Educational Assessments
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I genuinely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) on securing this debate and on the enthusiasm with which she has put her case. She has written extensively about examinations and assessment and she is a passionate advocate for children and young people.
There is a great deal on which we can agree, such as understanding the importance of young people’s mental health, the importance of skills as well as academic rigour in the system, and the importance of balancing opportunities across vocational and academic routes. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that we do not want schools to be teaching to the test and that we want pupils to be engaged in activities as well as learning from which they can benefit.
I fear that we are fated to disagree, however, on exams and assessment reform. We stood on a manifesto that promised to ensure that
“every pupil gets the qualifications they need for a prosperous future, while learning in an environment where they will be…fulfilled.”
It is vital to me that qualifications align with our broader vision for education. The Government are clear that young people should be able to access a broad and balanced academically focused curriculum up until the age of 16. We believe that pupils should be introduced to the best that has been thought and said to familiarise them with the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens and to ensure that as many children as possible can lay claim to a rich intellectual inheritance.
Key to that, of course, is ensuring that they have the numeracy and literacy skills to access that broad and balanced curriculum by the time they finish primary school. GCSEs provide the basis for an academically focused curriculum from 14 to 16 and it is our ambition that, by 2025, 90% of pupils will sit a core set of academic GCSEs known as the EBacc.
We have taken steps to ensure that pupils have the opportunity to study high-quality vocational and technical qualifications alongside that core from 14 to 16. We have improved the quality of non-GCSE qualifications at key stage 4 by introducing a new approvals process for technical awards. Only those that meet our stretching requirements and are reviewed by Ofqual will be recognised in key stage 4 performance tables alongside academic qualifications.
With that broad grounding, all students, regardless of background, are prepared to fulfil their aspirations post 16. Pupils can specialise by choosing from a range of high-quality academic and technical qualifications and routes that then become open to them. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, the academic route is not the only path to success, which is why it is important that a range of assessment types and pathways is available, drawn from our rigorous and evidence-informed blend of qualifications, to ensure that all students can achieve their full potential.
Alongside A-levels, we have introduced T-levels. Our 10 new T-levels are being taught, including digital, construction, education and childcare, and healthcare science. More than 20 will be available from 2023 and they give students a clear path from their studies to their chosen career. We are also streamlining and improving the quality of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The Minister is both diligent and thoughtful about these matters. The key thing is that many people’s tastes and talents take them down a practical route, yet we are still labouring under the illusion that the only way to gain accomplishment comes through academic prowess. The simple fact of the matter is that, as he suggested, we need to recognise that fewer people should be studying those degrees that confer neither intellectual rigour nor economic value. People should be studying practical, vocational, technical subjects for their own benefit and fulfilment and for the national interest.
Mr Walker
I do not disagree at all with my right hon. Friend, and he will see that some of the work our right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education is doing with the university sector is about recognising precisely that, but I do not think that is an argument for removing GCSEs at the age of 16; it is an argument for ensuring that those vocational routes are available.
As we all know, the past two summers have seen unprecedented disruption to the familiar routine of exams and assessments. Teachers and school and college leaders across the country have coped amazingly well with the pandemic and with its associated disruption to exams—and I want to take this opportunity to again thank them from the Dispatch Box for their herculean efforts—but we know that exams are the best and fairest way of judging students’ performance.
Exams provide a shared understanding of what students know and can do—an even playing field with everyone being assessed on the same thing at the same time, independently. We know that exams and the preparation leading up to them can be motivating and lead to improved learning. Beyond that, exams provide students with an objective and accurate gauge of their progress and understanding of subject matter, which can inform their choices about where to go on to next. Exams are the most objective measure, which is why non-examined assessment and coursework is used only where knowledge, skills and understanding cannot be tested validly by an exam. Examples of this would include coursework in GCSE and A-level art and design. For all those reasons we are committed to exams continuing to play a crucial role in our education system, and we are firmly committed to their reintroduction this summer as we emerge from the effects of the pandemic.
Over the course of the last 10 years our reforms to secondary and further education qualifications have created a gold-standard exam system that is respected around the world. Our qualifications exports in 2018 were worth £3.3 billion to the UK economy; this points to a model of success of which we should rightly be proud.
My predecessors in the Department reformed and strengthened GCSEs from 2013 to address concerns from higher and further education institutions and employers that the previous qualification did not adequately prepare young people for the demands of the workplace and higher studies—points my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley made. Our reformed GCSEs rigorously assess knowledge acquired by pupils in key stage 4 and are in line with expected standards in countries with the highest-performing education systems.
Our reforms strengthened GCSEs in a number of ways. Qualifications became linear, with exams sat at the end of a two-year course so that less time is spent preparing for modules and resits and more time is spent on teaching and learning. My hon. Friend raised the point about teaching for tests. I have frequently discussed that with Ofsted, which takes it very seriously; its new inspection framework encourages schools to keep a focus on the breadth of curriculum, particularly at key stage 3 and earlier, and discourages teaching to the test.
Ofqual was formally established as the new independent regulator in 2010, with a statutory responsibility to maintain standards. It put in place robust arrangements to maintain standards, which led to year-on-year stability in grades over a long period. Ofqual also introduced a new grading scale, from 9 to 1, with 9 the highest and 1 the lowest grade, in place of A* to G, to signal that the standard of qualifications had changed and to allow greater differentiation of performance at the top end. In 2017 Ofqual also introduced a national reference test to capture improvements in attainment in English and maths so that these could be reflected in grading.
GCSEs serve a critical function as a measure of attainment and a vehicle for progression, and they do so because they are recognised and trusted. They have strong public recognition, with support from 75% of those surveyed as part of Ofqual’s most recent public perceptions and confidence study. That trust stems from a long history in this country of assessment at age 16, which has existed since at least 1918 when the school certificate was introduced, through to the introduction of O-levels in 1951, CSEs in 1965 and GCSEs in 1988.
Mrs Drummond
That was fine when young people were leaving at 16 because they needed some qualifications to take into the workplace, but we are now expecting all young people to stay in education or training until 18, so does it not make more sense to shift that exam at 16 to 18?
Mr Walker
That training can of course include the workplace, such as through apprenticeships and the vocational route, so I have to disagree fundamentally. It is important that young people have those opportunities to continue studying in school or, for those who are not suited to school, to go on to a vocational route to pursue further study and development of their careers in the workplace.
