Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Order. Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. First, please silence electronic devices. I remind everyone that tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings. I also apologise for the late start. In view of the time available, I will not make any more announcements.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 8.55 am on Tuesday 30 June meet—

(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 30 June;

(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 2 July;

(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 7 July;

(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 9 July;

(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 July;

(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following table:

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I beg to move a manuscript amendment, in the table, delete “9.40 am” and insert “9.50 am”.

We will move clause 1 later in our deliberations to enable Committee members to table amendments regarding the definition of a coasting school. Draft regulations were sent to all Committee members last night at 10 pm and are available in hard copy this morning. That should give all Members sufficient time to look at the regulations and table amendments to clause 1, should they wish to do so.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I put on the record—although not at great length, given the delay already this morning—the concern I expressed informally at the Programming Sub-Committee about the manner in which the programming for the Bill has been handled? The Bill has been put together in a rushed way, and the draft regulations were not thought through and ready in time. We received them only at 10 pm last night, which is why the Government are taking clause 13 first, then clauses 2 to 12, then clause 1 later on. It is emblematic of the fact that the Bill is an undercooked piece of legislation that should have been more carefully thought through before being brought to us for consideration. However, the Government get their way on these matters. I have had my say, and we should get on with it.

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[Mr Gibb]

Briefly, the Government are determined to ensure that no child is in an underperforming or coasting school. We are acting rapidly to tackle those problems swiftly. Within two months of the general election, we have a Bill available for scrutiny and ready to go through the system. We want to get the regulations right. We believe they are right, so we do not apologise for the swiftness with which we are acting to tackle coasting and failing schools.

[Kevin Brennan]

And we do not apologise for objecting to the manner in which the Bill has been introduced. If the Government were concerned about all children, all children would be covered by the Bill, but they are not.

Amendment agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 8.55 am on Tuesday 30 June meet—

(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 30 June;

(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 2 July;

(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 7 July;

(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 9 July;

(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 July;

(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following table:

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 11 So that is not possible under the regulations as defined? That is what I am asking you?

Robert Hill: Well, Dr Allen may be able to answer. I think some of the other scenarios would be possible.

Dr Allen: We have not crunched the data yet, because we received it at 10.30 last night, which is a shame. In 24 hours we will be able to tell you. By our judgments on various different types of scenarios of progress and value added measures, there are, indeed, schools in most of those categories. For example, some schools that have very negative progress or value added measures in 2014 are judged to be outstanding, and some schools with superb value added measures are judged to be inadequate.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 12 Is not the point of the legislation to try to weed out the schools that are judged to be good or outstanding but that have been concealing poor progress? Is not that what we are trying to tackle? Would you support that?

Dr Allen: Perhaps, but I would ask why Ofsted has walked into those schools, given what we know about the quality of the education that they provide, and judged them to be good or outstanding. I come back to the question of whether we need to change the remit of Ofsted.

I reiterate the more important point, which is little understood, about the social gradient of progress 8. I will give you some examples from 2014 data. Just 42 out of 380 schools with less than 10% of pupils on free school meals had a negative progress 8 score, whereas 191 out of 347 schools with more than 50% on free school meals had a negative progress 8 score. It is not always obvious why that should be that case. The idea of progress 8 is that we judge children from the starting point of their test scores at the age of 11 and we expect children with the same starting point to make the same amount of progress.

That social gradient emerges for a number of reasons. The most important is just that there is clustering of social circumstances within schools. For example, take two children who performed equally poorly on their key stage 2 tests and, at the age of 11, we say are low-attaining children. One of them attends a relatively affluent school. The very fact that they are attending a relatively affluent school means that they are more likely to have a supportive home environment, which means that regardless of what happens in the school—the thing that we want to influence—that child is more likely to do well at GCSE. I am concerned that that social gradient is letting schools that serve affluent communities off the hook on this definition. I would prefer schools to be judged relative to schools like them and, unfortunately, progress 8 does not quite do that.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 13 In your written evidence, you said that you think that it is difficult to run a school in a poorer area. Do you think that they should be subject to a different form of metrics when they are being judged?

Dr Allen: It is more difficult, which is why I am kind of okay with the idea—it is correct in one sense—that metrics should find that schools that serve affluent communities are, on average, making better progress for the children. That is correct. It is also correct that Ofsted walks into schools that serve affluent communities and sees, on average, better teaching and leadership. All those things are true and we know that they are true because they have a larger pool of teachers to recruit from and a better choice of school leaders.

I understand your concern that we should hold schools that serve deprived communities to the same very high standards to which we hold schools that serve affluent communities. However, the problem is the extent to which those schools are able to compensate for all the things that happen in homes in affluent communities that lead to those children making good progress, regardless of what happens in those schools.

Saying that all schools must ensure that children make exactly the same levels of progress is bad for both ends of the spectrum. Setting up accountability mechanisms means that schools that serve deprived communities have no hope of ever being deemed anything other than underperforming. They then give up, and find it impossible to recruit headteachers and hard to recruit teachers. We set up a spiral whereby it is difficult for them to operate at all, and it does not raise aspirations for those schools.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 14 May I interrupt? What research have you done on King Solomon academy? Does that school find it difficult to recruit? The school serves a very deprived area; more than 60% of pupils are on free school meals. Last year, 93% achieved five or more GCSEs including English and maths. Do you think that school is not delivering?

Robert Hill: May I reply?

[Mr Gibb]

Q 15 May I just ask Dr Allen first? Then I would love to hear from Mr Hill.

Dr Allen: I do not think it is. In fact, one thing that we see is that the variation in school quality is much higher among schools that serve deprived communities than it is among schools that serve affluent communities. There is also a distinction between those schools that are operating in London and those that are not, for a variety of reasons.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 16 But is not that what we want to achieve? Is not the King Solomon academy what we want in very deprived areas, rather than putting a lower level of expectation on schools serving deprived communities, as you seem to be implying in your evidence to the Committee?

Dr Allen: My concern is not so much about the schools that serve in deprived communities, because they are already subject to a raft of accountability mechanisms. They are already being deemed to be inadequate and falling below the floor and everything else. We have all that in place. What we do not have in place is something that brings to account schools that serve affluent communities. This piece of legislation will not do that.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 17 Would Robert Hill answer that? I would also ask you another question, Mr Hill, because I want to make this my last question if I can. Do you think the progress measure is the right approach in dealing with these problems, and in addressing Dr Allen’s concerns, rather than using just attainment or just Ofsted?

Robert Hill: I am a big fan of progress measures. I think you are absolutely in the right ballpark doing that. Indeed, I think we should be looking at progress within student cohorts, within schools from one class to another. I do not think we should construct a national system to do that, but that should be the discipline that we apply. I think that progress in that sense is king, so you are in the right ballpark.

On your King Solomon point, absolutely all credit to King Solomon and others. Although, when you look at the distribution, the number of schools both from affluent and certainly deprived areas that are bucking that trend, closing the gap and doing that is a very small cohort.

The regrettable truth, for someone who supports the development of multi-academy trusts, is that for every one that has been compulsorily academised that has worked, you will be aware that there have been a considerable number that have struggled and are still struggling, and are still in something akin to that spiral. You are having to re-broker, I think, 100 sponsored academies and another 100 are in the pipeline. My concern, if I share your ambition, which I do, is where is the resource and support?

Just declaring them “coasting” or “requiring improvement” is in some ways the easy bit. The much tougher bit is to get the right mechanisms and support systems in place, as it were, to drive the improvement. That is where I think the Bill is in the wrong place. Although there are clauses in the Bill that do broaden the scope of things that you as Minister and local authorities and school commissioners can do, that is the real challenge for the education system.

[The Chair]

I am afraid we have time for only one more question, and I hope it will be brief.

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[The Chair]

Read clause 1!

[Mr Gibb]

We will use the definition when we assess academies.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 31 The legislation focuses just on maintained schools. Does that not strike you as odd?

Malcolm Trobe: I think we believe in fairness and equality and, therefore, all schools should be treated the same, whether they be academies or maintained schools.

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[Graham Jones]

A brief note on that might be beneficial—to me, at any rate.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 41 I have a question for Sir Daniel. You will be aware that the Bill tackles maintained schools, because the Secretary of State already has the ability to intervene in failing academies through her funding agreement with academy chains and academy trusts. You will also be aware that academies that have been sponsored academy secondary schools for four years have improved their results by 6.4 percentage points, compared with 1% for those schools in local authority control over the same period. Can you inform the Committee what it is you do at Harris, in terms of school improvement, that is so different from what happens in a local authority? We touched on it a little, but can you go into a bit more detail on the kind of things you do?

The second part of the question has to do with Downhills primary school, which your academy chain took over a few years ago. Can you tell us what has happened to Downhills primary school since your academy chain took it over?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Starting with Downhills, that school went into special measures in January 2012 and was the subject of a fierce anti-academy campaign, led by the Anti Academies Alliance, David Lammy and Michael Rosen. There were many protests and it was felt that the school should stay with the local authority. The local authority at the time had very little capacity for school improvement. It had massive staff turnover and just did not have the wherewithal. It was not able to put up a credible plan and, in the end, it said that it was unable to deliver what was needed for the school. The situation was highly politicised—people were talking about privatisation and saying that the school was not failing and that Ofsted was wrong, but the inspection outcome was that there was inadequate progress, weakness in reading and poor progress at all levels. Two years later, it was judged by Ofsted to be a good school with outstanding leadership and management, no longer failing and with the third highest pupil progress in Haringey. So it has been transformed. Some 98% of parents were against the conversion; now the vast majority of parents are fully supportive. Sometimes you have to weather that storm to bring about improvement. That is Downhills.

As a network, we share good practice across the group. We have many programmes that are designed to coach teachers who might be satisfactory to become good, and those who might be good to become outstanding—we invest heavily by bringing the resources of the group together. For us, a good academy group is about being geographically proximate, so all our schools are close by and we are able to leverage a lot of resource. We have policies for discipline and for pupil tracking that are proven to work, so we can quickly fix discipline at a new school. We have our own internal review team that does mini Ofsted-style reviews, which will be more rigorous and detailed than Ofsted’s and help our principals to improve their schools. It is a huge investment in professional development, it is regular training together and a set of tried and trusted policies that work relatively quickly.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 42 I think education is about the individual pupil. Can you describe the change in pupils’ life chances at Downhills primary school as a consequence of Harris taking it over, compared with what would have happened to those children had you not intervened?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: At Downhills, the school was failing. Around 70% to 75% of children were making expected progress, so a quarter of children were not making the progress we would expect. In our most recent year, 2014, 100% of children made expected progress. No child underachieved. The number of children reaching secondary-ready standards in reading, writing and maths has improved dramatically. They are better prepared for secondary and will be successful as a result.

