Behaviour and Discipline (Schools)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I would like to announce to the House new measures to be introduced to tackle behaviour and discipline in schools. All pupils should show respect and courtesy towards teachers, towards other staff and towards each other. Head teachers help to create that culture of respect by supporting their staff’s authority to discipline pupils. The role of the Government is to give schools the freedom they need to provide a safe and structured environment in which teachers can teach and children can learn.
The coalition agreement sets out this Government’s intention to give heads and teachers the powers they need to ensure discipline in the classroom and promote good behaviour. It also sets out the Government’s intention to give anonymity to teachers accused by pupils and to take other measures to protect against false accusations. Teachers should feel confident in exercising their authority, and pupils should not have to suffer disruption to their education caused by the poor behaviour of others.
Further to my reply in Education questions on 7 June, I can confirm that we will take steps to strengthen teachers’ powers to search pupils. We intend to introduce regulations to add personal electronic devices (mobile phones, iPods and personal music players); pornography; fireworks; cigarettes and other tobacco; and “legal highs” to the list of items for which teachers can search. Our intention is for these regulations to come into effect from this autumn. In the next education Bill, we intend to give teachers a more general search power covering any item which may cause disorder or pose a threat to safety.
We will also take steps to reduce the bureaucratic burden on schools when giving pupils detentions. We intend to repeal the legislation that requires schools to give parents 24 hours written notice of detentions outside school hours. Schools will be free to determine and publicise their own rules on notice for detentions. As a result, teachers should be able to deal with misbehaviour on the day it occurs.
We will issue much shorter and clearer guidance which explicitly states that teachers can physically remove disruptive children from class and prevent them from leaving a room in situations where this is necessary to maintain order. We will seek to ensure that prosecutors, those exercising disciplinary powers and those determining complaints against teachers are aware of the new guidance. We are determined that teachers should have the protection they need and we will take all necessary steps, legislating further if necessary, to ensure this happens.
Finally, we will give teachers the strongest possible protection from false accusations. We will give anonymity to teachers facing accusations from pupils. This Government want to put an end to rumours and malicious gossip about innocent teachers which can ruin careers and even lives.
We will be announcing further measures in due course, including measures to tackle bullying, head teachers’ powers to exclude children and the reform of alternative provision.
The changes announced today are the first step in a programme of reform. We will be consulting with teachers about taking forward these measures and the case for further reform. We will take the necessary action to ensure that schools can bring order and discipline to every classroom so that all children are able to achieve to the best of their ability.
Education Maintenance Allowance
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Gibb
[holding answer 7 June 2010]: The Government are committed to retaining the education maintenance allowance (EMA). The budget for 2010-11 is £564 million, enabling young people aged 16 to 19 in England who meet residency criteria and have a bank account to receive EMA payments if their household income is under £30,801 (based on evidence from the last full financial year).
Letter of correction from Mr Gibb:
An error has been identified in the written answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson) on 14 June 2010.
Unfortunately, the last line of the reply as published contained a typographical error and the household income threshold amount should have read £30,810.
The correct response should have been:
Mr Gibb
[holding answer 7 June 2010]: The Government are committed to retaining the education maintenance allowance (EMA). The budget for 2010-11 is £564 million, enabling young people aged 16 to 19 in England who meet residency criteria and have a bank account to receive EMA payments if their household income is under £30,810 (based on evidence from the last full financial year).
The Minister is writing to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West to explain this error and notify him of the correction.
Building Schools for the Future (Liverpool)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on his return to the House and on securing the debate. He always showed great commitment to and ambition for children and young people as an Education Minister, and he is a great advocate for Building Schools for the Future. I am happy to add my congratulations to his. I congratulate the schools throughout Liverpool that have made such great advances on their educational achievements and I also congratulate the teachers and students on what they have achieved in recent years.