We know that half of students change institution at the age of 16, and it is because they have a shared and recognised qualification that they can transition easily post-16. GCSEs equip students to move directly into employment or apprenticeships at that age with a qualification in hand. GCSEs are long-standing, credible and well respected. At the same time, as I mentioned, we have worked with higher education providers and employers to reform A-levels to ensure that they better meet the needs of higher education. That includes decoupling the AS-level to reduce the assessment burden and enable A-level students to spend more time learning and developing their depth of understanding of subjects. Reformed GCSEs support reformed A-levels, and reformed A-levels support higher graduation rates in three-year degrees from our internationally recognised universities, with four British universities currently in the top 10 globally and 17 in the top 100.
I turn to vocational and technical qualifications, which we all recognise are important. From our reforms to the way in which grades have been awarded in the context of the covid-19 pandemic, we have sought to ensure parity between those receiving vocational and technical qualifications and those receiving GCSEs and AS and A-levels. As I mentioned, the new T-levels have been developed in collaboration with employers so that students can get the specific training, knowledge and skills required for their chosen career. Not only that: they include a nine-week high quality placement in a relevant industry, giving students first-hand experience of work during their studies.
Alongside the introduction of our T-levels, we are streamlining and strengthening the quality of all other post-16 qualifications at level 3, making the system easier to navigate and more responsive to employers’ needs. The changes that we are making will give students a clear route map to the high-quality technical and academic choices available—choices that they can trust to lead to rewarding careers.
My hon. Friend mentioned the role of UTCs. The Government are committed to providing young people with technical skills and knowledge to progress into further and higher education, apprenticeships and employment. Indeed, strong university technical colleges such as the outstanding UTC in Portsmouth to which she referred are succeeding in equipping their students with those vital skills.
I turn to the immediate arrangements for qualifications. We recognise that students taking exams this year will have experienced disruption caused by the covid pandemic, so we have rightly worked closely with Ofqual to put in place a package of measures to recognise that. The measures will include unprecedented support to ensure that students can fairly demonstrate what they know and can do. They offer the right balance to account for the disruption students faced while providing students, teachers, schools and colleges with the consistency and independence of assessment and familiarity that exams deliver. The package of measures this year includes advance information on the focus of exams in most subjects for GCSE and AS and A-level students; a choice of topic or content in some GCSE exams where advance information is not provided; exam aids for use during some GCSE exams; and a range of adaptations for students taking vocational and technical qualifications depending on the purpose of the qualification.
In balancing public confidence in qualifications with fairness, Ofqual has also confirmed that 2022 will be a transition year to reflect the fact that we are in a pandemic recovery period and that students’ education has been disrupted. In 2022, the aim will be for grades to reflect a midway point between 2021 and 2019, with national results likely to be higher than pre-pandemic levels, providing a safety net for those of this year’s students who might otherwise have missed out on a grade. We are confident that those measures, alongside the direct investment of nearly £5 billion in education recovery, provide a pathway for a successful return to normal exams and assessments in the academic year 2022-23.
My hon. Friend rightly mentioned the importance of mental health. Exams and other assessments are an essential part of ensuring that young people have acquired the knowledge and skills that they need to study. The Government are clear that education providers should encourage pupils and students to work hard, but not at the expense of their wellbeing. I recognise that exams, like other things in life including job interviews, moving house or having a first child, are by their nature stressful, but when pupils receive the right support, many find the level of stress from exams manageable—and actually a certain level of stress can be a motivating factor. Schools and colleges should be able to identify signs of exam-related stress whenever they emerge and be in a position to respond appropriately.
Research shows that there is a clear difference between exam stress, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and anxiety, which is a cause for concern. Clearly, we do not want young people to be in a situation where pressure tips over into mental health problems. That is why we have provided schools with a wide range of training and resources to help them support pupils and students’ wellbeing. Our recent £15 million wellbeing for education recovery and wellbeing for education return programmes have provided free expert training, support and resources for education staff, helping to promote and support the wellbeing and mental health of pupils and students as they recover from the impacts of the covid pandemic. Ofqual has also issued guidance on coping with exam pressure. The information provides some techniques that students can use to help to alleviate or lessen anxiety they might have about exams, and it can be accessed through Ofqual’s website.
My hon. Friend mentioned primary assessments. We think it is vital that primary assessments go forward this year, not least because we want to ensure that that data is available to look at the impact on learning from the pandemic and that we can work across the system. However, I can confirm to her that we will not be publishing comparative data between schools this year, which I know has been a concern for the sector. Recognising that school tests and assessments will be returning for the first time since 2019 without the adaptations we have in secondary, the results will not be published in league tables.
Mrs Drummond
If that is successful, will the Minister continue it in future years? One of the problems that make the stakes high is that schools are put in league tables. That is why they are teaching to the test, because, obviously, they want to appear higher up in the league tables. If it is a success this year, will it be carried on so that we do not have league tables anymore?
Mr Walker
The specific measures we are taking this year are in recognition of the pressures the sector has faced. We will, of course, review their impact as we go forward.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to debate this very important issue this evening. I must be clear that there are no plans for new wholesale reform of GCSEs and A-levels, which are internationally respected and enjoy high levels of public support. I am proud of the strides that this Government and previous Governments have taken to boost the quality of our technical and vocational qualifications. Our reforms since 2010 have already made a lasting improvement to qualifications, ensuring that they reflect the knowledge and skills pupils need to progress. Our GCSE and A-level reforms were substantial and designed to last, but some of the reforms to qualifications were quite new when the pandemic started. I am determined to continue the great work of my predecessors and embed them into our system. I am also acutely aware that schools, colleges and our brilliant teachers will benefit from a period of stability as we recover from the effects of the pandemic.
As we gear up for the return of exams this summer, I will close with a reflection on what that will mean for students across the country who are preparing for them. For the first time in two years, students in my constituency of Worcester, as well as in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Meon Valley and along with those up and down the country, will have the chance to demonstrate what they have learned through public exams. I am pleased that through their hard work and the hard work of their teachers, they will have the opportunity to secure the valuable qualifications they need to progress to the next stage of their careers.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
We have delivered more than 1.9 million devices to schools, colleges and local authorities for disadvantaged pupils, as part of a £520 million investment during the pandemic. We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help more than 33,000 disadvantaged children get online, and we have delivered more than 100,000 4G wireless routers for pupils without connections at home.