[The Chair]

Emma, I can see that you want to come in on this one.

Emma Knights: I do. Obviously, what has been done in certain chains has been absolutely fantastic for those pupils, but equally, this is one anecdote. We could be talking to a sponsor from a chain from which you have removed schools, so this is not giving the whole picture. You can do the sorts of things that Dan is talking about among other groups of schools. Malcolm mentioned the word “federation”. Federations are a similar model to multi-academy trusts but they are maintained schools. All those things about tracking, discipline and CPD for staff, which is incredibly important for school improvement, can be done within federations as well. We must not get obsessed with the legal status.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 43 Did the governors at Downhills oppose the school’s conversion to an academy?

Emma Knights: Downhills was not related to us at all.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 44 Did Downhills not have governors?

Emma Knights: Their governing body was not a member of ours. We checked at the time to see whether they were, and they were not.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It is true that we could be talking about academy chains that have had schools taken off them, but the point is that where schools—whether they are academies or local authority schools—are inadequate, a change is being made. For generations, that has not happened. It is not a bad thing for academy chains that do badly to lose schools—so they should, and someone else should have the opportunity to fix them. That is right.

[Kevin Brennan]

Can we put on the record, Mr Chope, that that is a point of agreement, I think, across the Committee? Where schools are inadequate, action should be taken.

Richard Watts: Two points—the danger of policy making by anecdote is that it leads you down a whole range of dangerous roads. I could cite two or three examples in my own borough where fantastic conversion journeys—improvement journeys similar to Downhills—have been taken within the family of local authority schools. I do not think that governance status is the defining thing here. It is about decisive change to a school.

The danger of education statistics is that education is such a data-rich environment that you can essentially find a statistic to prove any point you wish to make within the education system. The danger is a reliance on individual, selectively chosen statistics.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 45 So you are saying, “Don’t use data and don’t use anecdotes.” What would you use?

Richard Watts: No, I am saying, “Do use data,” but I think one has to be very—I have a number of bits of data here showing, for example, that sponsored academies are twice as likely to stay inadequate as maintained schools. One can pick and choose data. I am saying that one has to use a whole range of different bits of evidence.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 46 On that point, Councillor Watts, the Minister used a piece of data at the beginning. He said that sponsored academies have improved more quickly over the past four years than all local authority schools, which is hardly surprising, is it?

Richard Watts: I am sure it is not. Some of the most interesting comparisons are like-for-like ones. Putting to one side the politics of this, I urge the Committee to consider the Sutton Trust report on this, which looked at the capacity of schools. It found that of the 20 academy chains considered, three produced above-average results, including Harris—on which, enormous congratulations to Daniel—and that of 100 local authority schools, 44 produced above-average results. As I say, you can pick data that show any point you wish. I do not think there is any overwhelming data that show the governance model to be the defining thing in the quality of a school.

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[Mr Gibb]

Q 78 My question is to Zoe. You run a small academy chain, the WISE multi-academy trust. There are, I think, around 400 or 500 multi-academy trusts that have spun out of high-performing schools, whether primary or secondary. Can you tell us a bit about your story, what happened and how you improved the schools that you took over—what were they like before you took over and then what happened to those schools?

Zoe Carr: The trust began with two primary schools that converted. They were well-performing schools—

[Mr Gibb]

Q 79 Which town?

Zoe Carr: In Sunderland. One was an outstanding school which was federated with another school that was good, and at that time both of them were converted to academies. We were asked by DFE to sponsor two other schools, so we sponsored both of them in close proximity—one in December 2012 and one in September 2012. One was in special measures and the other, although it had come out of special measures, was still well below floor standards.

Both schools have since converted to Ofsted ratings of good, and attainment in both is above floor. In one of them it is above the national average; that school has an intake of double the national average in terms of levels of deprivation for free school meal indicators. Both schools have been real, strong success stories in bringing about improvement for the pupils in those disadvantaged communities.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 80 In terms of the life histories of those pupils if you had not intervened, what is the difference between the life chances of those pupils if they had been left where they were compared with their life chances now that they are part of your multi-academy trust?

Zoe Carr: The figures say it all. For children who are not getting to the required standard by the end of primary school, the statistics for their performance at the end of secondary school make very sad reading in terms of their achievement. We are confident about the actions that we have taken: every time it comes back to leadership. Every time it is about getting the right people into those senior positions who then make sure that teaching across the school is good, outstanding and improving. Every time it is about getting that right as, in turn, it will have a massive impact on the pupils’ outcomes within the schools.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 81 Thank you very much. I have a quick question for Dr Major. The Sutton Trust produced a report fairly recently showing that high-performing key stage 2 pupils eligible for the pupil premium performed less well when they went on to do their GCSEs than high-performing key stage 2 pupils who were not eligible for the pupil premium. Can you say something about that report and answer whether you would accept that our focus on progress, in identifying coasting schools, is key to addressing that issue—not just for high-performing key stage 2 pupils eligible for the pupil premium but also for average and below-average pupils, to make sure that they all perform at the same rate as children from more affluent backgrounds?

Lee Elliot Major: We looked at those children attaining highly at the end of primary school and analysed the proportion of those who were still in the top performers at the end of secondary school. What was alarming was that those children from disadvantaged backgrounds, basically those on free school meals, were twice as likely not to be in that high-performing group at the end of secondary school. You see a real, depressing attrition over the years of secondary school. We very much welcome the new Progress 8 measure because it will, for the first time, properly hold schools accountable to those high attainers. We need to think about the range of attainers among poorer children—there are many high attainers in that group and any accountability measures should try to track that.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 82 A thought has just occurred to me. I do not know if you heard the evidence from the first session when he heard Dr Allen talking about the problems of running a school in an area of deprivation. She said that is was very difficult to run a school in such an area. Her implication was that somehow a lower standard should be applied to those schools than to schools in more affluent areas. Do you reject that view as much as I do?

Lee Elliot Major: I would be very uncomfortable with that. I did not hear that evidence, but we have to have very high aspirations for all our children. The Sutton Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation have found many times that if you give them opportunities, they will fly. We have many examples of children—some of them are now MPs, in fact, among many other great professions—whom we have helped in our programmes. No, I would counter that, although I did not hear the evidence.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 83 There was a call to name names over here, but we will not hold you to it. Tim, do you have key performance indicators in your job relating to the percentage of schools becoming academies?

Dr Coulson: We have a range of measures that we look at. One of them is schools becoming academies, principally because we want to encourage them to move, once they become academies, as Zoe said of her experience, to contributing as part of a multi-academy trust system.

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[The Chair]

I will give the last word to the Minister. You have one minute.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 104 A question to Zoe Carr: would you prefer to be a headteacher in an academy or in a local authority school, and why?

Zoe Carr: I would not like to be a headteacher in a stand-alone academy, because there are far too many other areas that you need to take on and be accountable and responsible for yourself. However, I would absolutely no way want to go back to a maintained situation, because in our multi-academy trust we have a wealth of people dealing with health and safety, HR issues, all the financial issues and governance, and they are very skilled in their own areas. All that is taken away from our key educationalists, who can then lead on improving teaching and learning, improving our teachers, and getting the best outcomes for children.

[The Chair]

That brings us to the end of our allotted time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for coming along and for helping us so much with what you had to say today.

Education and Adoption Bill (Second sitting)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

Q 52 If having a good headteacher is the best indicator of success in a school, what would you like to see in the legislation to increase the numbers of good headteachers?

Russell Hobby: We have taken the first step, which is to move away from vague generalisations of what a coasting school is to start to define what coasting schools are. One of the risks was that a lot of schools were looking over their shoulders, wondering whether they were coasting and, therefore, a lot of people were thinking, “That’s not the sort of school that I would want to go and work in” if there were extra pressures arising.

In favour of the legislation and the regulations being provided, although I have my concerns around the definition, we have now got a more graduated response to those schools that are judged as coasting. Rather than the default assumption being that you will sack the headteacher and academise the school, it is now proposed—at least as written—that you will look for a credible plan of improvement within the school and look to partner the school with other good local schools or national leaders of education. Only then will you move down into forced academisation. I am not sure that that message has reached many school leaders yet. If it does, that might reassure some of the people working in these coasting and challenging schools.

At the same time, some of the checks and balances have been removed or are proposed to be removed. The regional schools commissioners now have a great deal of discretion in determining whether the plan of improvement is credible and who the school should be paired up with. A school’s ability to represent and defend itself is not particularly enshrined within the regulations. School leaders will be wondering, “It’s all very well having the challenge, but do I have the chance to make my case or will I be rushed through a change?” I would look at strengthening those aspects, if possible.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Q 53 A quick question: are you happy with the concept of using a progress measure and not just an attainment measure to define a coasting school?

Russell Hobby: Yes. It is essential that you use a progress measure. If I have understood it correctly, it is an either/or—a school can demonstrate either high attainment or high progress. If it reflects the approach to the current floor standards, that is good. It is possible for a school to exceed the floor on attainment alone, as currently proposed, which means that a school with a high-attaining intake could benefit from that. For example, I believe that a few grammar schools fall within the definition of coasting at the moment. The balance between those might need to be looked at. I understand that you switch entirely to progress as a measure at secondary level in three years’ time, when we have the new progress 8. In primary, it remains a balance.

I should emphasise that none of us are entirely sure what the progress measures will look like. They have not been used or tested. The level at which the bar is set remains to be defined and is, in fact, defined in retrospect for each of those years. The very structure of the primary progress measure and how it relates to either the reception baseline or key stage 1 has not yet been explored either. There is a lot of uncertainty on what progress looks like when used, but it is the right measure to use.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 54 As a concept, are you comfortable that we have done the right thing and not just gone for attainment?

Russell Hobby: Yes.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 55 May I ask you about the whole concept of coasting schools? As a leading figure in education in this country, do you think we are right to address coasting schools as an issue where intervention may be necessary?

Russell Hobby: If we can agree on a fair definition of a coasting school, it is appropriate that every school should stretch itself and all its pupils to the full extent. Challenging coasting schools is the right thing to do. Whether legislation, academy orders and the process of academisation are the right way to provide that challenge is more open to debate. I have said that I feel you have inserted a few layers before academisation, which is reassuring. That is the right way, but academisation is still there as a backstop.

