate and numerate. The truth is that there was improvement under the previous Government, but, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) pointed out, there was also grade inflation. That grade inflation has been laid bare by international studies showing that while we have improved, other countries have improved far faster, and it is vitally important that we recognise that and learn from them.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The results in Wales are disappointing, but they are also disappointing in other parts of the UK, so making political capital is the wrong approach. Does the Secretary of State agree that a common lesson is the need to focus relentlessly on underperformance, and that that is a job not just for governors, head teachers and school teachers but for parents, communities and political leaders, not least those in areas of deprivation and disadvantage?
Michael Gove
I cannot disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s conclusion. I would say, however, that the Welsh Administration chose to follow a different path than the reformist path set out by Tony Blair in his education White Paper in 2006. Labour in government deliberately got rid of Tony Blair and abandoned the path of reform during its last three years in office. There is now an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman, who calls himself a Blairite, to embrace reform by agreeing with us. I hope that he will, and that he will learn the lesson from history and from Wales that if you abandon reform, the electorate abandon you.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Will performance-related pay help to incentivise heads and teachers to hold teacher training days during the school holidays and not on the first day of term? [Interruption.]
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes not only an acute but a popular point. An interesting thing about the situation in Shanghai is that teacher training—20 days of it, in fact—takes place during the summer holidays. I am not suggesting that we embark on that road now, but I would underline that when we are learning lessons from abroad, we need to acknowledge the vital importance of making sure that continuous professional development is implemented in a way that helps teachers and takes account of parents’ needs.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
If Hackney schools’ results were extrapolated nationally, we would be about third in the international league tables. That is a direct result of inspired Labour local political leadership, collaboration between excellent head teachers, and the right sort of Government support. What is the Secretary of State doing to make sure that such collaboration is nationalised—to use his word—so that children of all abilities and backgrounds across the country are achieving as they are in Hackney, where the poorest children are progressing as well as the richest?
Michael Gove
I have often had the opportunity in the past to draw attention to how well Hackney performs and, indeed, how effectively Hackney is represented in this House by its two MPs when it comes to educational matters. As both the hon. Lady and her parliamentary neighbour acknowledge, it is an emphasis on academic excellence and, indeed, the growth in academy schools that has driven Hackney’s improvement. It is really important that she keeps her Front-Bench colleagues honest by making sure that they back academic excellence and the spread of academisation.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
The Secretary of State has rightly touched on the comparative poor performance in Wales. Would he blame that primarily on the fact that we have a £600 per head funding gap as a result of Labour policy or on the fact that the Labour Government in Cardiff have accepted teaching union dogma for the past 15 years?
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
These figures are actually further evidence of the lamentable failure of successive Governments and our country in general to take education seriously enough, so will the Secretary of State set aside his partisan point scoring and agree that what this country needs is a royal commission in order to get cross-party agreement and the support of the teaching profession, business and parents to make education our No.1 priority and to back policies and long-term funding to transform the quality of education our children receive?
Michael Gove
I have a lot of time and admiration for the hon. Gentleman. I am not in favour of a royal commission. As someone once said, royal commissions take minutes and last years. I agree that we need a sense of national urgency and a unified commitment to raising standards. I know that the hon. Gentleman agrees in almost every respect with the details of our educational reform, and I look forward to working with him further in the future.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has highlighted that the best educational systems feature high levels of autonomy. What freedoms is he giving to head teachers to help them get the very best out of pupils?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under the academies programme, head teachers have the freedom—as is being used in the King Solomon academy in one of the most deprived parts of London—to vary the curriculum in order to make it fit the needs of individual students. We are also giving all schools greater freedom over who they recruit and how they reward them, in order to make sure that we continue to have more and more talented people in our classrooms.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Andreas Schleicher also said that no education system can exceed the quality of its teachers. How does a 141% increase in unqualified teachers in free schools and academies help improve quality?
Michael Gove
As I pointed out in response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), the increase in the number of unqualified teachers in academies and free schools is a direct result of the nationalisation of independent schools. Overall, the reduction under this Government in the number of teachers without teaching qualifications reflects the fact that teachers are now better qualified than ever before. Critically, the decision over who to hire should be a matter for head teachers. It is critical to the success of any education system that we respect the autonomy of great head teachers to recruit people with the right qualifications for their community and students.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The Secretary of State will recall meeting some of the outstanding head teachers in Northumberland with me and then authorising the rebuild of Prudhoe community high school. Does he agree with me, Lord Adonis and the other authors of the Adonis report that there is scope for a London challenge-type approach in the north-east?
