Nick Gibb
Main Page: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)Department Debates - View all Nick Gibb's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
2. What assessment he has made of the effects of the decision not to include religious education in the English baccalaureate.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We have had a large number of representations about the potential effect of the English baccalaureate on religious education in schools. We are carrying out our own work to assess the extent of the changes that schools are making from next year, and we shall continue to monitor the take-up of all subjects and the associated staffing implications. Religious education remains a vital subject that it is compulsory for all schools to teach through to the age of 16.
Stephen Lloyd
I have been lobbying the Government on this issue for some months now. The schools Minister has repeatedly asked for evidence to back up claims that excluding RE from the E-bac will have a negative impact on take-up and teaching provision. Last week, a report by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education, based on evidence from half of all state schools in England, showed that a quarter of schools are not providing statutory RE for 14 to 16-year-olds. Will the Minister address the issue, now that we have the proof?
Mr Gibb
The NATRE study cited by my hon. Friend suggests that around one in six schools anticipate a drop in religious studies entries at GCSE related to the E-bac, but it is not clear what overall effect that might have on take-up. Well over half of schools specifically indicated in that survey that there would not be a drop in GCSE entries in RS; indeed, a proportion said that there would be an increase in entries. That bears out the fact that the English baccalaureate does not prevent any school from offering RS GCSEs, and RE remains a statutory part of the curriculum.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I do not know whether you are a fan of films of the ‘80s, Mr Speaker, but you might remember one called “Back to the Future”. It starred a man called Michael who was trapped in the 1950s—an echo, perhaps, of someone else in modern politics. Ministers are hopelessly stuck in the past: they drop work experience at key stage 4 and promote Latin above engineering, ICT and RE, yet we know religious education helps young people understand the world today. Ministers tell us that the E-bac is what parents and students want, so will the Minister tell us what percentage of year 9 students who have recently chosen their GCSE options have opted for the English bac?
Mr Gibb
We do not collect the figure centrally. We will see the effect of the English baccalaureate when we see the GCSE results this year, next year and the year after that. If the right hon. Gentleman wants a modern curriculum, he should be aware that we need modern languages to be taught in our schools. Under his watch, the numbers entering for GCSE in modern languages plummeted from 79% in the year 2000 to just 43% last year, while the proportion taking geography fell from 44% in 1997 to 27% last year. The range of subjects in the English baccalaureate is mirrored elsewhere in modern emerging economies such as Singapore, France, Japan and Alberta. [Hon. Members: “Alberta?”] In Canada. Those are the most successful education jurisdictions.
Andy Burnham
It is just not good enough that the Minister does not know about the impact his policies are having on student choices in schools. In my constituency, about 30% of young people are opting for the English bac; what does the Minister have to say to the other 70% who have chosen not to do it? RE teachers, music teachers and art teachers are at risk of redundancy because of the English baccalaureate. No wonder nine faith leaders wrote to The Daily Telegraph this weekend to say that they were
“gravely concerned about the negative impact current Government policies are having on RE in schools”.
Ministers promised freedom, choice and autonomy in education; is it not time that they started living up to those words?
Mr Gibb
If we were to take advice from the right hon. Gentleman, we would have a cap on aspiration for young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. He should be ashamed of the fact that his Government left this Government a legacy whereby only 8% of pupils on free school meals were even entered for the English baccalaureate subjects, and these are subjects that the Russell group of universities regards as the facilitating subjects that give rise to progression. Only 4% of those pupils actually achieved the results in comparison with 15.6% nationally. The right hon. Gentleman had a cap on aspiration; we want to raise aspiration right across the abilities and backgrounds of young people.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to ensure that public examinations are set to a high standard.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
7. How many schools in England are attended entirely by Traveller children.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
No schools in England are attended entirely by Traveller children.
Mr Hollobone
For the record, the Minister should be advised that Braybrooke primary school in my constituency is populated 100% by Traveller children. It must be the only school in the country where children from the local village do not attend and the entire population is made up of children from local Traveller camps. Will my hon. Friend be kind enough to visit the school to see how we might address this unique situation?