We do not know for sure how quick the regional schools commissioners might be to say, “I don’t believe in your plan of improvement. I don’t believe in your capacity to improve as a school and therefore I’m going straight to academisation.” Indeed, as I understand it, the Bill permits that to be made as a very quick decision. The evidence that the structural change to academy status will stop a school from coasting is not as strong as the Government might wish. Other interventions might be more appropriate.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 56 Are you not happy that we are using national leaders of education as part of the intervention process, before any decision has been made about academisation, and that that cadre—many of whom are, I presume, members of your association—will be at the forefront of challenging, tackling, helping and supporting coasting schools?

Russell Hobby: Yes. Those first two layers of the intervention are the right ones to have—so, “First of all, prove to me as a school that you can do it by yourselves. If not, work with someone else and then I will look at converting you.” But that is very much what the Government has described will happen, rather than there being any protections to ensure that it happens. I do not believe that there is anything to stop a regional schools commissioner saying, “I don’t believe you have a plan of improvement and I think the most appropriate solution is academy conversion.”

We know that they also have performance indicators around the numbers of academies in their area, or at least they used to. There is a suspicion that it is their preferred solution—it is more than a suspicion; it is their preferred solution in many instances. Sometimes they will be right, but sometimes it will not be the right thing.

I am not clear what chance the school has to make its case. What does a credible plan of improvement look like? How quickly does it have to put the case together? I am sure that the current generation of regional schools commissioners will handle it well, but people change and it would be nice for the Department to be clear on its protocol for how it will happen. Mistakes were made with the academy brokers; they operated somewhat under the radar, without clear agendas and without due process. That alienated a lot of school leaders and tarnished the academy brand. The Government have talked about the urgency of change, but sometimes provoking conflict and suspicion can delay change. You have schools that might otherwise wish to convert to academies digging their heels in because they do not like the way it is being handled.

[Mr Gibb]

Q 57 All the Ministers have made it clear that they want a real approach to school improvement, using national leaders of education and looking at the plans of the schools. You should be reassured on that front. Thank you for your evidence.

[The Chair]

Mr Hobby, there may shortly be a vote and two Members have indicated that they wish to ask a question, so I will take both questions together. Could you sum up quickly, because I think we will leave shortly?

School Transport

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I will try to squeeze my remarks into the remaining time.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) on securing the debate and on his excellent and compelling opening speech. He is a strong advocate for his constituency on a range of issues, and this is another example of that advocacy. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) on their contributions, in which they cited their own constituency issues.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) was unwise to talk about school places planning, given that the previous Labour Government eliminated 200,000 primary school places when it was absolutely clear that the birth rate was increasing. One of the first things that the coalition Government had to do was to double the spending on creating new school places at a time of enormous constraint on the public finances. Over that period, we have spent several billion pounds on providing more school places to make up for the backlog that we inherited in 2010.

[Steve McCabe]

In case the Minister misunderstood me, I point out that I am not disputing whether the Government are creating more places; I am talking about the problem that they are creating by giving us over-capacity in one area and insufficient places where children are living. That is the difficulty; it is about the planning, not the number.

[Mr Gibb]

But of course the planning is easier if we do not have to catch up on a huge deficit in school places.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley has consistently championed the practical importance of school transport to children and their parents in his constituency. Where schools are beyond reasonable walking distance, parents should be entitled to expect the local authority to support transport arrangements. That rightly remains a statutory duty on local authorities. This afternoon, my hon. Friend has highlighted the impact of local authorities’ decisions, in the context of a tight fiscal position, to consider the availability of transport to schools that are the parents’ first choice but that the local authority deems are not the nearest suitable school.

The Government are committed to securing a good school place for every child. Today, more than 1 million more children attend good or outstanding schools than in 2010, and 260 new free schools set up by local charities, trusts and groups of parents are offering education that meets the needs of their communities. Additionally, in the previous Parliament, the Government spent more than £5 billion in funding local authorities to create new school places, and we have announced a further £3.6 billion over the next three years. The sponsored academies programme has turned around 1,154 underperforming schools over the past five years, ensuring that more pupils benefit from the highest standards of education.

Parents make few choices for their child that are more important than the choice of which school they attend and, thanks to our reforms, in many cases it will increasingly be the nearest and most conveniently located school. Some parents, however, might decide that their child’s education would best be served by attending a school further away from home because the performance of the nearest school is not yet good enough or because of considerations about a school’s specialism, ethos, faith status—my hon. Friend alluded to that—or, in some areas, whether it is academically selective, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide free transport for pupils in compulsory education at their nearest suitable school if it is beyond the statutory walking distances. Those thresholds, as has been said, are 2 miles for children under the age of eight and 3 miles for those aged eight and above. Under the universal statutory duty, “suitable school” is taken to mean the nearest qualifying school with places available that provides education appropriate to the child’s age, ability and aptitude. If a child has passed a grammar school entry test, for example, the local authority would not necessarily deem other, nearer schools unsuitable.

All local authorities have an additional duty to enable children from low-income family backgrounds to access a wider range of schools, including faith schools. That duty is known as “extended rights” and attracts national funding worth almost £20 million in this financial year. The extended rights policy helps children from low-income groups for whom a lack of affordable transport might act as a barrier to choice, thus enabling some of the most disadvantaged pupils to secure fair access to a wider range of schools. Children are eligible for extended rights if they are entitled to free school meals or if their parents are in receipt of maximum working tax credit. Where those criteria apply, pupils are given additional financial support towards school transport.

The policy amends the statutory walking distances, so that local authorities must provide free transport for such pupils where the nearest suitable school is beyond 2 miles if the pupil is over the age of eight but below the age 11; beyond 2 miles but within 6 miles for pupils aged 11 or over and there are not more than three suitable nearer schools; or beyond 2 miles but within 15 miles for pupils aged 11 or over who are attending the nearest suitable school on the grounds of religion or belief. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley said, the policy does not apply to children whose parents do not qualify for extended rights. Although parents do not enjoy a specific right to have their children educated at a school with a religious character or at a secular school, or to have transport arrangements made by their local authority to and from such a school, the extended rights policy includes the nearest suitable school on the grounds of religion or belief up to 15 miles, as there are often fewer faith schools within a reasonable distance. Even if children do not have a statutory entitlement to free home-to-school transport, local authorities have a discretionary power to provide free or assisted transport if they believe it necessary and local funding is available.

Lancashire County Council has historically provided free home-to-school transport to catchment area schools in Ribble Valley, regardless of whether they are the nearest school. Nationally, expenditure on home-to-school transport currently totals some £1 billion, and approximately £600 million of that is spent on transport for pupils with special educational needs. The total figure has remained broadly consistent over the past three financial years, although the proportion allocated to special educational needs transport shows a gradual increase over that period.

Lancashire County Council’s total expenditure on home-to-school transport has remained broadly consistent with the slight reduction in the amount spent on special educational needs over the three-year period. I understand that from September 2015, as my hon. Friend has explained, Lancashire County Council will introduce a package of measures to reduce its home-to-school travel costs, one of which is to remove the county-wide discretion to pay travelling expenses to catchment area schools when there is a nearer school. For new pupils starting this September, the local authority will fund transport only to the nearest school. Those changes are being phased in, and a child who started at a school under one set of arrangements will continue under those arrangements. For some parents who wish to send their child to a religiously designated school, their chosen school may not be their nearest. In that case, Lancashire County Council requires parents to contribute towards the overall cost of transport.

Where possible, I urge local authorities, including Lancashire County Council, to consider preserving discretionary school transport support for disadvantaged pupils and to consult widely about any plans to change arrangements. Good practice suggests that when parents are asked to pay all or some of the costs of non-statutory transport provision, low-income families who are not eligible for the extended rights should not have to pay. That is good practice, although it is not compulsory under law.

My hon. Friend asked about schools that back on to each other, citing the example of the Catholic school along a ginnel—I think that was the word he used—from the school whose students were entitled to free school transport. I urge the local authority to be reasonable and consider the issue in the context that my hon. Friend so ably explained. I make the same point to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby about the example that he cited from Binley Woods, with the Lawrence Sheriff school and the grammar school under Warwickshire County Council. I know that he has responded to the consultation, which is ongoing.

The Government encourage more pupils to cycle or walk to school, particularly in urban areas. We have set an ambition to increase the percentage of schoolchildren aged five to 10 who walk to school to 55% by 2025, and we have made a long-term funding commitment of more than £400 million for cycling and walking available to every local authority in the country until 2021. To cite one example, Darlington Borough Council has encouraged a shift away from cars to more sustainable methods under the brand Local Motion. Central Government have provided funding for the project since 2011. It ensures that schools, young people and their families receive relevant information to enable them to choose sustainable travel options to get to and from school. As a result, the cycling rate among secondary school pupils in that local authority area has increased from 1% to 7%.

[Steve McCabe]

I am interested in what the Minister is describing. Am I right in thinking that local authorities are not obliged to tie that funding to travel to school plans and that some local authorities can choose to spend it in other ways? If so, would it not make more sense to require them specifically to take the travel to school issue into account when spending the money?

[Mr Gibb]

We believe in local discretion. My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley argued that we should remove that discretion and the hon. Gentleman is hinting that he would like to remove some of it, but the Government’s philosophy has been that local authorities should have discretion to spend that money as they see fit, to respond to local circumstances. That has been the policy for many years. We believe that they are best placed to determine how resources should be used in the areas that they serve and to balance the demands of a broad range of discretionary travel against their budget priorities. If we were to remove this discretion from local authorities’ responsibilities, it would hugely increase the number of eligible children at a substantial cost to the taxpayer. Therefore, it is much more practical and helpful to allow local authorities to continue to make these important decisions locally, but they still need to make the right decisions locally.

Many authorities are doing some very good work, for example, by encouraging schools to collaborate with one another and to use some of their own resources to fund transport. For instance, many academies are collaborating with other stakeholders and providers to offer discretionary transport to their schools. Hertfordshire, for example, will save between £5 million and £6 million per annum as a result of schools doing that. From September 2012 onwards, that local authority has only provided statutory home-to-school transport. It wanted to build capacity locally to encourage schools, community groups and commercial operators to provide home-to-school transport, and from September 2013 onwards, 130 routes to schools have operated without a financial subsidy from the council. So creative ways to provide transport are being used by innovative local authorities around the country. I urge both Warwickshire County Council and Lancashire County Council to look at such examples and at Darlington Borough Council to see whether they can learn from them.