Michael Gove
A lot needs to be done in the north-east in order to improve education. One thing we need to do is ensure that local authorities end their opposition to academisation and free schools and that there is a degree of collaboration among autonomous head teachers who are determined to drive up standards, as we have seen in London.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
The architect of PISA has demonstrated categorically that the lowest-performing schools in the OECD have autonomy but not a collaborative culture. Is that not the perfect description of the Secretary of State’s reform programme?
Michael Gove
No. The perfect description of our reform programme is that it is based on social justice and recognises that the strongest systems combine autonomy with stricter accountability. We have introduced stricter accountability through changes both to Ofsted and to league tables. Unfortunately, those on the Labour Front Bench have not endorsed those changes to help drive up standards. They should be listening to outstanding head teachers who have the right idea, such as Dame Yasmin Bevan in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The sooner he introduces her to his Front-Bench colleagues, the better for all of us.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is important that our primary school children are taught by men as well as women, and will he confirm that the number of men training to be primary school teachers is on the rise?
Michael Gove
It is absolutely right that we encourage more men to consider teaching, particularly in primary schools, as an aspirational profession. I am delighted that there has been an increase in the number of highly talented men entering primary teaching.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Although it may be politically attractive to try to scare people with the red herring of unqualified teachers, is this not really a question of trusting heads? Non-qualified teacher status teachers have long existed in the state sector, but they are relatively few in number and fewer now than under the previous Government. As it happens, the most improved region—London—employs the most.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically well-informed point. One of the revealing things over the past 50 minutes or so is that some Labour MPs have been wise enough to acknowledge that there is a great deal of common ground between both parties on the need to reform our schools system, but those Labour MPs who have asked critical questions have criticised us on only one thing and they have used statistics that, I am afraid, simply mislead.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
In maths, science and reading, Poland is at least 10 places above us in the international league tables. Does Poland spend more than us on education? If not, what is it doing that we could emulate?
Michael Gove
Poland does not spend more than us; indeed, Vietnam, which outperforms us in mathematics, spends significantly less than us. What they do have is a commitment to higher standards that are rigorously policed. Poland’s curriculum is modelled on, or is similar to, our English baccalaureate. Both Vietnam and Poland have a determination to place standards on a higher plane than those on the Opposition Front Bench would contemplate.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that the outcomes in Wales are nothing short of a scandal and that they are the ultimate demonstration of Labour’s education policy in action? There are parents across Wales, and even some in this House, who are genuinely worried about the future of their children’s education. Will the Secretary of State encourage the Welsh Government to follow his robust reforms?
Michael Gove
Wales acts almost as a controlled sample. Welsh children are as intelligent and motivated as children in England, but unfortunately in Wales there are no academies, no free schools, no league tables, no chief inspector such as Sir Michael Wilshaw and no determination to reform like this coalition Government. It is an object lesson in what happens when people abandon reform and succumb to the NUT orthodoxy, which I am afraid has suffocated aspiration for far too many children in the Principality.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
University technical schools have huge potential to transform education through their emphasis on technical education, vocation and science and mathematics. Such a school will open in Harlow next year. Will my right hon. Friend expand the university technical school programme even further in order that young people may gain the vocational and technical expertise from which they will benefit?
Michael Gove
University technical colleges are an excellent innovation and we want to make sure that there are more high-performing UTCs.
Mr Speaker
I am pleased to say that 45 Back Benchers contributed in only 36 minutes of exclusively Back-Bench time, which is a commentary on the succinctness of both the questions and the answers. I thank colleagues for that.
Education Reform: National Curriculum
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
On 11 September 2013, I published the new national curriculum for all subjects except for English, mathematics and science at key stage 4.
Today, I am publishing for consultation the programmes of study for English and mathematics at key stage 4. The consultation will run until 3 February 2014. On 1 November we published the new GCSE subject content for English language, English literature and mathematics. It is important to consider these programmes of study alongside the GCSE subject content to ensure that the curriculum and qualifications are fully coherent.
