Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

It is, of course, our intention that exams will go ahead in 2022. They are the fairest method of assessing young people. As I have said, we have already announced the details of adaptations to those exams to ensure that they are fair. We are also working with Ofqual, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, on contingency plans in case it does not prove possible for exams to go ahead safely or fairly, and those plans will be published shortly.[Official Report, 14 September 2021, Vol. 700, c. 7MC.]

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Since the Government took over, the gap between state school and private school attainment has grown to a record degree. It is also growing at record speed. Is this the legacy that the Minister is proud of? If not, what is he going to do about it?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman ought to look at the record of the last Labour Government. The gap was narrowing throughout the years—

[Peter Kyle]

We’re talking about your record.

[Nick Gibb]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will tell him our record. Under this Government, the gap between the independent sector and the state sector in terms of top grades for A-levels narrowed from 2009-10 to 2018, from 27 percentage points to 21 percentage points. If we go back further and look at the proportion of three grade As and A*s attained at A-level in independent schools versus the proportion achieving those grades in state schools, the gap widened under the last Labour Government, rising by 13 percentage points between 1994 and 2009. The gap was at its maximum in 2009, at 22.1 percentage points, before steadily declining by 15.8 percentage points by 2018-19.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Ministers failed to secure over 90% of the funding called for by Kevan Collins for the catch-up fund, and we have just discovered that 100,000 vulnerable students and disadvantaged students will miss out on the pupil premium because Ministers have failed to secure the funding. Over the weekend, when the Chancellor was asked, he gave the reason why: because he cannot fund every cause that

“comes knocking on my door.”

Do students in this country not deserve a set of Ministers with the skill and determination to get through the front door of the Treasury and come out with the investment that our schools, students and teachers need?

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We have announced a £1.4 billion education recovery package, which is the third announced in the last 12 months, coming on top of £1 billion announced in June 2020 and £700 million announced in February last year. That £1.4 billion will provide an extra £1 billion for tutoring, which will provide up to 100 million hours of tutoring. That is 6 million 15-hour courses for five to 16-year-olds and 2 million 15-hour courses for 16 to 19-year-olds. This is a huge package. We are now reviewing the time aspect of the recommendations made by Sir Kevan, and that will report into the spending review later this year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

T4. When it comes to school improvements, Ministers talk least about what works best, which is getting the best teachers into the schools that need them the most. When will schools in coastal towns be able to count on having the same proportion of outstanding teachers as those in London?

[Mr Gibb]

We have a record number of teachers in our school system—15,000 more today than in 2020—and UCAS’s figures for the 2016-17 intake show that 27,000 graduates are coming into teacher training. We have very generous bursaries—£1.3 billion-worth—to attract the best graduates into teaching.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

It is great to be called for the first time under your stewardship, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to support new clause 1.

I have already paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan); let me now extend my thanks to the Schools Minister, who sat opposite me for the many weeks of the Committee stage, and took my interventions very graciously during that period despite my frequent fumbling breaches of protocol.

No one, in Committee or today, has disputed the need to challenge coasting in any school—least of all me, because I went to a school which, by today’s standards, could be deemed to have been coasting. I left with very few qualifications, and, at the age of 25, I had to return to the same state secondary school and take my exams again. I spent a year in a secondary school as a 25-year-old. Anyone who has done that—spent a year with teenagers as a 25-year-old, and had the experience of going through education for the second time—will never, ever allow any other person to go through the same thing, or allow any other person to leave school without the right qualifications. It seems an irony that the school I left and had to return to is in the constituency of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, because the Minister for Schools is the MP for that constituency. This has therefore come full circle now, and I hope that what was Felpham comprehensive school—I do not know what it is called now, but I presume Felpham community college—is doing much better today than it was doing then.

Nobody disputes the need to tackle coasting wherever it is, least of all me, and nobody disputes that academies are the answer in some cases, but only the Government think they are always the answer. That is the nub of why I support new clause 1.

