Education Performance

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I congratulate colleagues who helped secure this important debate, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey). We often talk about budgets, structures and strategies, but we do not discuss performance enough. It is a key issue for my constituents in Portsmouth. We have heard some great speeches that have taken us over the globe, but I hope that Members will forgive me for concentrating on my constituency.

We have some serious challenges and low educational performance in Portsmouth, although it is slowly improving. To name one of the many challenges, we have particular problems in primary education, which means that a lot of children going into secondary school education have a 5% or less chance of getting a GCSE. Although we have very good services for high special educational needs, we do not, in my view and in that of Ofsted, have good provision for medium to low needs or, indeed, for gifted children either. Someone with dyslexia or a pragmatic language disorder really struggles to get the help they need. There is very little support for parents in getting access to the services that their children need. There is also a reluctance to intervene in particular cases and to have a focus on and a drive to get the services that a particular child needs.

In one case with which I am dealing, for example, a young lad who is due to take his GCSE options next year has never been to a secondary school. He has a very low special educational need that could easily be addressed and sorted out through a number of options, including a travel grant. It is a scandal that it has now taken more than two years—we are approaching the end of the third year—for any solution to be put on the table for that family.

A lot of children in Portsmouth have a challenging home life. A lot of our schools do amazing things in supporting such children, but one message that I want to get across today is that although intervention, behavioural support and all the things that those children need, such as being taught life skills, are important, they are no substitute for enabling them to follow an academic path. Sometimes and all too often, they are a substitute. We have to do much better for children from those kinds of backgrounds who do not necessarily have a strong parental advocate.

As an aside, we have discussed media studies and other softer subjects, and I agree absolutely with Members who have said that they are not equivalent and that we do young people a disservice by pretending that they are. However, I should like to mention the Heart of Portsmouth boxing academy, which has piloted a GCSE in boxing. It has been a hook for getting children who would otherwise never be in school to attend lessons. Until recently, 400 pupils a year in Portsmouth spent more than three months of the school year out of school. Pupils who study the GCSE get a taster of more academic subjects—human biology, maths and so on—and all those who have taken it are now involved in further education and going on to careers in sport and all sorts of other fields.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting point, but is there not a slight contradiction in what she is saying? She is saying that developing imaginative types of qualifications can stimulate the interest of young people to go on and study and succeed in what other Members have called the core subjects.

[Penny Mordaunt]

There is a role for those types of subjects, but I do not think that we do young people any service at all by pretending that they are equivalent qualifications. They serve a particular purpose. One reason why the boxing club and the GCSE were set up was to address a particular problem facing the individuals involved. It has led to them going on to do other things, but it is not an equivalent GCSE to a language, maths or those other core subjects. We do our young people a disservice if we pretend that it is. It is important, however, to pay tribute to some of the work that has been done in that area.

Another point—I shall not dwell on this, but it is key—is that there is a lack of aspiration. That is a consistent theme that I hear from secondary head teachers. It is one of the biggest long-term problems that they face. What can be done about it? I welcome the rigour that is being put back into the curriculum. I am particularly pleased about the focus on the fact that spelling, punctuation and grammar matter in GCSEs. I endorse what previous speakers have said about incentives for choosing particular high-return subjects. Part of that is better careers advice for young people when choosing those options.

We need to do better for those with a special educational need. Every child must get the support they need. I am dealing with the case of a very bright girl who has dyslexia. She is four years behind the reading age that she should be at, but her case is not considered critical or in need of any intervention by the local authority. We need to be smarter about how we provide those services. Some services are just not available, or they are supposed to be available but are not being provided in schools. Needs are dismissed and it is very difficult for parents to get some clout and make sure that the services are delivered.

Another area of great concern in Portsmouth is that about 50 children are not in a school—not because they have been excluded, but because nowhere can cater for their needs—and are being home taught, but not through the choice of the parents. A lot of those parents themselves have a learning disability but zero support. There is no support from the local authority to help them teach their children. In fact, if they admit that they are teaching their children at home, they are struck off the list to get a school place. That is a real problem.

We need to look at the flow of funding. I am dealing with a case in which a child has a high dyslexia need and has to have a specialist, full-time teacher who is accredited by CReSTeD—the Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils. Only one school in the city provides that kind of service, and it is in the private sector. It would cost the local authority less to send the child to that school than to try to bring in extra facilities to one of its own schools. Where it makes sense for that happen, I think we should allow funding to flow and to follow the pupil—even if they do not have a statement—if there is a clear, well-documented special educational need. I have a quick plug: on 8 June, I will ask the House whether I can table a Bill to address some of those issues.

Finally, we need much more vision in Portsmouth for our young people. We have some tremendous opportunities in the city. We are surrounded by high-tech industry. We have an MP who is a member of the British Astronomical Association. We have a university that is in the top five in the country for astrophysics and cosmology. Not only do we build aircraft carriers and Type 45 destroyers, but we build spaceships at Astrium. We also have the Navy. I would very much like to see a university technical college set up in the city in the near future.

Speaking of vision for the city, I would like to end by paying tribute to all those who work and volunteer to educate children in Portsmouth. I am very grateful for their time, effort and energy in helping me to put together a vision for our city. I need to ensure that they are properly supported—if not by education expertise in the local authority, then by expertise and support from elsewhere. The Department should be responsive to their needs. As their MP, I will play my role in debates such as this and in providing practical support on the ground.