The programme of study in mathematics at key stage 4 is more challenging. It has been drafted by experts to ensure that it sets expectations that match those in the highest performing jurisdictions. There is broader and deeper mathematical content with a focus on application of mathematical knowledge and skills to solve problems. The content is closely aligned to GCSE content. More challenging content specifically for higher achieving students is explicitly identified. There is a focus on consolidation and building on key stage 3, emphasising that mathematics is an interconnected subject. The proposals will provide better preparation for post-16 mathematics by providing foundations for advanced topics like calculus.
In English, the programme of study has been strengthened to ensure all pupils read a wide range of high-quality, challenging and classic English literature. There is a renewed focus on the reading of whole texts which should include at least one play by Shakespeare, works from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and poetry since 1789, including romantic poetry. The language requirement is also more demanding and pupils will be expected to speak fluently and use linguistic and literary terminology effectively and confidently in their written and spoken English.
The programmes of study for English and mathematics will be introduced from September 2015, alongside first teaching of the new qualifications. We will be consulting on science at key stage 4 in the spring of 2014 in line with the timetable for the development of the new science qualifications.
Copies of the consultation on programmes of study for key stage 4 English and mathematics will be placed in Libraries of both Houses.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to allow head teachers greater autonomy in their schools.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
The welcome growth in the number of academies has provided more freedom for more head teachers to raise standards for more students, especially the poorest.
Mr Raab
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Although a formal teaching qualification may be a bonus, with Ofsted’s rigorous new inspection regime and performance-related pay, does he agree that it would be dogmatic in the extreme to force heads to fire 15,000 teachers, regardless of their impact in the classroom, just because they do not hold a piece of paper?
Michael Gove
That is a characteristically acute point from my hon. Friend. The most important thing we need to do is ensure that the quality of teaching in our schools is improving. Ofsted tells us that it is, and I am delighted to report that to the House. That is a result of our reforms.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
What will the Secretary of State do about Kings science academy in Bradford and the disaster that is that school? There are fines for admission policies, and it looks like criminality as well.
Michael Gove
There are certainly questions to be answered by those responsible for Kings science academy, but I stress that all academies and free schools are more rigorously audited and held accountable than local authority schools. I also stress that for many years the quality of education in Bradford has been appalling, yet it is only when new providers come in to innovate that we hear from Opposition Members. They are prepared consistently to turn a blind eye to Labour local authorities that fail, yet whenever there is any challenge to that complacency, all they can do is talk cynically about those idealists who are trying to improve state education.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
The Secretary of State will be aware from the recent Defence Committee inquiry that the education statements contained in the armed forces covenant clash with the Education Act 2011 on admissions to school. With that in mind, should head teachers of Army-focused schools have more authority over whom they admit to their schools?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. One thing that he has done consistently in his time in the House is to ensure that schools in garrison towns such as the one that he represents take appropriate account of the need of our armed forces and their children, particularly at times of movement and redeployment. I would be happy to talk to him more closely about how we can ensure not only that admissions arrangements but additional support are there for those families. We have introduced the service premium for the children of those in the armed forces. I hope that the introduction of that additional cash will help his constituents and those of every other hon. Member.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State share my expectation that head teachers, when they exercise greater autonomy, take account of the needs of the area in which they teach and operate, which we are trying to achieve in Birmingham? Will he encourage them to do so?
Michael Gove
I absolutely would encourage them to do that. Let me pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her work in bringing teachers together in Birmingham to introduce the Birmingham baccalaureate, which is a perfect preparation both for the world of work and for further and higher education. One problem in Birmingham for many years has been a culture of underperformance in far too many schools, and that has been insufficiently challenged by the local authority. It should not have to fall to her to do the job that the council should have been doing, but if I would trust anyone to do that job instead of the council, it would be her.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
14. What his policy is on oversight of free schools.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Free schools and academies are held more rigorously to account than any other schools.
John Cryer
Well, that is a bit of a shock, because it is widely accepted that the democratic scrutiny and oversight of state schools is pretty intense but hardly exists at all for free schools. Does the Secretary of State not worry that that has led to the scandals of the past few months, which could well be the tip of the iceberg? We could see more scandals over the next few years because of that lack of democratic scrutiny.