It is the Government’s ambition to raise the quality of education for every child. As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, I am a passionate believer in high quality education, and so are the Government. We want to raise the standard of education in every school. Too many children still leave primary school without having achieved the basic standard in reading. We need to sharpen the curriculum, restore confidence in our exam system, ensure that young people go on to work, further or higher education with the skills and qualifications that are valued by colleges, universities and employers, and create a platform for success for the pupil. A first step toward that ambition was the introduction of the Academies Bill, which aims to give more schools the opportunity to enjoy the freedoms that academies have, so decisions about what is taught, how it is taught and how the school is run are placed back in the hands of the professionals.
As has been said, school buildings have a real place in our ambitions for school improvement. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) said, it is vital for all schools in Liverpool. As the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) said, building new schools helps to tackle disadvantage and educational under-achievement. As the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) said, new schools can bring in things such as co-location between mainstream and special schools, and as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) said, every child and teacher deserves to be in a building fit for education and for the 21st century. Finally, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) emphasised the importance of educational transformation and the need to tackle health inequalities. All those were important points to make in this debate, and I agree with all of them.
Teaching is probably the most important factor bearing on pupils’ outcomes, but it is right to say that the environment must be conducive to and must support education as far as possible. Good buildings, classrooms and equipment are necessary for children to learn, and to make their school a place where they feel happy and secure. Schools will continue to need rebuilding and refurbishing in the future, and, with a rising birth rate, more school places will be needed, which will, of course, require capital spending.
However, we also have to acknowledge, as the Chancellor made clear in his Budget last week, that we are living in a difficult fiscal climate in which £1 of every £4 that we spend is borrowed, and, increasingly, professionals across all public services are being asked to do more with less. That is the reality of the times in which we live, but, despite the deficit that this Government have inherited and the need to make £6 billion of savings this year, we have protected front-line funding for schools, sixth forms and Sure Start, and we remain committed to investing in the schools estate to ensure that pupils are educated in buildings of a good standard where they feel safe, comfortable and ready to learn.
We need to ensure that we are securing for teachers, head teachers and the taxpayer the best possible value for money as we seek to bring expenditure under control. That will mean some tough decisions. BSF was a flagship programme of the previous Government, who aimed to rebuild or refurbish every secondary school in the country by 2023. Where it has delivered, some impressive new buildings have been built, but that has been at great cost.
Rebuilding a school under BSF is three times more expensive than building a commercial building, and twice as expensive as building a school in, say, Ireland. The programme simply has not delivered as it should have. Of 3,500 secondary schools, only 5% have been rebuilt or refurbished, or received BSF funding for information and communications technology. That is just 178 schools—astonishingly few, considering how much has been spent.
The programme never really got off on the right foot. In February 2004, the Department’s goal was to build 200 schools by 2008, but, of those 200, only 42 were completed by the end of that year. Ambitions for the programme started out as unrealistic and then became unfeasible. Last year’s National Audit Office report on BSF said that for the programme to realise the ambition of rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school,
“250 schools will need to be built a year and the number of schools in procurement and construction at any one time will need to double”
from the next year. That clearly is not sustainable, particularly in the current climate.
The NAO report also documented the tremendous waste that has become synonymous with BSF. The budget bulged from £45 billion to £55 billion, and the time scale increased from 10 years to a projected 18 years. Of the £250 million spent before building began, £60 million was spent on consulting or advisory costs, supporting layer upon layer of process. There are eight official stages to the BSF process, but each one contains its own substrata of complexity. The second stage, strategic planning, has a further nine stages that lead to the completion of a strategy for change. Process upon process, cost upon cost—BSF and its administration and procurement processing have not represented good value for money. We support capital investment, but we need to ensure that procurement minimises administration and consultants’ costs.
Bill Esterson
I want to be clear about what the Minister is saying. I take on board his point about getting procurement right, but is he saying that he will commit to the BSF programme once he is satisfied that the procurement is right?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman will just have to wait until I finish my comments.