Siobhain McDonagh
When schools closed, the move to remote learning highlighted the digital divide in our society. Schools such as the outstanding Ursuline High School were already at the forefront of technology, giving every pupil a tablet and offering six lessons a day from home right from the start, but others did not have the kit required. For those still on the wrong side of the digital divide, every click widens the attainment gap. Aside from the emergency lockdown devices, what support is being offered to equip schools with the skills, time and kit to ensure that no child is left behind in our technological world?
Mr Walker
Let me join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the work that the Ursuline academy did during lockdown. It is very important that schools reached out and provided the help where they could. It is important to recognise that the 1.9 million devices that were provided by the Department during the course of the pandemic were on top of around 2.9 million devices already with schools, so the kit is out there to do this. We will continue to work with colleagues at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that disadvantaged households get the technology that they need.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
The Education Secretary has announced that his Department will repurpose the Oak National Academy to provide UK-wide online learning. Families facing the Tory cost of living crisis need a guarantee that data used to support learning will not add to their spiralling household bills. Ofcom’s recent affordability report found that 1.1 million households are struggling to afford broadband. With more schools delivering learning via digital means, can the Minister set out whether he intends to keep these services zero-rated indefinitely?
Mr Walker
I am pleased to see that the hon. Gentleman has welcomed our announcement this morning on Oak. We think it is a valuable tool that will support exemplification as well as delivering online support to pupils and students. With regard to zero-rating, we welcome the fact that that is continuing and we will continue to work closely with colleagues at DCMS to see how that can be supported over the longer term.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I recently met my hon. Friend, who has been a persistent champion of his local school. The Department provides funding annually to improve school buildings and has allocated £11.3 billion since 2015, including £1.8 billion this financial year. We have also opened the next round of our school rebuilding programme, which will transform 500 schools over the next decade.
Chris Loder
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He will know full well that I have been supporting the Gryphon School in Sherborne to fix its dilapidated temporary classrooms. The school has just submitted a severe needs funding request in order for us to replace those temporary classrooms. Will he review that and support the submission so that we can fix the issue?
Mr Walker
I recognise that my hon. Friend has consistently pressed the case for his old school in this Chamber and through meetings with myself and with colleagues in the Lords. The next round of our school rebuilding programme has now opened. We expect to select around 300 projects this year, and our aim is to prioritise those with the greatest condition needs. I welcome the fact that a bid has gone in from his school, demonstrating that condition need. Although I can assure him that he has done everything that he can to draw the attention of our Department to these issues, he will understand that I cannot commit to any individual school until the selection process is complete.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I cannot begin to describe how much Sale High School in my constituency needs a rebuild. There is a local financial solution on the table, which is being put at risk by Department for Education delays. Will the Minister commit to helping me bring this to a resolution today?
Mr Walker
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I just gave. Of course I am happy to make sure that the Department looks carefully at any individual bid of schools, especially where there is particular condition need. If he would like to write to me, I shall have a look at that case.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
Last week I visited Derby High School in my constituency. It is a brilliant school with a fantastic senior leadership team and kids who are achieving their potential, but the structure of the building must match the ambition of each child within the school. It has been nominated for the school rebuilding programme. Will my hon. Friend agree to meet me to see what this Government can do to deliver for children in Bury something that the Labour local authority is not doing?
Mr Walker
I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. I understand that he has consistently championed the case of children in Bury. As I have mentioned, we have met other colleagues to discuss projects of this nature, so I am sure either I or my colleague in the Lords will be happy to meet him.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Joseph Leckie Academy has still not received the full amount that was allocated under Building Schools for the Future in 2010. Will the Minister please come and visit so that he can see the toilets, the school hall and the dining area, which are in desperate need of refurbishment?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Ashlawn School in my constituency is outstanding, with currently the longest waiting list for secondary places in Warwickshire. There is a need to renovate many of the school’s 1950s buildings but, regrettably, it does not meet the funding criteria for the school rebuilding programme. Do the Secretary of State or the Minister have any advice for Ashlawn on how it can get buildings that are comparable to the outstanding education it offers?
Mr Walker
The Department provides capital through a number of routes. There is, of course, devolved capital to local authorities and to multi-academy trusts, so my hon. Friend might want to look at what opportunities are available through that or through the condition improvement fund, in addition to the school rebuilding programme I have already discussed.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
On the subject of Department for Education delays, residents in Newcastle North are concerned that the new Great Park Academy may be unable to open on schedule next September. Original plans were for an opening in 2020, but that has now been postponed to 2023 and the school is currently in temporary accommodation on another high school’s site. We need to see progress on this urgently. I have written to the Minister and asked for a meeting to discuss the cause of the delays. After all the disruption of the past two years, we must deliver stability for our young people. Will he work with me to ensure that we can unblock what is delaying this project?
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
The Minister will know of Westgarth Primary School in Marske, which is in desperate need of urgent building works. May I invite him to visit Redcar and Cleveland in the near future, to meet me and the Galileo Trust to see what can be done to support the school, its pupils and its fantastic teachers?
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government have committed to a form of local authority register for children not in school, as was detailed in the children not in school consultation response that we published on 3 February. We hope to legislate on that measure at the next available opportunity to create the duty to keep and update a register and for local authorities to provide support to home educators where they want it.
Andrew Selous
If a local authority found that illiterate home-schooling parents were unable to teach their children to read, write and add up, would it signpost them to proper adult literacy and numeracy as well as ensuring that the children could access their inalienable right to a good education?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Government guidance sets out the powers that local authorities have and the actions that they can take. He is right that the adult education budget has funding to support literacy and, with the new numeracy programme, to support numeracy. There is a role for stepping up in that space. Local authorities already have powers to specify levels of literacy and numeracy on a case-by-case basis, and having the statutory register will encourage them to use those powers.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The science and geography national curriculums provide pupils with knowledge that underpins the development of green skills to help understand issues related to sustainability, climate change and resource use. Further, at COP26 the Secretary of State launched the Department’s draft sustainability and climate change strategy, which sets out key actions and commitments to enhance green skills provision across education.
Mr Sheerman
May I ask the Minister to work across parties on this issue? For a net zero economy, we need to do far more training for green skills. Too often I find that young people, at age 16, 18 or 21, do not know the pathway. When I talk to teachers in my constituency, and indeed those in early years, they all want to prepare their children for a green economy and to provide them with green skills for wonderful jobs in the green environment. Can he work a little harder and faster towards this?