The Government recognise that rural areas face particular transport difficulties. Therefore, the Department for Transport has provided £7.6 million in funding for 37 schemes to deliver improved local transport in rural and isolated areas. That funding will provide the essential first step for local authorities to implement service integration. People living in those areas will be able to benefit from integrated public transport, and local authorities will work with schools, hospitals and other local organisations to deliver local services more efficiently and at lower cost.

In conclusion, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these important issues on behalf of his constituents. A good local school within easy commuting reach is something that every parent has the right to expect for their child, and even as we continue to reduce the deficit, local authorities will continue to have a duty to provide school transport in many circumstances. And I share his view that discretionary services should be protected, wherever possible.

English as an additional language (Pupil Support)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan]

In areas such as the Western Isles, Gaelic is still the native tongue for many people—the figure is far more than 5%, so my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) would probably disagree with the hon. Gentleman.

On the number of pupils coming in with English as an additional language, I am not sure that any area in Scotland has a figure of 70%, but we do have figures of up to 20%. However, I am trying to explain the benefits. Certainly, in the school I was in, which had a huge number of EAL pupils—up to 50%—attainment rose greatly.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the additional funding under the pupil premium, which is for disadvantaged pupils. He spoke about using some of that money for EAL pupils, but there is an argument for looking at dedicated funding. These pupils have a positive impact, and we need to see how we can support them. Unfortunately, in Glasgow, the Labour administration recently cut 15 EAL teachers, despite the best efforts of the opposition in the city council. That was a major blow.

We need to look at the benefits that these pupils bring. It is important to remember that we have had a £20 billion net benefit from having EU immigrants in our country and our communities, but we need to look at how we fully include them in schools and training.

The all-party group on modern languages stated:

“speaking only English is as much of a disadvantage as speaking no English.”

In terms of intellectual development and pupil attainment, having multilingual pupils is a benefit and makes great educational sense.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, unless we support teachers, schools and LEAs so that they can provide a proper environment in which these pupils can learn, we will have issues.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I realise that this does not affect Scotland, but the English baccalaureate is a combination of GCSEs, including a modern language. Would the hon. Lady support the Government’s endeavours to get all pupils to take it to the age of 16, to ensure that more young people take a foreign language to GCSE?

[Carol Monaghan]

Taking languages at GCSE is a matter for pupils at that point in their school careers. The baccalaureate system is really robust, with pupils looking at different areas and having specialisms in different subjects, and that is really positive. However, the issue is more about language learning in the early years. There will be huge benefits if we can deal with that, whatever the additional languages are—English might be the additional language for some pupils, while, for others, it might be French, Spanish or Gaelic. The way we go about language learning is not conducive to a real, deep understanding of a language. The learning must take place far earlier, and it must be far more serious. We start picking these languages up at 11 or 12, which is why the Scottish Government are introducing them much earlier, at primary level.

To finish, I would like to talk once again about the positive impact in our schools of having pupils with an additional language, be it Polish, Urdu or Gaelic. That is positive for attainment, and we welcome those pupils in our schools, but it is important that we put in place structures that will allow them to learn properly and to access the education we provide for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve again under you, although even your powerful chairmanship was unable to stop a disembodied voice from engaging in our debate; I will be interested to see how Hansard reports an unelected person taking part. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing this important debate and on his excellent speech. As always, he campaigns effectively and argues coherently and persuasively for the interests of his constituency and constituents.

The Government are committed to social justice, as my hon. Friend, who supports and campaigns for it himself, acknowledges. That means that we want all pupils to achieve their full potential, including those with English as an additional language. However, I understand the challenges faced by local authorities such as Peterborough in delivering that objective.

The definition of English as an additional language is broad. It reflects pupils’ exposure to a language other than English at home, but it gives no indication of their proficiency in English. Some may use English as their everyday language and be fluent in it, while others may be new to Britain and speak very little English. The percentage of pupils in England recorded as having English as an additional language more than doubled between 1997 and 2013, from 7.6% to 16.2%, with enormous variation across the country. In the south-west, only 6% of pupils have EAL, compared with 56% in inner London.

There is also a great deal of variation between individual schools. At more than half of schools, fewer than 5% of pupils have EAL, but 8% of schools have a majority of such pupils. The evidence shows, as other hon. Members have said, that although pupils with EAL face disadvantages early in their school careers, they are not at a significant long-term disadvantage on average. Again, however, attainment levels vary. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) pointed out, swift on the heels of her excellent maiden speech last night, learning two or three languages aids educational attainment—not just in languages, but in other subjects too. We must ensure that we support all children to achieve their full potential and overcome barriers to success, whatever those barriers are. We must also recognise that some communities with high numbers of pupils with EAL face particular challenges. I welcome my hon. Friend’s focus on the issue.

At the beginning of schooling, the average performance of pupils who speak English as a second language is significantly lower than the average for all pupils, but it significantly improves by the end of key stage 4. The latest data show that about 67% of EAL pupils achieved five or more good GCSE grades A* to C, compared with about 66% of all pupils. There are examples of local authorities with very high proportions of EAL pupils that perform well against national averages for attainment. In Newham, for example, where 76% of pupils at KS2 have EAL, 83% of pupils achieved the expected levels in reading, writing and maths at that stage. That exceeds the national average of 79% for all KS2 pupils. In fact, in 2013-14, of the 18 local authorities where more than half of pupils at key stage 2 had EAL, all but two had attainment levels above the national average for all pupils.

I remember visiting Fulbridge academy in 2011; I have remembered it ever since. I was struck by the fact that it was the first school that I had visited that year where all the primary school pupils whom I tested on their multiplication tables knew them. The rate has increased steadily over the years since then, but I was struck by that particular primary school visit, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough for taking me there.

Unfortunately, EAL pupils do not perform that well across the whole country. Although 79% of EAL pupils in Westminster achieve five or more good GCSE grades A* to C, only 50% of EAL pupils in Bradford achieve the same. The disparity in the quality of education available to pupils in different parts of the country has driven us to reform the school system. We have taken steps to ensure that every child, regardless of their particular needs or background, has a greater opportunity of attaining well at school than before 2010. There are now more than 1 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools. We have intervened in more than 1,000 weak and failing schools and are delivering improvements in performance by matching them with academy sponsors. Those academies have transformed the life chances of thousands of pupils.

King Solomon academy is one example. It is an all-through school sponsored by Ark Schools. More than half the pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 65% do not have English as a first language. In its report last year, Ofsted found the school to be outstanding, stating:

“Achievement is outstanding at all key stages. All groups of pupils, including those who have special educational needs, make excellent progress. The academy is working to provide even greater challenge to the most-able pupils.”

[Kevin Brennan]

I join the Minister in congratulating the academy on that achievement. Can he bring himself, for once, to praise a maintained school that has improved its performance?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. There are many examples of maintained schools that have also improved their standards.

[Kevin Brennan]

Could the Minister name them?

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to that in my own good time. We are unapologetic about taking Labour policy by turning underperforming schools into sponsored academies. What I cannot understand is the ambiguity of Labour’s current position on the academies programme. It has proven highly effective in raising standards, and all we hear from the Labour party is carping and criticism of the policy, which began life under Lord Adonis during the last Labour Government.

[Kevin Brennan]

The Minister cannot bring himself to praise a single maintained school.

[Mr Gibb]

There are many maintained schools. I hesitate because 60% of secondary schools are now academies, so schools that I remember as maintained schools may well have converted. Good and outstanding schools throughout the country are rushing to convert to academy status. Many of them performed extremely well as maintained schools run by local authorities, and they are performing well now as academies.

[Carol Monaghan]

In Scotland, we do not have academies, although some schools might have the word “academy” in their title; we have comprehensive schools and private schools. Does the Minister agree that a school’s success is not down to its name but is the result of leadership within the school and the systems put in place to ensure that staff and pupils are supported fully?

[Mr Gibb]

I agree that a school’s success is not to do with its name, but there is something about the freedom that academy status brings that enables innovation and professional autonomy to raise standards. Again, I cite King Solomon academy. It is run by some remarkable young people, most of whom are Teach First teachers; the headteacher, Max Haimendorf, became a head teacher in his late 20s. In that school’s first GCSE results in 2014, 93% of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs, including in English and maths. That would be a remarkable result in any school in any location, but it is particularly so given the high levels of deprivation in the area served by the school. Furthermore, 75% of pupils at the school achieved the English baccalaureate, with high levels of achievement across the ability range.

[Carol Monaghan]

The Minister mentioned some staff members: a headteacher and some inspiring teachers. Is the Minister suggesting that if the school had not been an academy, it would not have had the same success, given the staff that it has in position?

[Mr Gibb]

I am. I do not think King Solomon academy would have delivered that kind of educational attainment in that part of London had there not been an academies programme. It has freedom and autonomy, and the professional approach that it takes to how it teaches its children is very different from that of any local authority school that I have visited. It would not have been able to do that if it had been run directly by the local authority in that area.

There is, of course, more to do. Although the overall quality of education in England has dramatically improved, 1.5 million pupils are still taught in schools that are less than good. The Education and Adoption Bill, which we debated last night on Second Reading, will strengthen our ability to deal with failure, and much more swiftly. Its provisions are designed to speed up the process by which the least well-performing schools are transformed in order to bring about rapid and sustained improvements, making sure every child gets the best start in life.

We have made it clear that we want to improve the literacy proficiency of all pupils; improving the teaching of reading is a key priority for the Government. Our aim is to help every child become a confident, fluent and enthusiastic reader. The latest available data show that 84% of pupils for whom English is an additional language achieved level 4 or above in reading at key stage 2 in 2014. That is just below the national average for all pupils, which is 89%. It shows that we still have further to go if we want every child to be reading well by the age of 11.

Key to our approach is the use of systematic phonics instruction; the hon. Member for Cardiff West will have expected me to use those words. The evidence shows that systematic phonics is the most effective approach to teaching early reading. The latest phonics screening check results show that across the country there is a difference of less than half a percentage point between pupils whose first language is not English and those whose first language is English. Phonics has been used to great effect in local authorities such as Newham, where, in year 1, three times as many pupils have EAL as those who do not. Some 81% of all Newham’s pupils met the expected phonics standard, well above the national average of 74%.