Michael Gove
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was surprised by either the content or the brevity of my response, but let me spell things out in slightly greater detail. Academies and free schools have an accounting officer in the way that local authority schools do not; and academies and free schools have to file accounts every year in a way that local authority schools do not. The National Audit Office has pointed out that the scrutiny of schools by local authorities is not what we should expect. The hon. Gentleman is right that there are problems in individual academies and free schools, but there are also problems in individual local authority schools. We know what has gone wrong in academies and free schools because this Government have put in place an improved system of scrutiny for them.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
20. Does the Secretary of State agree that the problems at the school in Bradford highlighted earlier are nothing to do with it being a free school? Will he comment on the One in a Million free school, which recently opened in Bradford? It was over-subscribed and is doing a fantastic job of providing the education that is much needed in that part of Bradford.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The highest-performing school in Bradford is, I believe, an academy. New free schools that have arrived in Bradford have, until recently, been welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Increased choice for parents and an increased range of schools have helped to drive up standards across the UK. It is striking that schools in England have consistently improved over the past few years in a way that schools in Wales have not. That is because we have not only parental choice, free schools and academies, but a rigorous inspectorate and league tables, which enable us to identify good practice and spread it more energetically.
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)
I am pleased to hear what the Secretary of State has said on the rigorous oversight for financial purposes of free schools. The Ofsted report on the Al-Madinah school in my constituency has been published, but when does he expect to publish the report of the external funding agency?
Michael Gove
The report is by the Education Funding Agency rather than the external funding agency, but I take the right hon. Lady’s point. We have published more about the Al-Madinah free school than has been published about other local authority schools in Derby. It is striking that she raises the weakness of the Al-Madinah free school when, as Ofsted has pointed out with respect to Derby, it is in one of the weakest areas of school improvement of any local authority. In consultation with the EFA, we will ensure that every piece of information necessary about the fate of that school is published at the appropriate time, in the appropriate way. However, it must be stressed that the action we have taken to deal with the Al-Madinah free school was taken faster than any action taken by Labour-led Derby council to deal with any of the underperforming schools in that great city.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the case of Al-Madinah school in Derby shows that the Government will not tolerate failure in education establishments, whether they are free schools or local authority schools?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Schools, including Sinfin school and Grampian school, were allowed to fail in Derby. When they were taken over as academies under this Government, they all saw real improvement in performance. Derby was among the 20% of local authorities that were the weakest when it came to school improvement. The right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) said nothing about that then, but she turns a Nelsonian blind eye to failure by Labour local authorities. When this Government take steps to improve state education, she has nothing to say.
Mr Speaker
I do not know what the Secretary of State is having for breakfast, but it is obviously achieving the desired effect.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State sat on the damning report on the Kings science academy scandal for more than five months. When was he planning to tell us that the school had been fined an additional £4,000 for refusing to implement the direction of the independent review panel? Why is there so much secrecy around these schools? Is it because, as he said earlier, he seems to think that fraud is acceptable as long as those responsible are innovators?
Michael Gove
There is less secrecy around these schools than there is around local authority schools. We have published the internal audit report on what happened at the Kings science academy. We informed the Home Office of our concerns about that school, and the reason the hon. Gentleman knows so much about the school is that this Government have been far more transparent about institutional failure than the Government of whom he was a member. [Interruption.] However much he may prate and cry from a sedentary position, he knows that this Government have been more transparent about failure and more determined to turn schools around and generate success than his ever was.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
15. What plans he has for teacher supply and recruitment.
Mr David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
Next year, my Department will be joining the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that all children have the opportunity to learn from, and commemorate, the sacrifice of those who fell in the first world war. We will be building on the work of the excellent Holocaust Educational Trust, which ensures that children have the chance to travel to Auschwitz, so that children in all state schools have an opportunity to visit the battlefields of the first world war.
Mr Crausby
The Secretary of State will know that there is no requirement on schools to have a defibrillator on the premises. Is it not time for such a requirement, to ensure that all children and staff are protected? It cannot be right to leave it to parent teacher association fundraising and charities, which have so much else to do. What plans does he have to put that right?