Mr Walker
I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says. We all agree about the importance of this area. That is one of the reasons why it is so important that we pursue the science, technology, engineering and maths agenda. We need to work across the education piece to ensure that we are preparing people for the jobs of the future. The strategy that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State published at COP26 is a step in that direction, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we want to work across parties and across the House, and in all parts of the country, to drive this agenda forward.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government are committed to ensuring that children and young people receive a balanced education. The Department has recently published new political impartiality in schools guidance, which will help support teachers in tackling sensitive issues in the classroom in a politically impartial way.
Jonathan Gullis
A minority of woke-warrior teachers think it is acceptable to push extremist nonsense on to pupils, such as white privilege, and try to cancel important historical figures, such as Sir Winston Churchill. However, these teachers are also aided and abetted by some trade unions, such as the Not Education Union. The failed and disgraced NEU demanded that the welfare state was reformed before approving of pupils going back to school with its ridiculous 100-point plan, and its president blames NATO instead of Vladimir Putin for the illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. Will my hon. Friend outline how we will hold politically motivated trade unions to account and prevent them from using teachers as a gateway to push their far-left agenda?
Mr Walker
I have to say that my hon. Friend always speaks out bravely from his own personal experience as a teacher, and I see that he has done so in his Telegraph article today. Pupils must form their own political views, and schools should not indoctrinate or encourage children to pin their colours to any particular political mast. The new guidance will help schools to make good decisions about working with external agencies and ensure that any engagement does not breach their legal duties.
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
The harrowing scenes in Ukraine have shaken the world, and it has been reported that a number of students from the UK are still trapped in Ukraine. Can the Minister please confirm whether contact has been made with those students, and what support he can provide to them?
Mr Speaker
Order. Minister, that is nothing to do with the question. The problem is that supplementaries have to be linked to the question. If the hon. Lady tries again in topicals, she may just catch my eye.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government remain committed to delivering the free school programme, and appreciate the importance of a new secondary school in the Perranporth area. We are continuing to work with the trust and local authority, to secure the site and deliver new school places for Cornwall.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe that Randstad’s delivery of the national tutoring programme has been a success?
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
Mr Walker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his non-invitation. Kirkby College was confirmed in the school rebuilding programme in July 2021, and the project will make a huge difference to the community. I am happy to commit to delivering it as quickly as possible. We are working closely with the incoming trust to scope the project before securing a construction partner, and we aim for construction to start in 2023.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Mr Walker
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. We have consulted on the approach to be taken to assessing such schemes. As we discussed earlier, a change in condition is one factor that the Department can take into consideration in such cases, so I ask him please to write to us with more of the detail.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Equipping young people with the skills of the future is vital not only for green jobs, as we have heard, but for other emerging technologies. However, many such jobs will be underpinned by an understanding and appreciation of engineering. Will my right hon. Friend therefore consider introducing a new design, technology and engineering course as one of the science options?
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Russell Scott Primary School in Denton has been dubbed by the national media as:
“Britain’s worst built school where pupils paddle in sewage and get sick from toxic fumes.”
I raised this issue previously and Baroness Barran has now suggested a bid to the Department for Education for funding. Tameside Council is in the process of doing that, but it really should not be subject to a competitive process. I hope the bid will be looked on favourably by Ministers. It is crucial, it is levelling up, it is offering the best educational opportunities in safe buildings, is it not?
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
In Stroud and Gloucestershire, we have high numbers of home-schooled children. A lot of care is taken to look after their welfare and educate them to a high standard, and there is a really good relationship with Gloucestershire County Council. While many understand the drive for effective wellbeing and safeguarding, they are worried about the new compulsory registration scheme. Will the Minister meet me and my Stroud community, so we can learn more about the plans?
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I have constituents whose teacher-assessed grades during the pandemic were markedly different from the grades predicted, often by the same teacher just a couple of months previously. When I complain to the school, it says I should go to Ofqual, but when I go to Ofqual, it says I should go to the school. Can we please have a clear appeal mechanism to sort out these long-running problems?
Mr Robin Walker
I would be happy to take up the issues the hon. Member raises with Ofqual, which I am due to meet later this week. It is important to reiterate that some of the challenges we have seen with TAGs are among the many reasons we think it is right that exams should go ahead. We need to move back to a proper, independently assessed system. I want to make sure that schools and colleges that have been asked to collect evidence of their students’ performance, covering the breadth of content usually seen in exams and assessments, recognise that, once they have that evidence, they are not obliged to collect any more. It is important that we have the fallback of TAGs, of course, but we do not necessarily want schools to be going out of their way to do extra work in this space.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
Stoke-on-Trent was delighted to become an education investment area and is seeking a new 16-to-19 specialist school, but I am still waiting for wave 15 of the free school programme to be announced so that I can bid for the long overdue free school in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. We need to improve academic outcomes and destinations. When is that coming?
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Secretary of State seen the latest report from the autism commission that I co-chair, which focuses on not only autism, but the impact on the individual throughout their life and their family? Does he realise that the failure to get a statement and to get an assessment for years and years is causing so much unhappiness in those families?
National Tutoring Programme and Adult Education
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and, in particular, the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing it and for his comprehensive dissection of what is happening across the education sector—I have a lot of respect for his experience and knowledge of it. I think his analysis of the catch-up programme was fairly damning, and I will come on to echo some of those points.
The right hon. Gentleman, among his many remarks, highlighted the percentage of teachers leaving the profession, which has to be really alarming for all of us. I speak to a great many teachers and headteachers, as I am sure all colleagues do, and I pick up a sense of disillusionment, frustration and exhaustion, and a sense of being undervalued by our society, and particularly by the Department for Education. The pay freezes have really taken their toll. So many teaching assistants are having to leave the profession because schools cannot afford them, which is placing great pressure on teachers, as we heard from the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates).
I also thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for her contribution. She was right to highlight the disappointing turnout by colleagues today, because this is a hugely important debate. I for one would have wanted to be on the Back Benches, had I been able to be so, because this is having a huge impact on all our communities, particularly on the next generation coming through. We should all be focused on what it means not only for our society and economy, but for those individuals. She also challenged the Government on their failings with the catch-up programme and rightly raised the issue of the shortage of teachers because the programme is sucking teachers out of supply pools.