At secondary school, we are ensuring that all pupils study the core academic subjects of English, maths, science, history or geography, and a language: the English baccalaureate. We know already that pupils with English as an additional language are above the national average for entry and achievement in respect of the English baccalaureate. Last year, 41% of pupils with English as an additional language entered the EBacc and 26% achieved it, compared with 39% of all pupils entering it and around 24% achieving it. We want more pupils, including those for whom English is an additional language, to achieve the EBacc. Such subjects give young people a strong foundation for progress into further study and for work, and they help to keep their options open.

My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough focused on funding. We have supported local authorities to provide additional support for EAL pupils in their local funding formulae. Local authorities can provide additional funding to pupils who speak a language other than or in addition to English, and who entered the school system in the past three years; the hon. Member for Cardiff West touched on that issue. The vast majority of local authorities include EAL as a factor in their funding formulae, and 132 local authorities allocated funding to schools teaching 450,000 pupils with English as an additional language in 2015-16. That totalled some £267 million, with schools receiving on average about £591 for each pupil who speaks English as an additional language.

We recognise that EAL pupils are more likely to be mobile and arrive in school during the academic year. Local authorities can hold money centrally to support the growth in the number of pupils below the age of 16 in schools. That growth fund allows local authorities to top up funding in-year for schools experiencing an increase in pupil numbers due to growth in the local population. Local authorities also have the power to use a mobility factor in their funding formulae. The method allows funds to be allocated to schools with a high proportion of pupils entering in-year in the previous three years. Some 66 local authorities used the factor in 2015-16, allocating a total of £24 million through it.

In Peterborough, 18% of pupils have English as an additional language. It has the 23rd largest proportion of pupils with English as an additional language among all the different authorities. The area has seen a rise of more than 5,000 such pupils in its schools from 2014-15. I note that Peterborough City Council allocated some £3.7 million for pupils with English as an additional language in 2015-16 and that it has a growth fund of about £2.25 million.

I am enormously grateful for the support that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough has given to this issue today. He has raised important concerns. The steps that we have taken underline our ambition to give more pupils the preparation to succeed in school, whether that is getting a place at a good university, starting an apprenticeship or finding a first job. Such steps will provide the foundations of an education system with social justice at its heart, in which every young person reaches their potential. I congratulate my hon. Friend once again for airing this important debate.

Education and Adoption Bill

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I say to the hon. Lady and to the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) that the Inspiration Trust is one of the most successful academy chains in the country and is transforming the quality of education in the part of the country that the hon. Gentleman represents. If I were in his shoes, I would go and see the Thetford academy and some of the other schools—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Minister, I want you to save some speech for later.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

This has been an excellent debate on issues that could not be more important to hon. Members and to the country. In 2010, the coalition Government inherited a legacy of stagnation. The voices of complacency told us that all was well—key stage 2 results were rising and GCSE grades were inflating. But the reliable data told a different story. International benchmarks consistently showed that our schools were failing to progress, while those elsewhere—in Poland, Germany, Austria and Estonia, for example—were leaving us behind.

The adoption system was too bureaucratic and time consuming and left some of our most vulnerable children waiting too long. We were not prepared to accept the status quo. Our reforms of education and adoption over the past five years have been the most radical and far-reaching for a generation. They have led to dramatic improvements across the country.

Today, 100,000 more six-year-olds are on track to become confident readers as a result of our focus on phonics. Some 200,000 fewer pupils are persistently absent from school compared with five years ago, and more than 1 million more children now attend a good or outstanding school than in 2010.

The work of the Minister for Children and Families to improve the adoption system meant that, last year, more than 5,000 children were found the permanent home that they desperately needed—a record increase of 26% in just 12 months. It is now around four months quicker for children to be placed in a stable loving home.

Such improvements have been secured thanks to the hard work and expertise of teachers, social workers and adoption teams. They are all motivated by the same passion for building a fairer society, in which every child reaches their potential, regardless of their background. Despite their efforts, too many children are still not getting the start in life that they deserve. Even after the rapid improvements of the past five years, 1.5 million children still attend schools that are less than good.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Schools in my constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills are a key issue. I welcome this Bill. May I put in an early plea for a ministerial visit, so that I can show the Minister the good things and the challenging aspects of the education system in my constituency?

[Mr Gibb]

I would be delighted to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Chief Whip is in his place, and I am sure that he will allow an early visit.

[Wes Streeting]

The Minister is more than welcome to visit my constituency, as he did during the election campaign. I very much enjoyed playing the recorder with him. Given the stab that Government Members have made at defining a coasting school, will he put us out of our misery and give us his definition of a coasting school? He has not yet told us.

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman will just have to be patient. I will say a bit more about that later.

By strengthening our ability to turn around failing and coasting schools, the Bill will ensure that more children receive a good education, regardless of background, neighbourhood or circumstance.

The adoption system remains fragmented and inefficient. Around 180 different adoption agencies currently recruit and match adopters to children in need of a caring, stable home. That over-localised system cannot deliver the best service to some of our most vulnerable children. We are therefore introducing regional adoption agencies, which will work across local authority boundaries and in partnership with voluntary adoption agencies, to find the right homes for children without delay. That policy was supported by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), who spoke powerfully about the need for ongoing adoption support.

We had some excellent speakers and speeches in the debate, but we also had one not so excellent speech from the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who wanted to know when he could see the definition of the word “coasting”. He should not be so concerned about the definition of “coasting”, because his performance today falls squarely in the “failing” category, which is very well defined. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, we intend to publish draft regulations on the definition of coasting schools for full parliamentary scrutiny in Committee. We can be clear now about the principles that will underpin the definition. This is fundamentally about social justice and a coasting school is one in which pupils are not reaching their potential. Will the hon. Gentleman support that definition?

[Tristram Hunt]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will he now provide us with the legal definition of a coasting school, given that we are voting on his Bill in exactly 13 minutes? What is the legal definition?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

We have made it very clear that the hon. Gentleman will see the legal definition of a coasting school on the first day in Committee. He will have plenty of time to table amendments to clause 1 in Committee.

We have had some excellent maiden speeches today, including that from the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who cited the recent education initiative in Scotland, the 1496 Education Act, and pointed out the challenge of having aspiration when living in destitution. Of course, only aspiration and education provide an escape route from destitution. That is the whole objective of our education reforms.

In a moving maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), I was struck by his Reginald Perrin-like commute on the 6.41 from Surbiton. I noted also that his parents were both teachers, and we were all—[Hon. Members: “There he is.”] He moved—perhaps on the 6.41 from Surbiton. We were all saddened to hear that his father died soon after his selection as a parliamentary candidate. The same thing happened to me in 1996.

[James Berry]

May I follow my maiden speech with a request that the Minister meet me and other new colleagues who are passionate about increasing social aspiration through education, so that we can share with him our experiences and examples of best practice locally?

[Mr Gibb]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. That sounds like an invitation to meet in the Palace of Westminster, so I am sure that the Chief Whip will allow it to happen.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton made very clear his commitment to education and high aspiration for all children, which I have no doubt were inspired by his parents. We also heard a passionate maiden speech from the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who had some interesting ideas about how we can ensure a Conservative majority in the House of Lords by culling some of the Labour Members.

In a humorous maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg), a former primary school teacher, fretted about how his first contribution would be rated by Ofsted, but I can tell him that the Secretary of State has intervened and graded his first speech as outstanding. He is right to believe that real Ofsted inspections should be done with and not to schools.

In an honest and thoughtful maiden speech, the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) pointed out that the education system in Wales is sliding down the international league tables. That country has steadfastly refused to follow the reform programmes that we have introduced in this country.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that when I was on “Any Questions?” with Carwyn Jones, who is the leader of the Welsh Government, he told me and the listeners to BBC Radio 4 that the Labour Welsh Government had taken their eye off the ball on education? His words, not mine.

[Mr Gibb]

I think Mr Jones is absolutely right, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.

In a funny and self-deprecatory maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) described how he was slightly taken aback by the ease and grace with which his employer took his resignation from the company on his election to Parliament. He made a serious point, however, about the importance of a good-quality education to a good start in life—something this Government are committed to giving to every young person.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), in an excellent maiden speech, expressed concern about the quality of broadband in parts of his constituency. Given the quality of his speech, I do hope that his wife managed to live stream it. My hon. Friend has already become an active member of the F40 group and today he again made the compelling argument for fairer funding. He also mentioned apprenticeships and, more broadly, the value of people working their way up to gaining experience in work. The Government are committed to 3 million apprenticeship starts over this Parliament, building on 2.2 million starts since 2010. These are real, paid jobs with real training.

A number of Opposition Members claim that the Government are wrong to pursue sponsored academy status to turn around failing or coasting schools, but it is the success of the academies programme over the past five years, and indeed before that, that gives us confidence that this is the right approach. The chief inspector of schools, in his annual report, wrote that:

“Overall, sponsor-led academies have had a positive and sustained impact on attainment in challenging areas”.

That is backed up by results that show that sponsored academies are improving their performance faster than maintained schools.

[Christian Matheson]

Is it not the case that Ofsted recently dispensed with the services of up to 40% of its inspectors? Does not that call into question the quality of some of the more recent school inspections?

[Mr Gibb]

Including the outstanding grade awarded to St Martin’s Academy in the hon. Gentleman’s Chester constituency? I would not be too scathing about Ofsted judgments if I were him.

Secondary schools that have been academies for four years have GCSE results that are, on average, six percentage points higher than results in the predecessor school. By comparison, results in local authority maintained secondary schools are, on average, 1% higher now than they were in 2010. For example, Outwood Academy Portland in Nottinghamshire became a sponsor-led academy in June 2012. In 2012, the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs was just 57%; last year, the figure had jumped to 76%. There are many more examples that show how a school being an academy improves academic standards.

The Bill is about social justice. It is another important step to ensuring that all our state schools are delivering the quality of education currently found in only the best and that our adoption system is swift and efficient, so children can escape the unhappiness of a life of neglect or the uncertainty of life in care as swiftly as possible.

This Bill is about one nation—more action to ensure that schools in weak local authority areas such as Knowsley are as strong as schools in the best performing parts of the country; further progress to ensure that every child is a fluent reader by the age of 6, not just at Ark Priory Primary Academy in Ealing, but in every school in the land, and that every child is fluent in arithmetic and knows their times tables by the age of 9. We want every parent’s local secondary school to be preparing their children for life in a competitive world, and giving their children the best academic education, the best GCSEs, the best preparation for work, college or an apprenticeship, and the best preparation for entry into the best universities. We want that standard to be high in north Yorkshire, Blackpool, London, Birmingham, the west country and throughout the nation, in rural areas and on our coasts. That is what we mean by one nation.