It should also be borne in mind that, in the previous Government’s final Budget, it was clear that if Labour won the general election, they would cut capital spending across Departments by more than 50% over the following three years. Some of those cuts inevitably would have fallen on schools. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), who is now the shadow Secretary of State for Education, admitted in the House that school capital spending was not protected under Labour’s plans.
As the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby said, Liverpool was one of the first local authorities to enter the BSF programme: it has one school open and another 34 in the programme. We are acutely aware that a great number of parents, pupils and school staff are affected by decisions about school building projects, and we have no wish to keep anyone—not even the hon. Gentleman—waiting longer than is absolutely necessary. The wave 2 projects in his constituency are already under construction. As such, it is unlikely that any changes in the BSF programme would impact on projects that are so far advanced.
I hope that that will go some way to reassure the hon. Gentleman about the projects in his constituency, but we cannot yet confirm the future of individual projects. I am afraid that I cannot offer him or any other hon. Member present today any further reassurance, but I would be happy to keep in touch with all those who have taken part in the debate.
Maria Eagle
I am grateful to the Minister. We heard from the Leader of the House last week that there might be a statement this week about BSF—he said so clearly. Are we still to get that statement this week, or has it slipped back until next week?
Stephen Twigg
I mentioned this in my speech—I realise that the Minister has a short period in which to respond. Would the Secretary of State be willing to meet a small delegation from Liverpool that would include the leader of the council, Councillor Joe Anderson, and the cabinet member for education, Councillor Jane Corbett?
Mr Gibb
I can certainly offer the hon. Gentleman a meeting with Lord Hill. I dare not speak on behalf of the Secretary of State, but I know that my noble Friend Lord Hill would be happy to meet him and a delegation from Liverpool to discuss the details of BSF in Liverpool. All hon. Members present would be welcome at that meeting.
We are committed to raising standards in all schools, right across the education sector. In doing so, we will focus on raising outcomes for all pupils, on reducing bureaucracy and on restoring our education system to being one of the best in the world. Capital investment remains important to our programme of school reform, but it must be efficient and cost-effective, and it must reflect the best possible value for money so that children benefit from the best possible standard of education and teaching.
Question put and agreed to.
Bullying (Schools)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for her kind comments. It is nice, after all these years, to call one another “honourable Friend”. I congratulate her on securing this important debate.
Tackling poor behaviour both in and, as my hon. Friend pointed out in her compelling remarks, out of school is one of this Government’s top priorities. I know that she has been a tireless advocate on this issue in her constituency and in championing the work of 4Children, Beatbullying—a charity I know very well—and others to improve pupils’ behaviour in the wider community.
Our coalition agreement places a sharp focus on robust standards across the education system, the highest quality of teaching and high standards of discipline in the classroom. Poor behaviour is a real concern. Pupils cannot learn if they are late to class or if their lessons are disrupted. Teachers do not want to stay in the profession if they feel intimidated by poor behaviour. Parents need assurance that their child’s school provides a secure, happy environment in which their child is focused on their education. However, the fundamental driver for dealing with poor behaviour is the impact on pupils themselves. The disruption and distress caused by bullying can be very damaging, as my hon. Friend said. Education is important, but children’s safety is paramount, so we have made an explicit commitment in the coalition agreement to help schools to tackle bullying, especially homophobic bullying.
As my hon. Friend said, the problem is not confined to the classroom. There has been much recent media coverage of extreme cases of poor behaviour, linking bullying to suicide. She cited the statistics and research produced by Beatbullying, and spoke about how bullying has directly affected some of her constituents. I, too, have met Paul Vodden, the father of Ben. The case of his son, who tragically committed suicide as a result of bullying on a school bus, highlights the catastrophic effects that bullying can have and the urgent need for action.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) pointed out in his intervention, bullying can lead to serious mental health problems, and children with special educational needs can be particularly vulnerable to it. The Department for Education, through the anti-bullying alliance, is looking at the most effective way to deal with the bullying of children with special educational needs and disabilities. Although guidance on bullying on school transport was produced in April last year, we will look closely at the issue as we review the work on bullying and behaviour more widely. This is a top priority for our Government and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole said, there is much room for improvement.