I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, a former teacher, explaining just how tough it is for teachers right now. So many constituents are feeding back to me on how this is being felt throughout senior leadership teams, by governors and by all associated with schools, and on the impact it is having on the delivery of education for this generation.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge also spoke about early years and the need perhaps to reconsider priorities. I think the Government should take a long, hard look at what needs to be delivered for early years. I think that we are all in agreement. The right hon. Member for Harlow also highlighted the need for early years education and just how much of the formative education starts in those first five years. So much work has been done by academics and researchers about what that means for life chances in those first few months and years of a child’s life.
I remind the House of the context in which the national tutoring programme was launched. It was in response to the large-scale disruption to primary and secondary schools caused by the covid pandemic, and the Government were right to appoint the highly respected Sir Kevan Collins as their independent education recovery tsar. His recommendations were calculated and clear: if young people were to catch up on their missed schooling, that would require no less than a £15 billion investment in teachers, tutoring and an extended school day. Instead, the Government settled on just one tenth of that figure—a mere £1.4 billion or, to put it another way, little more than £22 per child—and were widely condemned as selling children short. Of course, Sir Kevan Collins resigned in protest.
The national tutoring programme should be a key pillar of the Department for Education’s offer to schoolchildren to allow them to catch up on lost learning, but it is not. From the outset, Ministers have sought to cut costs at the expense of prioritising the needs of children recovering from the disruption caused by the pandemic. Despite the DFE being allocated a budget of £62 million for the national tutoring programme contract—not a huge amount in itself—it settled on a supplier that claimed it could deliver for less than half that budgeted figure. In fact, Randstad, a business specialising in human resources contracts, promised it could provide the contract for 40% of that figure—just £25 million. The reality is that it cannot deliver. It underpriced and underestimated what was needed. The fact that, as has been reported, Randstad undercut competitors by as much as £10 million should have rung alarm bells in the Department and for any procurement professional. Ministers have failed to get a grip on the scale of the challenge facing them, and both pupils and the taxpayer are being let down.
In January, the DFE released data acknowledging that the Minister’s flagship initiative for children in England has reached only 10% of its pupil engagement target a third of the way through the school year. This is serious. To put those percentages into absolute numbers, a mere 52,000 pupils out of the 524,000 who are due to receive tutoring this year have received it. These are the real-life consequences of this Government’s decision to spend a mere £1.4 billion on catch-up, far short of the £15 billion that Sir Kevan Collins said was needed. This is education on the cheap, and it is failing young people. Given the scale of this challenge and the time that the Government have had since the start of the pandemic to get this right, this admission is as shocking as it is damning. Can the Minister therefore update the House on how many pupils have been reached as of this month?
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I would not want the hon. Gentleman inadvertently to mislead the House about the so-called 10% figure. Across the three strands, more than 300,000 pupils were reached even under those figures, which refer to the first term of the programme in this academic year, compared with the 300,000 who were reached over the whole of the previous academic year. I will provide an update in my speech, and we will come forward with further figures in due course, but it is important to recognise that as many students have received tuition under the national tutoring programme in the first term of this academic year as in the whole of the first year of the programme. We want to build on that and deliver the 2 million sessions that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) referred to.
Matt Western
I thank the Minister for that point, but as I understand it from the reports in Schools Week that have been referenced by colleagues in the Chamber, there is a significant shortfall against the target. I think everyone is agreed on that. Given that the Minister has himself conceded that the Government need to keep doing better and that they still have work to do, can he really say that he has confidence that Randstad will hit its targets when, as I said a moment ago, I have it that Randstad has hit only 10% of its target a third of the way through the year? I would be interested to know just how often the Minister reviews the contract with Randstad and how often he is holding its feet to the fire over its failures. Is it weekly or monthly that the Department is getting reporting? If so, why has it not moved more quickly?
Given that it is widely accepted that the impact of the pandemic fell disproportionately on the shoulders of pupils on free school meals and those designated as benefiting from pupil premium, the priority could not be clearer, yet that is also the very group that has been most let down by Randstad. Just last week, Randstad sent emails to tutoring providers suggesting that they were
“no longer required to ensure 65% of their tuition support is provided to children receiving pupil premium.”
Can the Minister confirm specifically whether this approach was authorised by his Department? In a joint letter published by seven tutoring providers, they damningly conclude that abandoning the target will
“only serve to widen the attainment gap”.
I think that point was referenced by the right hon. Member for Harlow.
This Government evidently have no intention of guaranteeing education recovery support for those who need it most. To compound that failure, Randstad is refusing to share data with the Education Committee on the number of pupils receiving free school meals who have been reached. Indeed, calls by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) to publish a regional breakdown of delivery have gone unanswered, although I heard some reference to them from the right hon. Member for Harlow. Can the Minister confirm whether he has regional data? If so, will he publish it as a matter of urgency? It is not just me asking; I am sure all diligent Members, who may not be here today, would want to see that information. It is vital that we know what is happening in our constituencies in this area, which is one of the most critical elements of the impact of the pandemic.
That also speaks to a wider point about the contractual arrangements underpinning the national tutoring programme. In my life before becoming the Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington, I worked in the commercial sector, regularly dealing with contracts and suppliers. It is why this contract strikes me as particularly one-sided, and it further demonstrates the Government’s failure to use public money wisely. That is something we witnessed throughout the pandemic, whether on Test and Trace or suppliers of contracts for personal protective equipment.
Incredibly, the contract can be cancelled by the Government only for website failures, and not for the quality of the teaching and tutoring. By negotiating only three key performance indicators upon which the Department can rely to trigger a swift termination of the contract—none of which concern the quality or availability of the tutoring itself—the Department has prioritised websites over children’s learning. On top of that, recent reports show that Randstad’s chaotic management means tutors are turning up to empty classrooms due to confusion over targets, yet they are still being paid. Teaching empty classrooms is hardly good value for public money and hardly in the interests of the pupils who are most in need of catch-up tutoring.
Indeed, when the Government outlined their national tutoring programme, my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) set out Labour’s bold alternative proposals. Labour’s children’s recovery plan would have delivered small group tutoring for all who need it and continued professional development for teachers to support pupils to catch up on lost learning. In addition, we would have set up catch-up breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities, providing up to 1.5 billion free healthy breakfasts a year to help children bounce back from the pandemic. We would have ensured that there was quality mental health support in every school and small group tutoring for all children who needed it. It is a real missed opportunity that Ministers did not listen to my hon. Friends and work with them for the benefit of school children across this country. A generation already scarred by real-term Government cuts to school budgets during the past 12 years is being further disadvantaged by this Conservative Government.