Mr Gibb
I will, of course, be delighted to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and Braybrooke primary school. The Government are committed to the promotion of community cohesion and to breaking down barriers between different groups in society, and we have committed £201 million within the dedicated schools grant to help schools raise the performance of ethnic minority pupils, including Traveller children.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
8. What recent representations he has received on face-to-face careers advice.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
10. When he plans to launch the internal review of personal, social, health and economic education announced in the teaching White Paper.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We will announce details of the internal review of personal, social, health and economic education shortly. The issues covered in this subject are very important. We are taking time to ensure that the review, when it starts, can identify what schools need to do to improve PSHE while allowing teachers the flexibility to use their judgment on how best to deliver it.
Jo Swinson
Figures reported last week showed that among 13 and 14-year-olds more than 1,000 abortions were carried out last year, which just highlights the need for us to do better in providing high-quality sex education taught in the context of relationships. Will the Minister stop delaying the review—it was due to start in February —so that we can ensure that children have access to the vital information and learning they need to develop into healthy and confident young adults?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend is right to say that these are important issues. Children need to have good-quality PSHE at schools, and that is precisely what the review will cover. We are taking our time setting up the review to ensure that its remit is correctly drafted and that the quality of the review gives rise to a high-quality improvement in the teaching of PSHE in those subjects in our schools.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
But will he ensure that the need for schools to help to prevent domestic violence and violence between boys and girls is made a priority in the review? Every relevant Committee of this House, including the most recent Select Committee on Home Affairs, has identified that although in Britain we are relatively good at dealing with the policing of domestic violence, we are very bad at preventing it. Schools have more of a role to play; will the Minister ensure that they do that?
Mr Gibb
Yes. We are determined to play a strong part in the cross-government action plan on ending violence, particularly against women and girls, that is led by the Home Office. We are providing support to families with multiple problems, funded by the early intervention grant, and we are taking forward the recommendations of the Reg Bailey review. The PSHE review will consider sexual consent, which is an important issue to cover, and we are raising standards of behaviour in our schools, with a particular focus on anti-bullying.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Following the publication of the internal review, will the Minister ensure that the consultation that is undertaken will restate the very important part that governors and parents play in the development of such policies?
Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
There has been an explosion in internal trafficking and the grooming of school girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and although I hate to add more ideas to the curriculum, schools need to discuss that, to identify the symptoms and to explain the dangers to children. I hate to add new material to the work of the Department, but could this problem now be tackled in schools by alerting children to what they might face and how to recognise it?
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
11. What assessment he has made of the level of interest in establishing university technical colleges.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
12. What recent representations he has received on the breadth of the curriculum.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We are currently reviewing the national curriculum. As part of that review, we carried out a call for evidence that attracted nearly 5,800 responses, including many that raised issues about the breadth of the curriculum. The national curriculum sets out the curriculum that all maintained schools must teach, but it is only part of the wider curriculum, which is determined by school themselves. All schools are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum.
Robert Flello
In considering representations, has the Minister thought about what Barack Obama’s Education Secretary said? He commented:
“U.S. students will need both the hard skills of math and English language arts and science, and the soft employability skills, to thrive in our flattened world.”
Will the Minister perhaps reconsider things such as the E-bac curriculum for a flattened world rather than continuing with the flat earth views he seems to have had until now?