We want those standards for everyone, regardless of social or economic background. That is what we mean by social justice. It involves taking on the vested interests, which is why in this Bill we are asking for the powers to say no to those who frustrate or delay improvement—enemies of aspiration and rigour. If hon. Members across the House believe in social justice, and if they believe in a one-nation education system, I urge them to support this Bill.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Recruitment and Retention of Teachers

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

May I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this Adjournment debate and on attracting so many colleagues to it? I also congratulate her on her maiden speech earlier this month. Her commitment to promoting social justice and greater opportunities for young people is shared by the Government, and her passion for her constituency of Sheffield, Heeley has been very clear in her earlier speeches.

The single most important factor in determining how well a pupil achieves at school is the quality of the teaching they receive. An analysis by Slater, Davies and Burgess in 2009 showed that being taught by a high-quality teacher rather than a less able teacher adds 0.425 of a GCSE point per subject to a pupil. In September 2011, the Sutton Trust found that the difference between a very effective teacher and a poorly performing teacher is large. For example, during one year with a very effective maths teacher, pupils gain 40% more in their educational attainment than they would with a poorly performing maths teacher.

The hon. Lady is right, therefore, to emphasise the importance of recruiting and retaining the best teachers so that all young people receive the high-quality education to which they are entitled. We are fortunate, therefore, that there are more teachers working in our schools than at any previous time, and that today’s teachers are the best qualified generation of teachers ever.

For every year in the last decade, the number of teachers joining the profession has outstripped those leaving. Last year, 50,000 new teachers entered our classrooms, swelling the size of the teaching profession in England to a record 451,000. Newly qualified teachers only account for just over half of those entering the workforce every year. Just under a third enter teaching having delayed entry post-initial teacher training, and just under a fifth are experienced teachers returning to the state sector.

Overall, teaching continues to be a hugely popular career. The latest 2015-16 UCAS figures show that we are on course to meet our postgraduate recruitment target for primary trainee teachers and are making good progress in secondary recruitment. The figures also confirm that we are ahead on acceptances for mathematics, physics, chemistry and design and technology, compared with the corresponding point last year.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Is the Minister confident that the figures he just read out reflect the reality for children in my constituency? A mother told me that eight out of 10 classes her son attended last week were taught by supply teachers, and one of my excellent secondary schools cannot recruit a senior science teacher. Is he confident that the Government are providing a good standard of education for students in Brentford and Isleworth?

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to the vacancy rate in a moment, but it has remained stable at about 1% of the teaching profession since 2000, so it has been stable for 15 years. No one in the Government underestimates the challenge that having a strong economy presents in professions such as teaching.

[Ian Mearns]

Does the Minister accept that many head teachers are reporting that they have stopped advertising vacancies, because they do not feel that they have any chance of recruiting and they do not want the unnecessary expense of placing adverts in the national journals?

[Mr Gibb]

I am aware of those examples, which were set out in the hon. Lady’s speech. There are challenges but, as I said, the vacancy rate is the same this year as it was 15 years ago. It has remained stable across the system at about 1% of the teaching workforce.

To get more high-quality teachers into England’s classrooms, we need to continue to promote teaching as a profession for top graduates. Our recruitment campaign, “Your Future Their Future” is getting results, with registrations on the “Get Into Teaching” website up by about 30% compared with last year. In 2014-15, we recruited 94% of our postgraduate ITT target, at a time when the economy was improving and good graduates had more choices open to them. As I have said, the teacher vacancy rate remains very low, at about 1% of the total number of posts—a figure that has remained steady since 2000.

Contrary to the hon. Lady’s suggestion, retention remains strong. Ninety-one per cent. of teachers who qualify are teaching a year later, and 76% remain in the classroom five years later. More than 50% of teachers who qualified in 1996 were still teaching 17 years later.

[Louise Haigh]

It is interesting to hear the Minister refute those assertions, given that his own written answer confirmed that 400 Teach First graduates started teaching maths and science in the last school year, but nearly 600 left the profession. Does he agree that the Government’s administration of the Teach First programme is failing on recruitment and retention?

[Mr Gibb]

On the contrary, Teach First has been a huge success. The purpose of Teach First is to attract people who might not otherwise consider entering teaching and ask them to commit to two years, so there has always been the expectation that a considerable number of the graduates who come into Teach First will leave and go into other careers in the City or elsewhere. The overall retention rate of more than 50% is actually staggeringly successful and reflects just how successful Teach First has been in recruiting high-calibre graduates into teaching.

The strong recruitment and retention figures have not been achieved by lowering our expectations for the quality of those joining the teaching profession. Almost three quarters of teachers now have an upper second or first-class degree, 10% higher than in 2010. A record proportion of teacher trainees—17%—have first-class degrees, and for several years running teaching has remained the most popular career destination for graduates of Oxford University. Teach First has played a huge part in that.

In spite of those successes, we recognise that there are still challenges. As the economy improves and the labour market strengthens, high-performing graduates are being tempted by opportunities in other sectors. Our task is to continue to champion teaching as a career choice for the brightest and the best, and not only to attract those people into our classrooms but to keep them there once they have joined the profession.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I am happy to give way to the right hon. Lady, who I think has been itching to get in for a few minutes.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank the Minister. He talks about the 1% vacancy figure with what headteachers in Slough might feel is a degree of complacency. At what point would he think the level of vacancies was unacceptable?

[Mr Gibb]

It would be a figure considerably higher than 1%. If I may cite another figure, UCAS publishes statistics every month, and they show that acceptances are down by 2% compared with the corresponding period last year. That is an improvement on last month’s figures. We are not complacent, and we understand the challenges that exist, particularly with the strong economy that we have, but being 2% down does not represent the crisis that Opposition Members are intimating.

The Government are responding to the challenges. We have funded the geographical expansion of Teach First into every region of England, and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley’s home city currently has 28 participants completing the two-year programme. A further 21 teachers who have already completed the programme are still teaching in Sheffield schools. The expansion will give Teach First the scope to reach 90% of eligible schools by 2016. That will strengthen the Government’s commitment to recruit more top teachers throughout the country, including in rural, coastal and disadvantaged areas.

[Sue Hayman]

My constituency is in north-west Cumbria, a rural area far from the centre, and we struggle enormously to recruit and retain in teaching. Can the Minister confirm that the programme will start to do something to change what is happening in west Cumbria?

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Despite being among the most beautiful parts of England, such rural areas find problems in recruiting. That was why we wanted to extend Teach First to those areas. We are cognisant of the fact that some parts of England find challenges in recruiting teachers, particularly younger teachers, who like to be in the cities.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers is not only in rural areas but in some of the more deprived areas, which many of us represent. The challenge for all of us is class sizes and the impact on families and children in our constituencies. I think the Minister is being quite complacent about the impact on families of the challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers.

[Mr Gibb]

We are not complacent at all. One of the Secretary of State’s objectives is to take action in underperforming areas of the country where schools are not reaching the standard that we would expect of them. We are determined to do so. The national teaching service, for example, is a scheme by which we are encouraging high-performing teachers to second themselves to areas that have had problems in recruiting high-calibre teachers, so that we can raise standards in those areas. We are far from complacent, and we are determined to ensure that we have high-quality schools in every area and that every parent can send their child to a good local school, wherever they are located, including in areas of deprivation, rural areas or the coastal strip.

Of course, as the economy continues to recover and rebalance towards manufacturing, demand for STEM skills is increasing. Since 2010, we have therefore significantly increased the value of bursaries available to top graduates entering teaching in priority subjects. Those bursaries are now worth up to £25,000 tax-free, and we have worked closely with the leading learned societies—the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and others—to develop prestigious scholarships for specialists in those subjects who want to teach.

[Meg Hillier]

I wish to bring the Minister back to the issue of housing costs in London. Is he having discussions with other Departments about how we can address the fact that teachers on these salaries are still a long way from being able to rent in London, let alone buy a property?

[Mr Gibb]

Those challenges face young people in London whatever their chosen profession, and that is why we are committed to addressing the housing shortage and building more houses. London is an attractive place for young teachers to teach, and Teach First and other organisations engaged in placing newly qualified or qualifying teachers into schools find London the least problematic place to place trainee teachers.

Even with generous bursary and scholarship schemes, we know there is still more to do to recruit high-quality mathematics and physics teachers—

[Thangam Debbonaire]

To return to the point about the recruitment of teachers of physics, I was concerned to hear this week from the Royal Society that in 50% of state-maintained schools, no girls study physics after the age of 16. That is surely a situation that we cannot ignore if we are to recruit from the best possible talent. What will the Minister do to redress the situation?

[Mr Gibb]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady and I hope that she will join us in addressing the problem. We have established the Your Life campaign, with leading business people such as Edwina Dunn from Dunnhumby, which is designed to attract more young people into physics and maths at A-level, focusing particularly on young women, because that is where there is considerable scope to attract more young people. It is aimed at young people at about the time they choose their A-level options, and we are determined to increase the numbers taking A-level physics and maths, especially young women. The hon. Lady makes a very good point.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Following up that interesting and important point, surely one of the things that will make a difference is that now most teachers going into primary education have done well in maths and physics and will be able to given children—both boys and girls—the idea that in secondary school they can take those subjects forward. That will contribute to helping to change the current situation, which is frankly unacceptable.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have made some significant reforms to primary education, including how we teach maths in primary school. We want children to leave primary school after six or seven years fluent in arithmetic, so that they can cope with a more demanding maths curriculum at secondary school. We hope that that confidence will take them through to A-level when they reach sixth form.

We are also addressing the shortage by spending some £67 million over the next five years to train an extra 2,500 mathematics and physics teachers and to improve the knowledge and skills of 15,000 existing teachers. We also established the Maths and Physics Chairs programme to support post-doctoral researchers to train as teachers with the aim of enthusing, engaging and inspiring students to progress to A-level study, to lead subject knowledge development with teachers in local school partnerships and to forge links with business. Very able young PhDs are now working in schools, and it is an inspiring and successful project.

We have given schools the freedom to pay good teachers more. That gives schools more scope to retain their best teachers by offering faster progression up the pay scale. It also allows them to adapt to any local circumstances where recruitment in particular phases or subjects is more challenging.