In a survey last year, 28% of pupils said that they had been bullied in the last year and 59% said that they feel that their schools deal with bullying well, which prompts questions about the other 41%—the four in 10 who feel that their schools should be doing more. Currently, a raft of guidance advises schools on anti-bullying policies, written policies and specific forms of bullying. It is lengthy and confusing, so we have asked officials to sharpen and strengthen it to ensure that it has practical value and, as my hon. Friend points out, is implemented in our schools. We also need to make sure that the law is clear so that teachers feel confident when they use the powers that Parliament has vested in them.
Schools have a duty to prevent and tackle bullying but in tackling bullying they need to address the specific problems that their schools face, based on intelligence about what is driving bullying and where it is taking place. I recently visited a school where pupils were desperate to get home at the end of the day and did not take part in any of the school’s extracurricular activities. The reason they were hurrying home was not that they wanted to watch “The Magic Roundabout” or “The Flintstones”, but that they were thirsty. Further investigation revealed that the reason they were thirsty was that they were not drinking any water during the day because they did not want to go into the school toilets where the gangs were hanging out. That problem was relatively straightforward to solve once it was known what was happening. Building that awareness and sharing information within the school is very important so that teachers know what is going on in their school.
We also need to be sure that teachers can confidently and effectively deal with poor behaviour. Trainees on initial teacher training routes need to demonstrate that they have met certain standards, including standards relating to discipline, behaviour management and bullying.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The Minister is talking very eloquently about the need to ensure that proper training is in place and I fully support that, but we also need to ensure that, once teachers have been trained and are in post, the pressures on them from above do not work against dealing with bullying. At present, the exclusion targets, the emphasis on social inclusion and the pressure on teachers within schools in some cases almost to deny that there are any behaviour problems work against the interests of the school and ultimately against the interests of pupils. We have to make sure that teachers feel able to deal with the problems and that means having proper powers in place to ensure discipline.
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important intervention. He is absolutely right. One of the things that I have discovered from visiting schools is the importance of support from the head teacher for teachers, so that when parents come into the school to complain about a teacher, the head supports that teacher—certainly unless there are serious allegations. If teachers do not know that they have the backing of the head teacher, it makes their job twice as hard as it need be.
We have committed in the coalition agreement to
“give heads and teachers the powers they need to ensure discipline in the classroom and promote good behaviour.”
We will introduce legislation in the autumn that will give teachers the right to remove disruptive children from the classroom without fear of legal action and give them greater powers to search pupils for particular banned items. The list of banned items will be extended beyond the list that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole and I discussed during the Committee stage of the last couple of education Bills that went through the House. There will also be no-notice inspections for schools where behaviour is a serious problem.
All schools must look at behaviour and not be complacent. It is not always a given that poor behaviour happens in the most challenging areas. Over the past five years, I have visited nearly 300 schools around the country. I have been to schools in very affluent areas where behaviour is a real problem because the processes and policies for dealing within bullying are simply not sufficient. Sometimes, as my hon. Friend said, those policies are not implemented on the ground. It is all very well having them written down, but they have to put into practice. In contrast, a school such as Mossbourne community academy in Hackney—one of the most deprived parts of London—has an immaculate behaviour record.
In its inspection framework, in relation to behaviour, Ofsted draws a clear distinction between good schools and outstanding schools. In good schools, pupils are compliant with the rules, fearing the consequences if they misbehave; but in outstanding schools, pupils do not just comply, but take responsibility for their own behaviour. That is the gold standard that I am sure my hon. Friend and I both want to achieve throughout schools in this country.