Unfortunately, the Government’s record on adult education is similarly dismal. Whatever they may promise in the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, their actions speak louder than words. The simple truth is that, since 2010, successive Governments have flattened opportunities—a far cry from the claim to be levelling up—by slashing further education funding by one third and the adult education budget by half. More recently, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s decision to claw back unused adult skills funds from colleges and local authorities if they missed their 2020-21 targets by more than 10% destabilised the sector—a point that the principal of Warwickshire College Group emphasised to me. With 45% of colleges already experiencing financial difficulties prior to the pandemic, that policy only added to the uncertainty and instability in the sector. The effect was scarring, as I am sure the Minister is well aware given the closure of Malvern Hills College, part of Warwickshire College Group, in his neighbouring constituency of West Worcestershire.
With the financial sustainability of FE institutions eroded and many FE lecturers able to secure a higher wage in the private sector or in the school system, where wages are on average £9,000 higher, the Government’s action, or lack thereof, on adult education clearly does not match their rhetoric. Despite many college students, apprentices and learners being adversely affected by the pandemic, Ministers allocated funds only to hold small-group tutoring for the most disadvantaged students aged 16 to 19, with no one-to-one support. When that funding was announced, the Association of Colleges said:
“the failure to fund additional teaching hours or to extend the pupil premium to age 18 means that many disadvantaged students may fall through the gaps.”
Again, the Opposition proposed a solution in our further education recovery premium, which would have extended existing tutoring support in further education to assist those students who most needed support.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) has said repeatedly in this House, more than £2 billion in unspent apprenticeship levy funds have been sent back to the Treasury instead of being used to transform the life chances of our young people. We would use the levy funds to create 100,000 new apprenticeships to offer young people the first rung on the ladder to a high-quality job. With our £250-million green transformation fund, sustainable and green skilled jobs would be at the forefront of the skills agenda.
We would also invest in today’s schoolchildren to ensure that they are aware of the wide range of opportunities open to them and that they can make informed decisions about their futures. Every school child would have access to face-to-face professional careers guidance and two weeks of compulsory work experience. In spite of the Minister’s rhetoric about the importance of careers guidance, Conservative Members chose to vote against our plans to ensure that every child leaves school job-ready and work-ready.
We have heard some fine words, but the Government cannot walk or talk themselves away from their record. As the Minister said, they need to do better—900% better—and there is still work to be done. It is clear that the Opposition are putting forward sensible, costed solutions that would tackle the real issues facing our education system, while the Government appear to dither, delay and indeed move the goalposts. We cannot have a contractor changing its own targets—perhaps the Minister will clarify that—but that is what the Government are allowing to happen. That contract costs the Government just £25 million as part of their £1.4-billion catch-up plan, but it is costing young people, our society and our economy dearly and it is failing children, particularly the most deprived and the most needy, everywhere.
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for opening this very important debate. I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss my Department’s plans for addressing the immediate and longer term challenges facing young people and adults in education.
I find myself in a rare moment of agreement with the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) in my surprise that the Back Benches, certainly on the Opposition side of the House, were so empty during this debate. Her party brought in at least two Members throughout the entirety of the debate, but the Labour Benches have been strangely unpopulated for most of it. However, that has provided the opportunity for some really excellent speeches by members of the Education Committee—my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates)—and I listened carefully to the points they made.
Since the then Minister for School Standards led a debate on the main estimates in July last year, our pupils, students and staff in educational institutions have gone through more disruption and distress, and now face a different environment as we begin to live with covid. During this period, teachers and other educational professionals have continued to show extraordinary commitment and dedication, and I echo the thanks of the Chair of the Select Committee to everybody who works in the sector. I know that people in all our schools up and down the country have done a phenomenal job in supporting the education of young people and continue to do so.
The Secretary of State has set out his priorities of schools, skills and families, and I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow is right to challenge us to include social justice in that list. Given his focus in this debate, I want to talk about our focus on disadvantaged pupils and the important work of the national tutoring programme before moving on to talk about adult education. First, though, I will set out, as I believe I am supposed to do in these debates, the overall funding picture.
In 2021-22, the Department for Education resource budget is around £82 billion. While there is a small decrease since the beginning of the financial year, as the hon. Member for Twickenham pointed out, this relates primarily to an accounting movement driven by a decrease in the impairment to the student loan book, which itself is driven by macroeconomic factors. Of the £82 billion, £60.2 billion is for estimate lines relating to early years and schools, and £20.3 billion for estimate lines relating primarily to post-16 and skills. Overall, in 2021-22 the Department is targeting about £10 billion of funding to supporting additional needs and disadvantaged pupils in schools, including through the pupil premium and our education recovery programmes.
I assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and all those present that we continue to look for ways to tilt our policies towards disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils in our schools and colleges. As well as the £2.5 billion pupil premium and the £1 billion recovery premium both focusing on disadvantaged pupils, we are mindful of other pupil groups whose circumstances make academic success a greater challenge. I am looking forward to giving evidence on the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population to my right hon. Friend and his Select Committee, which I know is carrying out an inquiry on that issue.
Following the 2019 children in need review, we have invested significantly to support the outcomes of children with a social worker. For example, last year we extended the role of virtual school heads to ensure that every child with a social worker has a local champion. For the past two years, we have funded research to test what works best in improving their educational outcomes. From September 2021, school designated safeguarding leads have a greater focus on improving the educational outcomes of children with a social worker, and we recently made changes to the school admissions code to ensure that the fair access protocol prioritises children who have been subject to a child in need plan or a child protection plan in the last 12 months.
For those who have left the care system, local authorities have a legal duty to support care leavers to engage in education, employment or training, including by appointing a personal adviser to help with the transition to independence. Care leavers studying in further education are a priority group for the 16-to-19 bursary of £1,200 a year. Incentives are in place for employers that recruit care leaver apprentices. The Government meet all training costs for young people aged 16 and 17, and this has been extended to the age of 25 for care leavers. Employers can claim an additional £1,000 for every care leaver, in recognition of the additional support they may need, and in 2018 we introduced a £1,000 bursary for care leavers starting an apprenticeship. We have published guidance to universities highlighting the areas where care leavers may need extra support, with examples of effective practice from across the sector. Many universities have now signed the care leaver covenant and published an offer for care leavers, and we provide a £2,000 bursary for each care leaver who goes to university.