The Government could not produce a single witness in the witness stage of the Bill to say conversion to an academy was always the answer to coasting. In fact their star witness, Sir Daniel Moynihan, a remarkable man who set up and is chief executive of a fantastic organisation, the Harris Federation, was asked directly by me whether he thought academisation is the only response to coasting. His answer was simple: “No,” and he went on to explain why in more detail.

The sum of that, of the experience there has been, and of the evidence given in writing and in person by experts is that academisation is one tool of many, and is not the only tool. I should make a declaration here: I am chair of governors of an academy that has fundamentally transformed the ability of young people to go through education successfully with fantastic outcomes.

My second point is that the regulatory framework that will underpin schooling as a consequence of this Bill is confused and complicated. Given this Government’s philosophical approach to deregulation, it is extraordinary that schools from different sectors—state maintained, academies and the private sector—are all regulated in different ways. This is absurd and it is becoming a regulatory nightmare which will produce some real absurdities.

For example, as a consequence of this Bill, a school could in future be rated as outstanding by Ofsted yet the Department for Education could deem it as coasting. What are parents going to make of this new world? How will they decide where to send their children?

We will have a regulatory framework where academies that are deemed to be coasting by every other measure are not allowed to be converted to another status. The Bill focuses on organisational status as opposed to what we now know works: a focus on standards and educational outcomes. All the international evidence throughout the world shows that a focus on standards is what drives up educational outcomes, yet this Bill completely ignores all that evidence. It is turning into an ideological Bill, which I fundamentally oppose.

It is extraordinary that someone who comes from my background and has been involved in the conversion from local authority-maintained schools to academies should stand here in such opposition to a Bill that refers to academies.

[Mr Gibb]

This has been a short, but high-quality, debate, with excellent contributions from Members on both sides of the House.

The Bill is the next step in this Government’s drive to change our education system so that every child, from whatever background and in every part of the country, receives the standard of education they need to succeed in a demanding and competitive world, and where every local school is a good school. The Bill builds on the sponsored academies programme, designed to tackle underperformance through new leadership and governance. It builds on the converter academy programme, designed to liberate highly successful state schools to allow them to flourish and spread their proven formula to other schools. It builds on the free schools programme, designed to encourage innovation and provide a break with failed education orthodoxies.

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[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and I was grateful for her involvement in, and contribution to, our deliberations in Committee. She knows what she is talking about, because she is chair at an extraordinary academy trust, the Michaela community school in Wembley, which was established by the formidable Katherine Birbalsingh. It is now into its second year and I recommend a visit to that school to any hon. Member who is interested in education. They will see a school that serves one of the most deprived parts of London delivering education of a quality that will astonish them. It is an astonishingly good school, and I am looking forward to its first set of GCSE results in three or four years’ time.

[Peter Kyle]

During the evidence session, the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) put the same question to Emma Knights from the National Governors Association. She got this response from an expert who studies this matter day in, day out.

“The main bit of evidence was produced by the National Audit Office last year and it showed that 60% of schools deemed inadequate did improve without any sort of formal intervention because they had exactly that: a school improvement plan, and that worked in 60% of cases. Sponsored academisation worked in 44% of cases”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 31 June 2015; c. 16, Q33.]

I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to point that out and to add to her experience and also to make worthwhile the night that I spent putting tabs on to my evidence session notes.

[Mr Gibb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) via me, but I am delighted to respond. Of course sponsored academies are taking on some of the most challenging schools in the country. Where schools are coasting, we want them to do everything they can with the current leadership to improve, but there must be a fast-track method for dealing with schools that have been put into special measures. Our manifesto was very clear that we wanted to ensure swift, consistent action from day one in every failing school. When a school is failing, it needs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who is the Chair of the Education Committee said, strong leadership and effective governance to ensure rapid improvements, which is delivered by academy sponsorship. That is why clause 7 places a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order for any maintained school that Ofsted has rated inadequate.

Sponsored academies have been hugely successful in raising standards in what were failing schools. In 2015, primary sponsored academies open for just one academic year have improved by five percentage points—from 66% to 71%—the number of children achieving the expected level in reading, writing and maths. Those open for more than two years have seen their results improve by 10 percentage points since opening. The proportion of pupils that gained five good GCSEs including English and maths was, on average, 6.4 percentage points higher in sponsored secondary academies that had been open for four years in 2014 than in their predecessor schools. Those are remarkable achievements for some of the most challenging schools in the country.