Since 2010, we have focused on reforming initial teacher training, so that schools have greater choice and influence over the quality of both the training and trainees recruited. School Direct, which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley referred to, is already proving hugely popular with both trainees and schools. Last year, we recruited 9,232 trainees to initial teacher training, an increase of 40% on the previous year. As a result, 35% of the postgraduates training to be teachers are doing so via School Direct. The School Direct salaried route provides an excellent route for career changers to train as teachers. They receive rigorous teacher training, at the same time as working in a school and earning a salary. These new entrants to the profession can bring different, valuable experience from their previous careers in industry. The success of that route is reflected in a substantial increase in the number of places offered by schools.

I am conscious of the time, but I think the hon. Lady and her colleagues are overstating the case. We understand the challenges, but we have engaged in a huge number of initiatives, including very generous bursaries, to address the problem, and I am confident—

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Gibb]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The Minister cannot give way and the hon. Lady cannot intervene, because it is half an hour after the debate began. I was hoping that the Minister was going to get his last word in, but the hon. Lady intervened, and I am afraid that we have to go straight to the conclusion of proceedings.

Skills and Growth

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is furiously ambitious for his constituency and the children in it. He is exactly right. The key to that is great teaching and strong leadership, making sure that young people are focusing on their academic subjects in order to get the basics right and then pursuing other academic or vocational routes.

One of the reasons we are disappointed with the Education Secretary’s approach in her new Bill is that it seems too indicative of an exhaustive, target-driven, bureaucratic, central-command approach. It is a 20th-century answer to a 21st-century problem. In the words of Steve Hilton, a great guru for the Conservative party, this marks a backwards and “Soviet” approach to education.

Higher ambitions require more substantial reform, and I am convinced that in England that requires us to explore the merits of a 14-to-19 baccalaureate system of upper secondary education, particularly now we are raising the participation age. There is an emerging consensus on that idea, and it demands closer inspection.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

indicated dissent.

[Tristram Hunt]

The Schools Minister says there is not, but he should listen to the CBI and leading headteachers, including those on the Headteachers’ Roundtable, and to one of the great Tory Education Secretaries, Lord Baker. There is a far broader consensus on the need to rethink the purposes of upper secondary education in the light of the continued inability of the current high-stakes, teach-to-the-test, exam-factory model in order to tackle our long tale of underperformance.

I do not expect the Government to commit to that today as a point of public policy. I accept, as we did during the election, that the short-term priority is to provide heads and teachers with a degree of curriculum stability, given the rather, shall we say, frenzied pace of recent reform. Now is the time to launch—as the CBI, the voice of business, has requested, alongside the Labour party—a broader cross-party review.

Disappointingly, prior to the election the Education Secretary walked out on the cross-party talks that the Royal Society had convened to introduce some stability to the curriculum process. Now that she is back in office, I hope she will take a slightly more mature approach and support a CBI-endorsed cross-party review to look into a more ambitious settlement for secondary education that can stretch the more able students, challenge the damaging snobbery towards creative, technical and vocational pathways, and tackle our seemingly intractable low skills problem, which so cripples our productivity.

In the light of the radical skills shift required by the industrial revolution we see all around us, with the move towards a digital society, we need to answer the deeper question of what skills, knowledge and attributes our young people now need to thrive and succeed in the 21st century. Until we have a clearer answer to that question, I fear we will not find a long-term solution to the productivity woes.

I hope the Government will give serious consideration to backing this bipartisan motion, and I commend it to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

2. What plans she has to widen and enhance the academy sponsorship programme; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Since 2010 the Government’s academies programme has ensured that more than 1,100 of the worst-performing schools have been taken over by successful sponsors or headteachers. Regional schools commissioners, working with headteacher boards, continue to encourage and invite new sponsors so that more pupils have the opportunity to benefit from the transformation that great sponsors can bring.

[Mr Bellingham]

Is the Minister aware that the successful academy in my constituency, Springwood high school, has recently taken over the academy sponsorship of St Clement’s high school and that the results are already showing huge improvement? Will he join me in paying tribute to the executive headteacher of West Norfolk Academies Trust, Andy Johnson, and his team? Will he also agree to visit this huge local success story in the near future?

[Mr Gibb]

I would be delighted to add my tribute to Andy Johnson. The vision of the West Norfolk Academies Trust is to produce world-class standards of student achievement, and it is the application of that vision that has resulted in its approach improving other schools in the area. I shall be delighted to visit schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency as soon as he invites me to do so.

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

When a school has been rated inadequate by Ofsted and is therefore subject to an academy order, the Government say there will be no requirement to consult on conversion to academy status. With that in mind, what are the merits of removing the right of parents to be consulted, and how does that sit with the Government’s rhetoric on accountability to parents?

[Mr Gibb]

The new Education and Adoption Bill is designed to ensure that those groups of people who are ideologically opposed to academisation are not allowed to disrupt or delay the process of academisation for those schools that have been letting down pupils year after year. This is about social justice and ensuring that every child, regardless of their background, has a good quality education. I hope the hon. Lady will support the Bill.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Before the general election, the Secretary of State visited Dukeries college in Ollerton. Will the Minister find time to visit Sherwood and Dukeries college to see its exciting plans to improve information technology in the new academy?

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that the Secretary of State had a very enjoyable visit and I, too, would enjoy visiting the school to see the innovative approach it is taking to IT and other elements of the curriculum.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Coasting schools are to be forced to become academies. What is going to happen to coasting academies? Are they to be forced to become schools?

[Mr Gibb]

The Government have powers to issue pre-warning notices to a trust, demanding urgent action to improve, and ultimately a warning notice can be issued by the Government to change sponsors. We have in fact changed the sponsors for 69 academies. The academisation programme is delivering higher standards across the board. Schools that have been academies for four years are improving their GCSE results by 6.4%, and there are similar high improvements in primary schools that have become academies. This is about improving standards across our school systems, and I expect the hon. Gentleman to support this approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

T7. Many parents in Rugby have told me of their concerns about the dangers posed by congestion around school gates as they drop off their children for school. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to encourage more children to walk and cycle to school? What discussions has she had with other Departments about enforcing parking restrictions around school gates?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue, because we have the same problem in my constituency, too. The local authority is responsible for enforcing parking restrictions around schools, and it should do that. The authority must also promote sustainable travel and transport, in order to reduce the number of car journeys to schools.

St Ives First School

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this new Parliament, Mr Streeter. This is the first Westminster Hall debate I have had the pleasure of responding to. It is an important debate. I should begin by explaining, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) mentioned, that the Secretary of State received a formal request from the director of children’s services at Dorset County Council to use her intervention powers in this case, under section 496 of the Education Act 1996. I will therefore have to be a little circumspect in my response to ensure I do not cut across her decision.

I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for his supportive opening remarks. He is right to point out the last Government’s success in raising academic standards in our schools. Some 100,000 six-year-olds are reading better today than they would have done but for our reforms, and there has been a 70% increase in the number of students taking the core academic GCSEs that are so important for widening opportunities in later life. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) to his place. He is clearly keenly interested in issues of education, which are vital to our country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has taken a keen interest in this proposal. In the previous Parliament, the Department for Education brought into force a package of new legislation and guidance for maintained schools and academies that want to make changes to their size and characteristics. A national consultation broadly welcomed the Department’s proposals, which introduced a simpler, less bureaucratic process for schools seeking to make certain organisational changes—for example, expanding their premises or altering their age range by up to two years—without following the full statutory process.

The changes delivered two important objectives. First, they gave more autonomy to maintained schools by enabling them to propose their own changes, without having to look to local authorities to make changes on their behalf. Secondly, they allowed new school places to be created quickly in response to local demand.

St Ives First School published a proposal to become a full primary school for pupils aged four to 11 in February 2015, and on 16 April 2015, following a period of consultation, it announced its decision to become a primary school from September 2015. As my hon. Friend said, that change will involve the school extending its upper age range by two years, which will mean that its year 4 pupils will remain in the school, if they wish to do so, for years 5 and 6.

The governing body of St Ives First School stated that its main reason for proposing the change was to increase parental choice and respond to the wishes of the vast majority of the parents and carers whose children currently attend the school. As an outstanding school, St Ives is clearly popular. The school, which sits on the border between Dorset and Hampshire, also claims that many parents would not wish their nine-year-old children to travel to a middle school in Dorset if they could remain at St Ives First School until they were old enough to attend a secondary school in Hampshire. The school serves broad communities with diverse needs, and proposals for organisational changes to schools’ characteristics are often met with different responses from different parts of the community.

On one hand, St Ives First School is exercising its autonomy to make a change that it believes will benefit pupils and parents, and parents seem to agree. On the other hand, there may be wider concerns about ensuring an appropriate supply of school places throughout the local authority area. Value for money is clearly an important consideration, as is the need to plan change in a way that avoids impacting negatively on children’s education—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

We are aware that Dorset County Council has voiced concerns about the impact that St Ives’ proposed change might have on the wider system. The local authority believes that the changes proposed by the school will place it under significant organisational and financial pressure. It also believes that there is a need to operate a co-ordinated system in which children progress through its family of schools at the same time, and does not want to run a mixed economy. West Moors Middle School, the closer of two middle schools in the area, has expressed its fears for its future viability. The school believes that the change at St Ives may result in fewer children taking up places at the school, leading to financial pressures for the school.

It may be helpful if I describe the process that maintained schools must go through to effect a change of age range. Under the regulations that came into force in January 2014, this particular category of change is not subject to a statutory process. The governing body of a school is responsible for making a decision on its proposals and implementing them. The Department for Education has no role in the decision-making process, although it does ensure that certain requirements are met through its statutory guidance.

Before making any changes, governing bodies have to ensure that they have engaged in effective consultation, secured the capital funding, identified suitable accommodation and sites, and secured planning permission. They must have the consent of the site trustees—or the landowners when the land is not owned by the governing body—and of the relevant religious authorities in the case of faith schools. The admissions authority has to be content for the published admissions number to be changed, when that forms part of expansion plans.

Although governing bodies are no longer required to follow a statutory process for such changes, they are nevertheless required to adhere to the usual principles of public law: they must act rationally, take into account all relevant considerations and follow a fair procedure. The Department expects that, in making organisational changes, governing bodies will liaise with the local authority and the trustees to ensure that, where possible, a proposal is aligned with wider place planning arrangements, and that any necessary consent has been gained.