Mr Gibb
Arne Duncan came to this country to see schools such as Mossbourne academy delivering a very high-quality curriculum. The hon. Gentleman must not confuse the national curriculum with the school curriculum. We do not want to set out every minute of every hour of every day in the national curriculum, which was the approach taken by the previous Government. We should leave it to the professionalism of teachers to determine the school curriculum, which covers issues such as soft skills and ensuring that children have a rounded education and are confident people when they leave school.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
In conducting his review of the curriculum, will my hon. Friend give consideration to the choices that young people make about GCSE subjects at a young age without having enough information about how those choices might affect their university aspirations? Will he ask schools to make sure that they are aware of the “Informed Choices” document recently published by the Russell group of universities?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is a concern that only 8% of young people who qualify for free school meals are even entered for the English baccalaureate subjects and that only 4% achieve the desired results. The Government are determined to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and those from wealthier backgrounds. Taking the right choices at GCSE and A-level is key to ensuring progression either into further and higher education or into successful employment.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
13. What recent representations he has received on encouraging children to study music.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
14. What recent representations he has received on the teaching of British history to all children of secondary school age.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We have received a number of representations about the teaching of history in secondary schools and about the place of British history in the curriculum. In addition, as part of our review of the national curriculum, our recent call for evidence attracted nearly 5,800 responses, of which more than 2,500 related to history.
Stephen Phillips
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. One of the great achievements of the previous Conservative Government was ensuring that every child learned some British history before leaving school, but some academies are now designing alternative curricula for pupils who will not achieve a C grade in the English baccalaureate, which might mean that they do not study history at all—at secondary school at least. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to impress on academy head teachers the importance of all children being taught British history?
Mr Gibb
I agree with my hon. and learned Friend about the importance of teaching history in schools, particularly British history, and we know that teachers share this view. Having the flexibility for teachers to be imaginative in how they design the curriculum within a broad and balanced context is a key feature of the academies programme, and the improvements we have seen in academies’ GCSE results suggests that this approach is working well among academies. However, we hope and expect that the curriculum review will deliver a high-quality national curriculum that academies will wish to adopt. It is important that we do not limit aspiration, as my hon. and learned Friend has said, and that is why we will be publishing data specifically about the GCSE results of lower-attaining students on a school-by-school basis.
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that the most recent Ofsted report stated that the decline in the teaching of British history was a myth? Is not the real issue that the average 11 to 13-year-old receives only 38 hours of history teaching a year, with academies being among the worst-performing schools in that regard?
Mr Gibb
There is a lot of very high-quality history teaching taking place at both primary and secondary level but we are concerned about the drop in the proportion of young people taking history at GCSE, which fell from 35% of the cohort in 1997 to just 31% in 2009. Addressing that lies at the heart of the reason for introducing the concept of the English baccalaureate.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
T2. Five families have been refused admission to Wootton primary school on the Isle of Wight from the beginning of next term, which means that four-year-olds will have to travel to other schools, the nearest of which is 2.5 miles away. Mothers who want to travel with their child would have to pay for that, assuming that public transport was available. This is a complete scandal. Surely the ridiculous limits on the size of primary schools imposed by the Labour party need to be reconsidered, and before the beginning of next term.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I have every sympathy with my hon. Friend’s point. It is not the first time that we have received reports of this nature, with families frustrated and confused by an admissions system that is too complex and bureaucratic and which effectively rations places in good and popular schools. That is why we are consulting on simpler and fairer admissions systems. The key point is that there are simply not enough good school places, so it was absurd that it was not possible before to raise the number of places in good schools. Increasing the flexibility to do so is therefore a major part of the new admissions code.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The baccalaureate’s emphasis on ancient history and Latin will allow our students to cope admirably with the Roman invasion 2,000 years ago, but leave them less able to cope with modern life, because of the neglect of IT. In which century are the Government living?
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
T9. Over recent weeks, I have seen many parents in my constituency surgery who are extremely unhappy because they could not get their sons and daughters into the schools of their choice. What can my right hon. Friend do to end this school place lottery and get more good school places in my constituency?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend raises a good point, which is a major concern of this Government. More than one in six parents have children who are not offered a place at their preferred school. That has led to 85,000 appeals. We are reviewing the admissions process, which is far too complex to understand and administer. One of the proposals is to allow good schools to raise the pupil admissions number. We have had a very good response to the consultation so far and will announce our response in due course.
Mr Speaker
Order. It is much better when the hon. Gentleman addresses the House. We always look forward to that.