I had lunch fairly recently with some pupils in the school canteen at Mossbourne academy, and I asked them about bullying. They told me that bullying does not happen in their school and said, “We’re not allowed to engage in verbal bullying.” They volunteered that information to me, which showed an acute awareness of what constitutes bullying and its impact on others. When such an approach works well, the effects are often seen in the wider community, too. On becoming an academy last September, a school in my constituency introduced a new blazer and tie uniform and shaped a clear ethos and identity for the school. Pupils’ behaviour improved in the school to such an extent that it was noticeable in the town. People have commented to me about the behaviour of young people in the town since the school had adopted that new approach to behaviour.
We must be clear about responsibilities outside schools. Under the Education and Inspections Act 2006, schools have powers to take measures to regulate the conduct of pupils off-site, including journeys to and from school. The best schools take that responsibility very seriously and use those powers when appropriate. A head teacher in Cumbria told me that he felt responsible not just as a head, but as a member of the local community. Any poor behaviour that he heard about in, say, the town during the weekend, he took up with pupils first thing on the Monday morning, and because it was a tight-knit community, he could often trace and track the perpetrators of the poor behaviour. Such behaviour creates a bigger challenge if the school is situated in a larger, urban city such as London, but the answer to the problem must be partnership.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
The Minister has set out some excellent actions to take within the school environment and now he is touching on actions to take outside that environment, such as on journeys to and from school, which the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) spoke about; but does that apply also to social network sites and cyber-bullying, which are not under the direct control of schools or teachers?
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. Dealing with cyber-bullying is important, and we are working with industry to make sure that, when offensive material appears on a social network, it is removed instantly. There is good guidance for teachers on how they should tackle incidents of cyber-bullying that are reported to them.
Annette Brooke
When a parent makes a complaint about bullying to the school and that bullying has taken place on the school bus or outside the school, what will definitively trigger the school taking the complaint seriously? Such behaviour is out of sight, so it is easy to ignore it. The essence of Mr. Vodden’s argument is that the problems were not taken seriously.
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. My sense is that when schools do not take such matters seriously, that is a symptom of a deeper problem with the management of the school. I suspect that if we undertook a survey of schools’ attitudes to reports of poor behaviour from parents, we would see a direct correlation with the standards in those schools generally. We have to raise standards in the way schools are lead throughout the country. That is what we hope to achieve in our general policy of trusting professionals more and giving them more autonomy and more freedom to run their schools as they see fit. I believe that if we can get away from the culture that exists in some areas, we can reach a position where that professionalism means that every aspect of the school is run more professionally and that complaints are taken seriously by head teachers and teachers. It is also important to ensure that teachers understand their own powers and responsibilities, which is what we want to sharpen up and focus on when reviewing the guidance.
We believe strongly that there is a duty not only in schools but in local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. It is a collective responsibility that must be shared by those in the community, including the school, the staff of children’s services, the police, transport providers and so on. Sharing the responsibility among services is vital.
This has been an important debate. School and the routes to and from school—indeed, anywhere that pupils congregate—should not be places of dread, but places where children can feel safe, confident and focused on their education. The Government are committed to reducing bullying significantly and to securing for generations to come the progression, knowledge and supportive educational environment that will provide pupils with a platform for future success.
Building Schools for the Future (Barking and Dagenham)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) on securing this important debate. He speaks eloquently on behalf of his constituents. He has emphasised the importance of the BSF programme to the borough of Barking and Dagenham, including its importance to issues such as extended schools and raising educational attainment. I pay tribute to him for his fight against extremism and the British National party and his commitment to campaigning against poverty.