Education and Adoption Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Thursday 9th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Gibb]

We are always crunching numbers when comparing schools and we are always looking at how individual schools and academies are faring. We pore over all kinds of crunched numbers the whole time. That is a particular role of the regional schools commissioners, who do similar analysis to identify schools, and indeed academies, that are failing.

We do take swift action when academies are failing. Thetford academy, for example, was put in special measures in March 2013. The sponsors acknowledged that they did not have the capacity to make the required improvements, so the Department brought in the Inspiration Trust, who took the school on in July 2013. Results in the next academic year showed that the number of students achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and maths increased by 10 percentage points. In December 2014—just a few months later—Ofsted judged Thetford to be “good”, with outstanding leadership. Its report described the school as “transformed beyond recognition” and said that the trust’s leadership and support had

“created a strong culture where only the best is good enough.”

That demonstrates that we are equally as rigorous when dealing with underperforming academies as we will be when dealing with underperforming maintained schools under the Bill. The difference is that we have the powers to deal with underperforming academies through the funding agreement between the trust and the Secretary of State. We do not have similar powers for maintained schools; that is what the Bill is about.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The Minister is generous in giving way. The example he gave was of a failing academy being removed from a chain. Do powers exist to remove coasting academies from their chains with the same enthusiasm? It has been reported to me many times that good academies trapped in bad chains struggle to get the same freedom to move between chains that he proposes for schools to break free from local authorities.

[Mr Gibb]

We will use the Bill’s definition of coasting schools to assess the performance of academies. The regional schools commissioners will start a similar discussion with academy trustees or the chief executives of those trusts where schools or academies in the trust are coasting.

There are no plans to allow schools to leave academy chains; that is not how they work. If we are unhappy with the governance of a school in a chain, it is the sponsor that we are concerned about. We would be concerned not just about that one school, but about every school in that academy chain.

[Peter Kyle]

It is interesting that the Minister outlined the process by which you can engage in conversation with governors at such times, yet previously you talked about the need for efficiency in dealing with maintained schools. Do you think that the process is more important when dealing with academies, and that, when dealing with a maintained school, efficiency is the priority?

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[Mr Gibb]

We are denying campaigns such as the “Save Roke” committee that call measures to improve a primary school a hostile takeover. Such ideologically-driven campaign groups are interested not in raising the academic standards in schools but in delaying the process. They are ideologically opposed to the concept of academies. My understanding is that the Opposition are not ideologically opposed to the academisation process; so I would expect them to support measures to increase the speed of the process when a school is demonstrably underperforming.

[Peter Kyle]

The example that the Minister gave has resonance for me because in my constituency before the election there was a similar debate and similar protests about a school called Hove Park school. During the lunch break, I introduced the Minister to some of its students. The campaign was vigorous and campaign groups from outside the school community used it as a political football in many ways, and I share some of the Minister’s concerns about how that unfolded.

However, the point for me, as I said at the time, was whether it was possible to deal with people driven by ideology separately from parents, students and teachers who have their own views, wishes and concerns. It seems to me that we do not want to exclude and punish the school community because people campaign for ideological reasons from outside it. Does the Minister agree that it is possible to take that approach?

[Mr Gibb]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is right that the community should be consulted when the governing body of a “good” or “outstanding” school wants to pass a motion that it should convert to an academy. I think that there is also a case for discussing an improvement plan with staff and governors of schools in category 3, rather than 4—coasting schools—where the regional schools commissioner wants to try measures short of academisation,.

However, when Ofsted puts a school into special measures it is an extreme thing. It affects a tiny minority of schools. When schools have reached that point of underperformance, we must act so swiftly that there is simply not time to engage in formal consultations. Why was the “Save Roke” committee not established a few years earlier, to try to deal with the underperformance of Roke primary school? I could say the same about Hove Park. It was a pleasure to meet year 9 students from Hove Park academy, if I have the name right.