We have all witnessed the impact on pupils, students and staff of school absence through illness or self-isolation. One of my Department’s clear priorities is the return of ordered school life and the recovery of lost academic ground, so I shall start my overview with the catch-up funding we have made available to all schools, directed to highly effective activities, and the tutoring revolution we have launched across all parts of England for pupils aged 5 to 16.
The recovery premium, a grant to all state schools in England for this and the next two years, is additional funding worth over £1.3 billion to help schools to deliver evidence-based approaches to support education recovery. We know that disadvantaged pupils have been hardest hit, and it is right that our recovery funding prioritises those who need it most. The recovery premium is therefore based on pupil premium eligibility to ensure that schools with the highest numbers of disadvantaged pupils receive the largest amounts. School leaders are encouraged to use the funding to address their disadvantaged pupils’ specific needs using proven practice, and those requirements are reflected in the grant conditions for the pupil premium. We have protected the pupil premium per pupil grant, and schools are sharing £2.5 billion this year, allocated according to the number of disadvantaged pupils on their rolls. School leaders have a lot of choice about how the grant is spent, but it should be on proven approaches that evidence shows make a real difference to disadvantaged pupils.
As we have heard from across the House, there is good evidence that small group tutoring works to accelerate pupils’ progress. Last year, in its first year, the national tutoring programme launched more than 300,000 tutoring courses. Feedback from schools and pupils was almost unanimous that the programme made a real difference. Given the size of the challenge, our ambition grew for this year, and we aim to supply up to 2 million high-quality tuition courses. We listened to schools’ reflections on the initial year and introduced a new option—school-led tutoring—in September 2021, to complement the tuition partner and academic mentor options.
The £579 million grant, calculated from the number of disadvantaged pupils on roll, enables school leaders to arrange subsidised tutoring themselves using existing staff who are well informed about their pupils and already known to them. That new approach has flourished. The figures we published in January for the autumn term showed an estimated 230,000 courses started by pupils through school-led tutoring, which was far ahead of the expected uptake. When added to more than 70,000 courses started with tuition partners and academic mentors, and last year’s 300,000 courses, it means that more than 600,000 pupils have started to receive tuition since 2020. A school survey suggested that 71% of responding schools felt the tutoring is benefiting academic progress, and 80% felt that it is improving pupils’ confidence.
I greatly enjoyed seeing tutoring in action through different models during my visits to Burnopfield Primary School in County Durham, which was employing an academic mentor, and Dunton Green Primary School in Kent, which was working on the school-led route and where pupils and staff were enthusiastic about the fresh approach to recovering lost education. The Department will be publishing the latest participation data shortly to update the House, the Education Committee, and the public about the progress being made. I have heard loud and clear the calls for more regional data to be available, and I am determined that we get that out at the earliest opportunity.
It was great to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge about her personal experience of teaching and tutoring, and her support for the ambition of reaching 2 million pupils over the course of this year. Although I acknowledge that take-up has been slow in parts of the programme, this Department listens to the schools it serves. Continuous improvement is built into our operation. My officials are working with our delivery partner, Randstad, to address challenges that have arisen this year. Schools continue energetically to employ academic mentors, for whom there is a healthy order book, and tuition partners continue to recruit new schools. We continue to listen to both schools and those delivering the tutoring. Last month we brought together tutoring organisations for a national workshop, and the Secretary of State and I recently met a group of the programme’s tuition partners, to hear their experiences of delivering the programme.
Overall, the programme is on track to deliver its objectives for this year. We constantly review the effectiveness of our policy delivery, making in-year adjustments to ensure that as many pupils as possible benefit from tutoring. That flexibility means that we do not anticipate a notable underspend at the end of the year. The Secretary of State and I have regularly been meeting Randstad, and our officials continue to monitor its performance on a weekly basis.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has raised many times using underspend from the tutoring programme to address the hugely important issue of attendance. That is a shared priority, and I totally understand his determination to consider that issue, as well as the strong case that has been made for attendance mentoring. I am keen that we explore and consider that, but I do not think it right to cannibalise tutoring funding to do it. I want to ensure that we find other ways of addressing that issue.
A question has been raised about the target for disadvantaged children within the national tutoring programme. I want to be clear that the 65% pupil premium target is not being removed, and the Department and Randstad remain committed to that target across the tuition partners pillar. Some flexibility was introduced for individual tutoring organisations so that schools and pupils did not miss out on valuable tutoring. They were encouraged to look at whether they could move ahead with providing tuition courses to individual schools without having to set that particular target within every single school. I appreciate that the communication of that did not necessarily come across as it should. It is important that we correct the record to be clear that the 65% target still stands and is an important part of how we are targeting this across the system. We are looking at how we can further improve the national tutoring programme for next year and will announce our plans in due course.
My hope and expectation is that more schools and tutoring organisations will get behind this concerted drive to tackle lost education. I look to all hon. Members present and colleagues across the country to champion this unique opportunity for schools in their constituencies. Together, we can ensure that the tutoring revolution delivers its benefits to every pupil who needs it and that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said, it becomes an established part of the education system.
Munira Wilson
The Minister referenced the various funding announcements for the national tutoring programme, but the House of Commons Library briefing says today:
“It is not clear how much has been spent on the NTP so far.”
For the record, can he clarify exactly how much has been spent to date and on the three individual strands: the school-led, tutor-led and mentoring parts of the NTP?
Mr Walker
I do not have those figures to hand, but it is important to state, as in a number of debates, it has been suggested that there will be a major underspend in the programme, that I do not necessarily anticipate that to be the case. I think that we can spend the money and do so effectively, and part of the reason for that is the flexibilities we have introduced to ensure that this can be delivered across all three strands of the programme.
I turn to adult education. My ambition for schools is matched by that of my ministerial colleagues with responsibility for adult education. That ambition is backed by our investment of £3.8 billion more in further education and skills over the course of this Parliament.
Apprenticeships are more important than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and develop the skills that they need. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for his work over a long period to raise the profile and esteem of apprenticeships. We are increasing apprenticeships funding, which will grow to £2.7 billion by 2024-25, and we have already seen more than 164,000 starts in the first quarter of the academic year, which is roughly a third—34%—higher than in the same period in 2020-21 and 5% higher than in 2019-20, before the pandemic. We encourage people of all ages to consider apprenticeships. There is now more choice than ever before, with 640 high-quality standards across a range of sectors.