Michael Gove
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has been campaigning on this issue and I will be meeting him shortly. There is much to be said for supporting schools to ensure that defibrillators are in place. I want to work with the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole to do that in the most effective way.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
T2. Last week, I was pleased to help launch “My Education”, a report produced by Teach First and Pearson, which surveyed 8,000 British teenagers on their education. The overwhelming majority said that more work experience and better careers advice would help them find the right future. Following that overwhelming response, can the Secretary of State assure us that the National Careers Service will be enabled to support the delivery of careers advice and guidance in schools to the betterment of our entire population?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is important to stress that we need to ensure more work experience opportunities for all young people, which is why we have changed how children are funded when they enter post-16 education to make it easier to offer the appropriate work experience. I also agree that we need to ensure that careers advice for young people is suitably inspiring and to see whether the National Careers Service or other institutions can help. In particular, it is important to work with businesses to ensure that young people have the opportunity to see and hear from the role models who will ensure they make the right choices in the future.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that under his plans, students who study only the English language GCSE will be excluded from studying the great works of English literature?
Tristram Hunt
The Secretary of State is not aware of his own GCSE reforms. He has introduced the soft bigotry of low expectations into our education system. He might have enjoyed studying the works of Jane Austen and Wilfred Owen, but he is denying England’s pupils the same access to our national canon if they take only the English language GCSE. If it was all right for him, at Robert Gordon’s college, why is it not okay for kids in Harlow and Blackpool today? Will he now urgently review the changes to English GCSE, or will he continue to dumb down our syllabus?
Michael Gove
Tragically, when I was a student at Robert Gordon’s college in Aberdeen, I was not able to take English GCSE, because I was in Scotland and GCSEs were not on offer at that time. As a historian, the hon. Gentleman could perhaps do with studying geography rather more.
Under our new accountability system, which I urge the hon. Gentleman to study and which his colleague, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), welcomed, English will not count unless students study both English language and literature, and the English baccalaureate, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) supports, will be conferred on students only if they study both English language and literature. He talks about Jane Austen. One of the tragedies about the current English GCSE is that fewer than 1% of students who sit it actually read a word of Jane Austen. Before he asks another question in the House, may I recommend to him one particular text of hers—“Pride and Prejudice”? A knowledge of both things would certainly help him to be a more effective Opposition spokesperson.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
T4. What precisely is being done to ensure the availability of high-quality early-years provision?
Michael Gove
Thank you. The hon. Gentleman is my hero.
As I have pointed out in speech after speech—I will send them to the hon. Lady—we must always seek to ensure that accidents of birth or circumstances never hold any child back. One of the great things about education is that children can constantly surprise us with their ability. To the historians on the Opposition Front Bench, I would recommend the words of my predecessor in my role as Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher: advisers advise, but Ministers decide.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
T6. I welcome the Minister’s earlier commitment to healthy school lunches. Will he ensure that head teachers retain the autonomy to establish high standards in the provision of these lunches and are not, because of shared contracts, left at the mercy of one particular provider?
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Today sees the launch of Juice FM’s Knives Wreck Lives campaign in Liverpool, which aims to raise awareness among people on Merseyside of just how damaging knives can be. Will the Secretary of State welcome the campaign, and tell the House what he is doing in our schools and colleges to inform young people about the perils of knife crime?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing our attention to that exemplary campaign. I have campaigned against knife crime since before my time in the House. I worked with the widow of Philip Lawrence, who was the tragic victim of such a crime, in order to raise awareness of what could be done to tackle it in and outside schools. I also worked with two former Home Secretaries to ensure that combat knives were banned. I am delighted that head teachers in schools across the country are today using a variety of innovative methods and working with a variety of third sector groups to alert children to the dangers of carrying and using knives, but there is of course much more to be done and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady and other Members in that endeavour.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
This is the first Government to use Government time and Government Bills to advance the cause and rights of carers. Having already taken the welcome step of ensuring that a whole-family approach is taken to young carers and the people they care for, will the Government consider what further steps they could take to extend that approach to parent carers of disabled children?
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
Following the abject failure of the Secretary of State’s free school experiment at the Al-Madinah school in Derby, will he now give the local education authority the ability to scrutinise the school and make it accountable to the LEA? If the school closes, will he ensure that Derby city council has sufficient resources to accommodate the children in council-run schools?