The Government are champions of school autonomy and will continue to support good and outstanding schools that seek to grow and expand to offer more choice to parents, which is why 1 million more children are in good or outstanding schools today than in 2010. However, we also expect that where change is proposed, it is planned carefully and ensures the minimum disruption to pupils’ education.

As I explained, the decision taken by St Ives First School is not subject to a statutory process. The Department has no direct role in the process. The decision was made as the result of a local process that officials and Ministers have no power to influence or prejudice. Additionally, the Department does not prescribe the process by which a school carries out its decision-making function, but decision makers must have regard to the principles of public law.

[Mr Chope]

Would the Minister extend some of his words of wisdom and advice to education authorities? He has put the emphasis on schools that are coming forward with these proposals, but would he emphasise that there is a need for the education authorities to engage constructively and in a timely fashion so that, as far as possible, such issues can be resolved by consensus, rather than in the adversarial way in which this application has been dealt with?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Local authorities have to take into account the wider impact of such proposals on schools, but they should not refuse the local discretion of a school’s governing body to expand if that school has conducted a proper consultation and believes that the expansion will have a beneficial effect on educational standards. I do not want to make any further comments on this proposal, because the Secretary of State has to conduct a section 496 determination.

[Mr Chope]

May I come back on one other aspect of what the Minister said? He referred to West Moors Middle School having raised an objection, but as I pointed out, that school is over-subscribed for the coming year, which reflects the fact that it is improving. Its latest Ofsted inspection resulted in a change of status from being in need of improvement to being a good school, which has added confidence. The consequence of St Ives First School’s decision is that people who have children there would still be able to opt into the middle school system in Dorset if they wanted to. The decision is not closing down choices and options, but expanding them.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case on behalf of his constituents and St Ives First School. I will ensure that the Secretary of State and officials see the transcript of this debate before they reach a decision on the section 496 determination. One issue that will be taken into account is any delay by the local authority in deciding whether it is appropriate to intervene in these circumstances. All those matters will be taken into account.

[Mr Chope]

May I press the Minister a bit further on the timescale? We are now in the second week of June and people need to know the decision of the Secretary of State sooner rather than later.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The letter from Dorset County Council was dated 4 June. I think that we received it on 9 June, and we will ensure that the Secretary of State responds as soon as possible. It is unfortunate that these matters have dragged on for so long, creating an element of uncertainty for pupils and parents at that school and surrounding ones.

Question put and agreed to.

Lesser-taught languages

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) on securing this debate, and pay tribute to him for his support of the study of foreign languages and for the way in which he consistently and energetically fights for the interests of his constituents in Enfield North.

Learning a foreign language is both a great pleasure and an excellent preparation for life in a modern country such as Britain, which has an outward looking and globalised economy. I also pay tribute to the all-party group on modern languages for the work it does in highlighting the importance of studying a modern foreign language in our modern economy. I also welcome the literally unique contributions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall)—the only Member with a degree in Serbo-Croat—and my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), the only Member who was born in Poland. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) also made a powerful short speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North is right to highlight the importance of languages for future economic growth. A report by the CBI published in 2014 found that 65% of businesses say they value foreign language skills, most importantly for building relations with overseas customers and overseas suppliers.

The Government’s programme of education reform has been the most far-reaching for a generation. We have restored rigour by introducing a new knowledge-based curriculum, which draws from the curriculums of the highest-performing jurisdictions around the world. We have raised the bar by reforming GCSEs and A-levels so that young people study genuinely demanding content, which provides a solid basis for further study and employment. Raising the status of foreign languages—both to increase take-up and improve attainment—has been central to this programme of reform.

In 2010, the study of foreign languages in English schools was in a precarious state. The removal of languages from the key stage 4 national curriculum in 2004 by the previous Labour Government led to a 36 percentage point decline in the number of pupils studying a modern foreign language at GCSE. In 2000, 79% of pupils studied a foreign language at GCSE. By 2010, that had fallen to 43%.

This Government have taken decisive action to address that decline. We agreed with the APPG on modern languages when, in its manifesto for languages, it talked about the need for a national recovery programme. We listened to the evidence on the importance of starting to learn a language early. Following the introduction of the new national curriculum in September last year, it is now compulsory for maintained primary schools to teach a language to all pupils between the ages of seven and 11. The new curriculum is also more demanding, with higher expectations for pupils’ speaking, writing, translation and grammar.

We recognised that the new curriculum would present challenges for some schools. We are therefore providing £1.8 million to fund nine projects across the country to support teaching of modern foreign languages. Many schools have responded well, and are going even further than the national curriculum requires. The language trends survey for 2014-15, published last week, found that 49% of primary schools are already teaching a language to five to seven-year-olds, even though it is not required by statute.

The new English baccalaureate performance measure has also been a hugely successful reform. The EBacc represents the strong academic core of subjects that all pupils should study, including a foreign language. As a result, the number of pupils in England taking at least one modern foreign language at GCSE has increased by 20% since 2010, and 29% since 2012.

We are also reforming GCSEs and A-levels so that they are more demanding and provide students with necessary knowledge for further study and employment. In 2014, we published reformed subject content requirements for GCSE, AS and A-level qualifications in modern foreign languages. The new GCSE will be more demanding, and most exam questions in modern languages will be asked in the target foreign language.

At A-level, the content has been strengthened, with new requirements for students to read foreign language literary works and develop a wide command of complex spoken and written language. In the past, some of the lesser-taught language GCSEs included no assessment of speaking or listening. Ofqual has decided that those elements, both of which are crucial to linguistic fluency, must be assessed in the reformed qualifications.

The new content for modern foreign languages specifies the knowledge expected of pupils taking the qualification in terms that apply to all languages. It is then for awarding organisations—the exam boards—to determine which languages to offer at GCSE, AS and A-level. We have made it clear to the exam boards that we want a broad range of subjects available to study. French, German and Spanish will always be important, and they do attract significant numbers of candidates: there are 150,000 entries for French GCSE, 57,000 for German and 71,000 for Spanish. Those subjects were therefore the first to be reformed and the new GCSEs will be in place for first teaching in September 2016, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North that young people should have the opportunity to study other, less familiar languages if we are to compete in the global economy.

British firms will increasingly demand staff who are fluent in languages such as Mandarin, Arabic, Polish and Turkish as they seek new markets and opportunities. We have therefore allowed the awarding organisations further time to develop new qualifications in additional languages for first teaching in 2017. They are free to develop qualifications in any language, provided that their specifications meet the subject content requirements set by the Department for Education and assessment arrangements set by Ofqual. Clearly, there is work involved in developing new GCSEs and A-levels that meet the new demands, and financial costs associated with the reform, but that should not prevent awarding organisations from offering reformed qualifications in a range of languages if they choose.

As my hon. Friend highlights, some exam boards have announced their intention to discontinue their qualifications in some languages. Those decisions appear to have been driven more by short-term commercial interests than by a robust analysis of the language skills our economy will clearly require in the future. He has raised specific concerns about AQA’s plan to discontinue Polish A-level and OCR’s plan to discontinue Turkish at both GCSE and A-level. I understand that 18,000 residents in the London Borough of Enfield speak Turkish as their first language, and my hon. Friend is right to recognise the extraordinary contribution the community makes to the local area and to London's economy. I agree with him that it is important that Turkish continues to be taught so that more young people can enjoy Turkish literature and culture, and so that British firms are well placed to make the most of Turkey's rapid economic growth. He and other hon. Friends mentioned Turkey’s growth, which I can tell them was about 26% between 2010 and 2013.

[Mr Bacon]

I am listening with great interest, but I hope my hon. Friend recognises the difference between, on the one hand, the unsurprising commercial considerations of commercial contractors making decisions in the short term, and on the other hand, the interests of this country, which are longer term. I am slightly uncomfortable with the language he is using about the choice being for the examining boards to make—that it is for them to decide what they offer. Surely it is for us as a country and as the House of Commons, and for Her Majesty’s Government, to decide what we want to do, and then to make sure that arrangements are in place—whether they are commercial or otherwise—to achieve the goals that we want to achieve?

[Mr Gibb]

There are genuine commercial factors that the awarding bodies have to take into account. We could compensate or pay awarding bodies to produce qualifications. I will deal with that point shortly.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I look forward to the Minister coming to that point, and I hope he will show what the Government are going to do to encourage or even require the examining boards to meet the demand and the requirement for other languages that has been so clearly identified in this debate. We want not just good words, but action to make that happen.

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to that in a moment. First, I wanted to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and to other hon. Members that OCR plans to continue offering an IGCSE in first language Turkish, which I hope will be of interest to many of my hon. Friend’s constituents who already speak Turkish.

[Nick de Bois]

I want to put it on record that that has been examined by many people, but it is nowhere near the standard that we require for A-level and it will not achieve the objective, for example, of helping someone get into a university with that qualification.

[Mr Gibb]

I will take that point to the awarding organisations. Although the IGCSE will not count in school performance tables, the qualification is recognised by further and higher education as a demonstration of a student’s proficiency in the language. Clearly, though, the availability of the IGCSE is not a full substitute for a GCSE in Turkish as a foreign language, for those who are learning it as a second language rather than as a first language.

I have listened to the powerful case made by my hon. Friend and other hon. Members this evening on behalf of their constituents and others who recognise the importance of languages to our economy. I should point out, for the sake of balance in this debate, that the Turkish GCSE attracted only 1,403 entries last year, and for the Turkish A-level there were only 354 entries. Indeed, the entry figures have been consistently low for a number of years.

These relatively small numbers create some genuine difficulties for awarding organisations. In addition to diseconomies of scale, they may struggle to recruit sufficient staff to mark the exam and find it more difficult to set grade boundaries, given the statistical variability which is more likely in smaller cohorts. Nevertheless, I believe that these problems may well have solutions. Exam boards manage to recruit markers for the current version of the GCSE and they manage to set grade boundaries effectively.

My hon. Friend is correct. It is not the Government who are applying pressure, financial or otherwise, to reduce the number of foreign language GCSEs; quite the contrary. Having listened carefully to the arguments made by him and others, both during the debate and outside the Chamber, I will raise his concerns and those of other hon. Members with the chief executives of the awarding organisations, including OCR and AQA, and I will invite them to reconsider their current position—I will do that tomorrow—and to subordinate what I believe to be a commercial calculation to the far more significant long-term economic and cultural considerations for this country. In doing so, I will also question them closely about the financial rationale for their decisions.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and others for raising this important issue, and I pay tribute to his firm support for the key place of languages in our long-term plan for education and the economy.

Question put and agreed to.