I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s comments, including his forecasts for secondary school places and a 50% increase in the birth rate, rising from 2,380 in 2000-01 to 3,541 in 2007-08. He is right to emphasise the importance of the fabric of a school building to the issue of raising attainment. Our ambition is to raise standards throughout the education sector, to improve outcomes for the most disadvantaged, to restore confidence in our qualifications and exam systems, and to ensure that children leave school with the knowledge that they need to succeed in further education and the world of work. Our coalition agreement sets out a progressive programme of reform to achieve those aims, based on the fundamental principles of more freedom for teachers and professionals, more choice for parents, more help for the most disadvantaged, and less bureaucracy and process.
If we are to effect real change and recast Britain’s education system as one of the best in the world, our focus on raising standards in all schools, reforming the curriculum and securing the best and brightest for the teaching profession must be relentless. We must also retain a focus on the school estate, ensuring that schools provide an environment conducive to education, with high-quality technology and facilities, space that supports different types of education—from one-to-one tuition to whole-year groups—and, importantly, a pleasant environment where children want to be. I welcome the opportunity the hon. Gentleman has given us to debate the issue, and congratulate him again on securing the debate.
Building Schools for the Future was a flagship programme of the previous Government, who had high ambitions to rebuild or refurbish every school in the country by 2023. Of course, there are many schools that need to be rebuilt and many are in a very poor condition. With a rising birth rate in parts of the country, including, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, his constituency, we will need to make more places available, and both those issues will require capital spending. We shall clearly need to build schools in the future.
The hon. Gentleman rightly quoted the Prime Minister as saying that building schools for the future is something we shall continue to do. However, that does not mean that we must go through the bureaucratic and wasteful procedures that were the previous Government’s approach. I understand that the process in Barking and Dagenham started in 2007. Here we are in 2010 and the diggers have not yet moved in; £250 million was spent before a brick was laid or earth was moved. Of that, £60 million was spent on consultants or advisory costs. Let us be clear: the previous Government said they were spending money on schools; but in the seven years since the scheme was announced only 95 new schools have been built out of 3,500 secondary schools. In the current financial climate, where front-line services are under pressure to do more with less, we cannot afford to direct lavish amounts of money away from pupils, teachers and children’s services into the pockets of consultants and bureaucratic processes.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education stated in the debate on the Gracious Speech that for the remainder of the financial year there will be no cuts in front-line funding for schools, Sure Start and sixth forms. We have secured additional funding from outside the education budget to fund the pupil premium, which will ensure that more money reaches the most disadvantaged pupils, who already start out with a financial and knowledge deficit in comparison with their peers. Capital programmes and investment in the school estates are very important to the coalition Government, but we must ensure that those programmes represent good value for money.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out in his opening remarks, we are reviewing the Building Schools for the Future programme to ensure that we can build schools more effectively and cost-efficiently in the future. We definitely will not halt projects that have been started, where diggers have been engaged and holes have been dug in the ground, as the Labour Government did when the college building programme had to be put on hold because of “catastrophic mismanagement”. Many colleges stood to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. Indeed, the Association of Colleges said that some stood to lose millions following the abrupt cancellation of projects. It said that 24 colleges stood to lose between £2 million and £5 million; indeed, 17 stood to lose more than £5 million.
I know that the hon. Gentleman was not part of the previous Government—indeed, he was an effective and constructive critic of them—so he cannot be blamed for what went wrong, and he is right to raise the issue of the Barking and Dagenham BSF plans today. However, he will appreciate the financial backdrop against which this debate is being held—an inherited budget deficit of £156 billion. As a result, the previous Government had already committed themselves to reducing capital spending across Departments by more than 50%, with a reduction of 17.5% in each of the next three years. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), the former Secretary of State for Education and now shadow Education Secretary, admitted to the House that school capital spending was not protected in those plans. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman’s first port of call should be the shadow Secretary of State, in order to find out from him what he had planned to do if their party had won the last general election.
Jon Cruddas
I want to put it on the record that we had this row about the BSF plans in Barking and Dagenham with the previous Government. There was a controversy in the first phase of the BSF programme, in that we were on the list and were taken off it because of some difficulties with the imposition of academies. So this is an argument we have had with Governments either side of the aisle.