Michael Gove
There are certainly serious issues at the Al-Madinah free school, as we all acknowledge, but it is important to put them in context. Of the first 24 free schools to be inspected, 75% were good or better, whereas in the first tranche of new local authority schools set up in the same period, only half reached that quality threshold. It is also important to recognise that the local authority in Derby has a poor record of helping to challenge underperforming schools, and that outside providers such as Barry Day of Greenwood Dale have done far more to improve education in Derby than the local authority has ever done.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Primary schools in rural communities face special challenges. In our recent report on rural communities, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee urged Ministers to give back to local authorities the flexibility to spend the most on those primary schools in the greatest need. Can we have that flexibility back?
Michael Gove
There is flexibility in the current approach. There is a lump sum attached to every school that ensures that smaller schools that are doing a great job can continue to provide high-quality education for children in rural areas, but the changes we are making to introduce a national fair funding formula will go even further to meet my hon. Friend’s concerns.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Local head teachers tell me that Bristol city council is advising them to offer funded early education in just the mornings or just the afternoons so that they can avoid the cost of providing free school meals to eligible children. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that these children are missing out on their school dinners and that statutory guidance to offer education at times that best support the child’s learning is being breached?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing that to my attention. I would love to have a chance to know more about the particular situation that she rightly raises. It is important that all children get the nutrition and the education they deserve.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
Some 1.2 million children living within the Government’s own definition of childhood poverty do not get a free school meal. Why do the Government consider it a higher priority to give free school meals to all five, six and seven-year-olds, 1.3 million of whom can perfectly well afford to pay?
Michael Gove
I am pleased to be in a coalition Government when the Deputy Prime Minister has made a commitment to the extension of free school meals to five, six and seven-year-olds. We should never make the perfect the enemy of the good. Let me take this opportunity to praise Liberal Democrat colleagues who worked with us in order to ensure that more children have the opportunity to enjoy high-quality lunches. Let me say, too, to the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), with whom I normally agree, that on this occasion I have to part company with him and say that his leader has done the right thing, with which I am delighted to be associated.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has said that circumstances should never hold any child back. How, then, does he plan to respond to this week’s Institute for Fiscal Studies report that showed that grammar schools are five times less likely to admit poorer children than their state counterparts?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes an important point. The introduction of academies and free schools is making sure that more children have the chance to attend academically excellent schools. For those living in areas where there are grammar schools who feel that the quality of education they enjoy is not good enough, we are providing choice through the growth of academies and choice through the growth of free schools. Through the pupil premium we are investing £2.5 billion for the very poorest children—a commitment to social justice of the kind to which I know Mr Speaker believes we should all be committed.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman is quite correct. That is quite a convenient way of trying to keep onside when time is pressing.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is it appropriate for either teachers or pupils to wear the full-face veil in the classroom, and if the answer is no, what regulations are in place to proscribe the wearing of such?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Matters of school uniform are rightly questions that head teachers should decide on, or college principals should be responsible for. I hope it is clear that the wearing of any item that impedes effective teaching or effective learning is something that we should all ensure does not happen in the classroom. I am working with both the chief inspector of schools and officials within the Department for Education in order to ensure that schools and individuals receive an unambiguous message about the vital importance of ensuring that cultural or other barriers do not impede the capacity to learn of children from whatever community.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree with his most trusted adviser that “real talent” is rare among the nation’s teachers. If not, was it an error of judgment to give him free rein over education policy?
Michael Gove
I agree with all my advisers that real talent is rare on the Labour Benches, which is why it is so important that we ensure that this Government are re-elected in a few years’ time.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
May I be assured that the asbestos in schools steering group will continue, given the importance of developing a clear, up-to-date policy and strategy regarding asbestos?
Property Data Survey
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I wish to inform the House of the latest position regarding the property data survey—the condition survey of all school buildings.
In 2007, the previous Government abandoned the systematic collection of information on the condition of schools. Some local authorities sensibly continued to survey their schools but many did not. The last time we had a national picture of the condition of our schools was in 2005—now eight years ago.
In his review of education capital, Sebastian James, recommended that we put this right. He proposed that we gather all existing local condition data into a central database. In July 2011, I announced that we would start work immediately to collect up-to-date information on the condition of school buildings by re-surveying the estate.
