Schools White Paper

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Let me start with an old proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Local parents and communities must be at the heart of decision making about their children, to increase accountability across schools. Constituencies such as mine have added complexities regarding what teachers face because of community demographics and socio-economic factors. I cannot go and sell to my community and constituents a White Paper that is not based on evidence or the needs of that local community, or that contains unnecessary costs that will not tackle deep-rooted issues of failure and falling educational standards. Funds have been cut for pupils and pupil places, and in my constituency some schools have not had funding through the schools building programme allocated to them and have had to stop their work. We must address such issues in my local schools.

We need investment, not drawn-out and expensive governance change. Structural changes do not tackle poor attainment—in fact, they detract from it, and that does not support headteachers and teachers in leading their staff and developing our children and their education. Instead, we focus on targets, as opposed to achievements and developing our children, and that is simply not good enough.

As many Members have highlighted, the Government have not hit on a magic formula. We have seen massive outcome disparity from academisation, and massive attainment difference in the chains into which the academy is incorporated, in much the same way that different local authorities get different results. Governance changes are not a substitute for front-line investment or an answer for failures, and I urge the Government to rethink them.

In conclusion, I like cooking and my mother always says to me, “If you’re going to cook a curry and it is not right, changing the pot and getting a fancy one will not fix the curry.” We need to get the ingredients right for this, and those in the White Paper do not make that curry for my constituents in Bradford West. I urge the Secretary of State to rethink this issue.