[Peter Kyle]

Hove Park school. It did not become an academy in the end.

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that that school voluntarily applied to convert to academy status, so it would not fall under the measures in question. I could tell from the teachers I met that it is a good school that has voluntarily sought the freedoms that come with academy status.

Amendment 51 would require the Secretary of State to consult about the identity of a sponsor when there was a change of sponsor. In the vast majority of cases, the sponsor matched to an underperforming school would be successful in delivering the necessary improvements. Those successes include large sponsors such as REAch2, which sponsors the largest number of primary academies in the country. Its schools have improved, on average, at three times the national average rate. I pause in case the hon. Member for Cardiff West wants to jump in. He has not, so that is another fact that we can treat as established.

There are also successful local sponsor arrangements. For example, in the Tall Oaks academy trust, White’s Wood academy, an outstanding academy with a national leader of education as its head teacher, turned around Mercer’s Wood, which was previously in special measures. Since joining the trust, that school has been judged “outstanding”, too.

However, in the scenario where a sponsor is not improving the school, or not doing so fast enough, or where there is any other concern about the sponsor’s ability to support that school, we will not hesitate to take steps to intervene. Regional schools commissioners, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, can issue warning notices demanding urgent action to bring about substantial improvement. Any such notice will set out what must be done to improve in a given timescale.

Education and Adoption Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Gibb]

Welcome back, Sir Alan, after our short break. I will start by responding to the hon. Members for South Shields and for Sheffield, Heeley. First, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley is absolutely right: the teachers whom she met on Friday are right about the workload that teachers endure at the moment. TALIS—the teaching and learning international survey—shows that teachers in this country are working significantly longer than the OECD average, perhaps by eight hours a week, yet the teaching hours that they work, according to that survey, are similar in this country compared with the OECD.

What is happening in those extra eight hours if it is not adding to the sum total of teaching in our schools? The answer is the sort of things that the hon. Lady is talking about: data collection, lesson preparation and marking. When we asked the teaching profession about its concerns about workload in response to TALIS and to what people were telling us, the issues that came top of the 44,000 responses were first, data collection and processing; secondly, the concept of deep marking; and thirdly, issues to do with lesson planning and so on.

We are taking measures to deal with these issues. We are setting up working groups, following that workload challenge, and looking at issues such as what is called dialogic marking to see whether that is the right approach. From my discussions with teachers, including the National Association of Head Teachers and other unions, I think that that is not the right approach to marking. We are absolutely looking at that to see how we can take away the pressure that is emanating from somewhere in the education world to insist that dialogic marking is used to give feedback on pupils’ work. We are also looking at data collection and resources that teachers use. We are absolutely committed to taking on the challenge of teachers’ workload, and we are determined to address it.

The hon. Lady referred to the explanatory notes, and again she is spot on. There is an error in the explanatory notes, which incorrectly refer to schools making representations to the local authority when, in fact, we are talking about representations made to Ofsted. She is right and that explanatory note will be corrected.

The hon. Member for South Shields referred to several issues where the Secretary of State will not have to answer. I have to disappoint the hon. Lady, but the Secretary of State does have to answer for everything that she does. She answers to us in the House at least once a month in Education questions, but also in other debates—Opposition day debates, Adjournment debates, Back-Bench debates and so on—so the hon. Lady is wrong to say that the Secretary of State will not have to answer, because she will.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out in her speech that teachers were feeling extra pressure from the additional inspection regime that will be added under the Bill. I notice that the Minister has not addressed that aspect in his remarks, and I wonder whether he will come back to it. As my hon. Friend expressed powerfully, in addition to the local authority and Ofsted, an additional level of inspection will put extreme pressure on some teachers. Will the Minister address that point before he moves on?

[Mr Gibb]

I was struggling to understand the precise point about Ofsted; there is no additional inspection regime under Ofsted. The coasting issue is outwith anything that Ofsted does. In fact, we will debate this when we come to clause 1, which should be very soon I believe. We have set out clearly the metrics for the definition of a coasting school; it is based not on Ofsted judgments, but on performance measures, both attainment and progress, as set out in the regulations. We will debate that when we come to clause 1, but it is certainly not based on Ofsted judgments.