Mr Gibb
I am grateful for that intervention and I will bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said. He also gives me an opportunity to correct something I said earlier. I think that I gave a very disparaging view of the previous Government when I said they had completed only 95 schools in the seven years since the project began; they actually completed 97. So, for underestimating their great achievement in completing 97 schools out of 3,500, I apologise and set the record straight.
We will be looking extraordinarily sympathetically at two sets of circumstances as we review the BSF programme: deprivation and particular need. I know the projects in Barking and Dagenham are very important to the hon. Gentleman and his constituents, and especially to the pupils and school staff who will be affected, but I am afraid that that is all I can say at this point; I cannot give specific guarantees at this time about particular projects. Nevertheless, I promise to keep in touch with the hon. Gentleman as we continue to review capital spending. I know that that will not be enough to satisfy him or his constituents, but I am afraid that that is all I can say at the moment.
I reiterate that capital programmes are important to our programme of school improvement, but they must be delivered efficiently and cost-effectively, and must also be focused on where spending is most needed and will have the most impact.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
6. What progress has been made on the academies programme in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
There are currently 203 academies open in 83 local authorities. More academies will open in September, with numbers continuing to grow each year now that the programme has been opened up to all schools. For the academies with results in 2008 and 2009, the increase in the proportion of pupils achieving at least five A* to C GCSEs including English and maths is 5 percentage points, an increase on last year’s academy improvement rate of 4.3 percentage points, which is double the national average.
Bob Blackman
Progress in opening academies under the last Government was extremely slow. Some 1,100 schools have applied for freedom from local authority interference, and freedom to set their own standards to ensure they demonstrate the highest possible quality. What comfort can the Minister give to ensure that those applications will all be honoured, and that those schools will not be dissatisfied?
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
May I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his post and wish him well in it? He shadowed me on a number of occasions, and now I am shadowing him. However, is not the excellent progress made by academies in the past 12 months the result of the involvement in their development of parents and teachers and, as the hon. Member for Southport (Dr Pugh) said, of local authorities? Is placing such power in the hands of the Secretary of State not therefore a huge step backwards and a hugely centralising measure? Why are local decision making on the development of academies, parent power and devolution being replaced by centralisation and the exclusion of parents, local authorities and teachers from that process?
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words; it is nice to be on the Government side of the House, instead of on the other side. However, this is not a centralising but a decentralising measure, beyond the local authority and down to the school level. This is about trusting professionals and having faith in the autonomy of schools. Our advice to schools is that it is important for them to discuss with parents and pupils their intention to convert. Existing legislation for setting up academies does not require such consultation with parents, so even when the hon. Gentleman was the Minister for Schools, there was no requirement for academies to consult parents.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I warmly welcome all the Ministers to their posts. May I ask a question both as a Member of Parliament and as the chair of governors of a Church of England primary school? Could the follow-up to the Secretary of State’s letter to outstanding schools such as ours include a letter to the chair of governors setting out the advantages and disadvantages of academy status to schools, and the advantages and disadvantages, if any, to local authorities and to diocesan boards of education?
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Of course the advantages of academy status are very clear: this is about trusting professionals to run their schools without interference from politicians and bureaucrats, either locally or nationally. I am sure that all the people he refers to will be aware of that. In the last set that we have seen—that of 2009—the results of a third of all academies showed an increase of more than 15 percentage points compared with those of the schools they replaced, so the advantages of academy status are very clear.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What steps he plans to take to support children with special educational needs.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
9. How much funding he plans to allocate to (a) Slough borough council and (b) other local authorities where there are insufficient primary school places in order to increase the number of such places available in the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
School capital allocations announced in 2007 for the current spending period include £1.5 billion for new pupil places. Additionally, around £1.9 billion is allocated for primary school modernisation, some of which will fund new places. The capital support for Slough and its schools this year is some £25 million, including nearly £9 million specifically for new primary school places.