My aim was to complete this by autumn 2013. In order to make this achievable we looked to use locally prepared data where it was believed to be up to date and of good quality. Approximately 90 local authorities submitted local condition surveys for analysis on that basis.
Our quality assurance process identified however that locally produced survey data were, in some cases, not accurate and, in others, inconsistent.
I have now instructed my Department to extend its central surveys to cover all schools for which local authorities have supplied data. This means undertaking an additional 8,000 surveys, which will take approximately a further eight months to complete. By next summer we will have collected up-to-date, reliable and validated condition information for the entire schools estate. My intention remains to target funding to where it is most needed and I will use the information from the surveys to do that from 2015-16.
Proceeding in this way means that, in 2014-15, I will be allocating maintenance funding using the same methodology as I used in 2013-14 and I will set out the detail of all the allocations and the technical basis on which they were made when I announce them.
GCSEs Reform (English and Mathematics)
Michael Gove Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)
I announced in February my intention to reform GCSEs to ensure they are rigorous and robust and give students access to high-quality qualifications which match expectations in the highest performing jurisdictions.
Today I am publishing the outcome of a consultation on subject content for new GCSEs in English literature, English language and mathematics, which will be taught in schools from September 2015. I have prioritised English and mathematics because they are both fundamental to facilitating learning in other subjects, and yet the programme for international student assessment (PISA) evidence demonstrates that 15-year-olds in nine other countries are, on average, at least half a year ahead of students in England in both reading and mathematics. Reform of these key subjects is, therefore, a matter of pressing urgency.
The new mathematics GCSE will demand deeper and broader mathematical understanding. It will provide all students with greater coverage of key areas such as ratio, proportion and rates of change and require them to apply their knowledge and reasoning to provide clear mathematical arguments. It will focus on ensuring that every student masters the fundamental mathematics that is required for further education and future careers. It will provide greater challenge for the most able students by thoroughly testing their understanding of the mathematical knowledge needed for higher-level study and careers in mathematics, the sciences and computing.
The new mathematics GCSE will be more demanding and we anticipate that schools will want to increase the time spent teaching mathematics. On average secondary schools in England spend only 116 hours per year teaching mathematics, which international studies show is far less time than that spent on this vital subject by our competitors. Just one extra lesson each week would put England closer to countries like Australia or Singapore who teach 143 and 138 hours a year of mathematics respectively. We announced on 14 October that mathematics, alongside English, will be double weighted in secondary school performance measures from 2016. This will also provide a strong incentive for schools to ensure that they are strengthening their mathematics provision.
My ambition is that the great majority of students should continue to study mathematics, post-16, by 2020. All students without a grade C or above will continue to study mathematics post-16. New high quality “Core maths” qualifications will be introduced from 2015 for students who have passed GCSE, and want to continue to improve the mathematics skills they need for further education and work, but do not wish to take a full AS or A level. The new GCSEs will provide a firm foundation for this further study.
The English language GCSE will provide all students with a robust foundation of reading and good written English, and with the language and literary skills which are required for further study and work. It will ensure that students can read fluently and write effectively, and will have 20% of the marks awarded for accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar. It will also encourage the study of literature for those who do not take the English literature GCSE, with students reading high-quality texts across a range of genres and periods.
The new English literature GCSE will build on this foundation, and encourage students to read, write and think critically. It will involve students studying a range of intellectually challenging and substantial whole texts in detail including Shakespeare, 19th century novels. Romantic poetry and other high-quality fiction and drama.
The new GCSE will also ensure that all students are examined on some “unseen” texts, encouraging students to read widely and rewarding those who can demonstrate the breadth of their understanding.
In September of this year Ofqual and I confirmed that, for the remaining subjects consulted on, new GCSEs will be ready for teaching from 2016. The content for those subjects will be published in spring 2014.
The new GCSEs in English and mathematics set higher expectations; they demand more from all students and provide further challenge for those aiming to achieve top grades. Alongside the GCSE content we are publishing today, Ofqual is announcing its decisions on the key characteristics of reformed GCSEs, including new arrangements for grading and assessment.
The Government’s response to their consultation and the new subject content for GCSEs in English literature, English language and mathematics have been published on their website and I will place copies of these documents in the House Libraries.