Amendment 19 relates to the power that we seek under clause 2, which was discussed earlier today and which will amend section 60 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, to allow regional schools commissioners to give a performance standards and safety warning notice. Amendment 34 relates to the power that we seek under clause 5, which will amend schedule 6 of the Education and Inspections Act by adding proposed new paragraph 5A to provide that, where a local authority appoints an interim executive board, the Secretary of State, via the regional schools commissioners, could give directions on the IEB’s size and composition and on its members’ terms of appointment. This power will help to minimise the number of IEBs that do not work effectively—for example, they might be too big or not appropriately skilled—and help to ensure that they can make effective decisions on improving their schools.

Amendments 19 and 34 would achieve similar aims of requiring that any warning notice or direction about an IEB was made by an order contained in a statutory instrument under what will be section 181 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Under section 182(1) of that Act, such an order would be subject to the negative procedure. I understand hon. Members’ desire to ensure that there is due process behind any intervention, whether issuing a warning notice or giving directions about an IEB. Amendments 19 and 16, however, would introduce a different level of scrutiny of the Secretary of State’s power to issue warning notices from that which currently exists for local authority warning notices. That would involve unnecessary scrutiny of IEB direction and serve only to create more delays and bring more complexity into the system, which we are trying to reform to reduce delays and complexity. As hon. Members will know, statutory instruments are more properly used for changes in regulations or closing motorway slip roads than for tackling school underperformance.

When a regional schools commissioner issues a performance standards and safety warning notice directly to the governing body of a school under the new proposal in the Bill, they will do so only when they are convinced that the underperformance, the problems with governance or the safety issues warrant taking such action. Similarly, any direction in respect of a local authority IEB will be made only when the RSC judges that such action would be beneficial for the school in question. RSCs will be advised, of course, by their headteacher boards, which are there to support them in making effective decisions. Therefore, an appropriate level of challenge will be built into the system. Using a parliamentary procedure for secondary legislation would be disproportionate. As RSCs are exercising the Secretary of State’s powers, the Secretary of State is, as I mentioned in response to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, already accountable to Parliament for the decisions that they make.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West made some references to Ofsted and the removal of the appeal to the chief inspector that is in this clause. Ofsted has had 40 representations against warning notices and has only upheld two of those appeals. The appeals process slows down action because the warning notice is paused while Ofsted considers the appeal, and the compliance period only begins again once the warning notice is confirmed.

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[Mr Gibb]

Yes, but we are not talking about an appeal against a fine or a prison sentence; we are talking about an appeal against a warning notice to a school to require it to improve standards. That is a whole different ball game.

In any case, warning notices have to be reasonable. The Secretary of State will be accountable in Parliament for notices issued by regional schools commissioners. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has long called for this step to be removed, as has Ofsted, which wants to see the process of warning notices streamlined and to ensure that schools take steps to improve as soon as possible. This is about swift action to ensure that school standards improve.

[Peter Kyle]

I do not want to try the Minister’s patience with my interruptions, but in recent weeks 40% of Ofsted inspectors have been released from their contract because they were not able to perform their duties to the standards expected. Does that not illustrate why appeals are so important? In the past, it might have been not the challenge that was incorrect but how that challenge was dealt with at the other end. We need to look at the appeals process, but now that we know that some of the inspectors making the judgments were, themselves, not up to the job, might the schools not have been right in the past?

[Mr Gibb]

We are talking about an appeal to Ofsted, so the hon. Gentleman’s query is rather strangely worded. What is happening at Ofsted is a reform process that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, has been preparing for some time. Inspectors are now directly employed by Ofsted, rather than through various subcontractors, which is a better way of managing inspections. It is a worthwhile reform, and I commend Sir Michael for what he has achieved in his determination to improve the quality and consistency of inspections. With those final words, I hope that Members now feel able to withdraw their amendments.

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Nick Gibb and Peter Kyle

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[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.