Fiona Mactaggart
I am glad to hear that that £9 million is confirmed. It was given by the previous Government to increase the number of our primary places. We still have 60 reception and year 1 children who do not have places for next year and those funds are essential to provide them, but a note from the Library advised me that £32 million of Slough’s external finance, which includes a number of grants in relation to education, is at risk. As we have not had a detailed breakdown of what funds to local authorities have been protected by the Government, can the Minister assure me that £1 in £6 going from the Government to Slough borough council will not be cut by the coalition Government?
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
10. What recent assessment he has made of the level of participation by primary schools in the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
There are currently 23 all-age academies open that include primary provision. The Academies Bill will also open up the academies programme allowing all primary schools to apply to become academies in their own right. There has been a very high level of interest from schools with more than 250 outstanding primary schools already registering with the Department. We expect the first of those schools with an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted to open as academies from September 2010.
Mr Turner
The Minister may recall that in the early years of grant-maintained status, secondary schools were able to opt out, but primary schools had to wait, although subsequently they found that the operation was relatively easy. Will he ensure that, this time, primary schools have the opportunity as quickly as other schools?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend will be pleased to see in the Academies Bill, which is receiving its Second Reading in another place, that primaries will be able to apply for academy status. Indeed, the 250 outstanding primaries that have registered an interest with the Department will be fast-tracked to that status by, I hope, this September.
Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)
12. What his Department’s priorities will be in allocating funding for new school building.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We will improve standards of discipline in schools by giving heads and teachers the powers they need to deal with violent incidents and remove disruptive pupils or items from the classroom. We will introduce no-notice detentions so that poor behaviour can be dealt with immediately, give teachers wider powers of search and clarify their powers to use force. We will stop heads being overruled on exclusions and will reinforce schools’ powers to maintain good standards of behaviour through stronger home-school behaviour contracts.
Mr Baron
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. About 70% of all allegations of physical assault and sexual assault are never proven, yet the figures released clearly show that, despite those accused being exonerated, the records are kept on file and they come up on Criminal Records Bureau checks. What are the Government going to do about that?
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
T6. The Children, Schools and Families Committee report on the national curriculum called for a five-year cycle of review and reform of the curriculum. Will the Secretary of State put in place such a cycle and ensure that the early years foundation stage, the national curriculum and the arrangements for 14 to 19-year-olds are viewed as a continuum? Will he also tell us whether he plans to implement the Rose review in the meantime?
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Teachers do not welcome perpetual revolution in the curriculum; schools need some stability, and we will shortly make some announcements about the review of the curriculum. Thereafter, it will not be our intention to have five-yearly-cycle reviews.
Regarding the Rose review and the decision by the previous Government to implement a new primary curriculum from September 2011, as both parties in the coalition made clear in opposition, we do not intend to proceed with the proposed new curriculum. We believe that the Rose review’s proposed approach was too prescriptive in terms of how schools should teach and diluted the focus of what they should teach—
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has today announced the introduction of no-notice detention. How is that compatible with good child safeguarding procedures, and how will he ensure that children who have caring responsibilities, and who often do not let their schools know that they have them, are not adversely impacted by this retrograde proposal?
Mr Gibb
This is a deregulation matter. It is not a prescriptive matter requiring schools not to give 24 hours’ notice for detentions: it merely enables them to do that if they wish. Trusting head teachers and teachers means that they will make these arrangements themselves if schools feel that they are necessary. We are trying to take out of the statute book impediments to maintaining good order and good behaviour in our schools.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend to his post, but may I return to the subject of special educational needs? He will be aware that in a low-spending authority such as Gloucestershire, parents, particularly disadvantaged parents, often struggle to get their children the special educational needs treatment that they need. Can he assure me that there is no place in this country for a postcode lottery for special educational needs and that every child in this country should get equal treatment for their needs?