I note my right hon. Friend’s interest in and continuing passion for teacher apprenticeships and agree that apprenticeships should give a route into a range of professions. I am assured that there is a range of apprenticeships in education, including a level 6 teaching apprenticeship. But we should continue to look at this area while of course maintaining the esteem of teaching being a graduate profession. His suggestion is absolutely in line with that.
I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) had to leave the debate earlier than we might have anticipated. She has been passionate about advocating the importance of apprenticeships for the early years. She has done fascinating work in that space in championing the value not only of the early years but of its workforce. I was pleased that, at the spending review, the Chancellor announced a £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies and children in half of local authorities in England. That includes £10 million for trials of innovative workforce models in a smaller number of areas to test approaches to support available to new parents. With that work, we can look at some of the areas she has championed such as early years mental health support, breastfeeding support and the early years development workforce as potential areas for the development of new apprenticeship standards.
We are also supporting the largest expansion of our traineeship programme to ensure more young people can progress to an apprenticeship or work. We are funding up to 72,000 traineeship places over the next three years. As part of our post-16 reforms, as set out in the skills for jobs White Paper, employer-led local skills improvement plans will be rolled out across England. Those will help to ensure that learners are able to develop the critical skills that will enable them to get a well-paid and secure job, no matter where they live.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Before I go any further, I want to declare an interest as somebody who used to help to deliver union learning in workplaces across the country, so I know that access to in-work, lifelong learning has the power to transform lives. Does the Minister accept that the decision to axe the union learning fund undermines any warm words about skills, further education and in-work learning?
Mr Walker
I do not accept that. Some valuable education was provided by Unionlearn, but the Department has to make sure that it is delivering skills in the most effective way. I am sure that the Minister responsible for skills, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), can speak for himself about decisions that have been taken in that respect.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge spoke very passionately about the role of Northern College in Barnsley and the support that it gets from the combined authority. I know that she is due to meet the skills Minister shortly and he will no doubt be able to come back to her on the residential uplift.
The Government are investing £2.5 billion in the national skills fund. That includes investment of up to £550 million to significantly expand skills boot camps and to expand the eligibility for delivery of the free courses for jobs offer. We know that improving numeracy skills can have a transformative effect, unlocking employment and learning opportunities. That is why we are allocating up to £559 million over the spending review period for our national numeracy programme, Multiply, which is launching this year. But that is not all. Many people need more flexible access to courses, helping them to train, upskill or retrain alongside work, family and personal commitments. That is why the lifelong loan entitlement will be introduced from 2025, providing individuals with a loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime.
I recognise the passion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow for careers advice and he continues to press the case for more episodes of careers engagement at school. I have seen some fantastic examples of that, including apprentices coming into sixth-form colleges to talk about the value of what they do, but we share his aspiration in that sense.
In conclusion, the national tutoring programme and our work to reform adult education share a core mission: to help those falling behind and to provide the framework for as many individuals as possible to reach their potential, regardless of their stage of life or location. I am proud of what the Government are doing to deliver that. We will continue to target investment at changes that will make the most difference, and I unreservedly commend this estimate to the House.
Levelling Up Missions: Education and Skills
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I have announced a number of new education and skills reforms which support delivery of two of the Government’s 12 levelling up missions which can be found in full on gov.uk.
The missions that the Department for Education will lead are:
Education: By 2030, the number of primary school children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths will have significantly increased. In England, this will mean 90% of children will achieve the expected standard, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by over a third.
Skills: By 2030, the number of people successfully completing high quality skills training will have significantly increased in every area of the UK. In England, this will lead to 200,000 more people successfully completing high quality skills training annually, driven by 80,000 more people completing courses in the lowest skilled areas.
Plans to deliver our ambitious education mission will be underpinned by proposals for 55 new education investment areas that will target investment, support and action that help children from all backgrounds and areas to succeed at the very highest levels. Education investment areas will cover the third of local authorities in England where educational attainment is currently weakest, plus any additional local authorities that contain either an existing opportunity area or were previously identified as having the highest potential for rapid improvement. A list of all 55 education investment areas can be found on gov.uk.
We will also open new free schools where they are most needed and prioritise education investment areas in doing so. This will include new specialist sixth-form free schools, helping ensure talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to the highest standard of education this country offers.
The UK Government will create a transformative new online UK National Academy. It will support pupils from all backgrounds and areas to succeed at the very highest levels. This support will be made available across the UK.
I am announcing a joint project to be launched between DfE and the Food Standards Agency to design and test a new approach for local authorities in assuring and supporting compliance with school food standards. The UK Government will promote accountability and transparency of school food arrangements by encouraging schools to complete a statement on their school websites, which sets out their whole school approach to food.
In addition, the UK Government will invest up to £5 million to launch a school cooking revolution, including the development of brand new content for the curriculum and providing bursaries for teacher training and leadership and training for governors and trusts.
To make our skills mission a reality, thousands more adults will soon be able access free, flexible training and get the skills they need to secure careers in sectors including green, digital and construction as part of up to an additional £550 million boost to expand the popular across the country.
To better understand the skills gaps, I am establishing a new future skills unit which will look at the data and evidence of where skills gaps exist and in what industries. Furthermore, we are working with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to roll out higher technical qualifications from September 2022, which have been approved against employer-led standards as providing learners with the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for a given occupation.
Employers must be at the heart of reforming local skills infrastructure. To realise this, the 2021-22 skills accelerator is piloting new employer-led local skills improvement plans and supporting providers with strategic development funding to help shape technical skills provision to better meet labour market needs.
So that in future we can achieve greater alignment to the delivery of employment and skills interventions, in Blackpool, Walsall and Barking and Dagenham the Government are trialling new pilot pathfinder areas to bring together local delivery partners from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education, to support people into work and better identify progression opportunities for those in part time employment.
Alongside launching a further nine institutes of technology, taking the total in England to 21 and exceeding our manifesto commitment, the Government will secure their long term-position as anchor institutions in their regions, on a par with the UK’s world-leading historic universities successful institutes of technology will in future be able to apply for a Royal Charter.
We will also increase access to HE particularly in towns, cities and rural locations without access to this provision.
As part of the launch of the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund, adults across the whole of the UK will benefit from the multiply programme, offering national and local support for people to gain or improve their numeracy skills, worth £559 million over the SR21 period.
I will place a copy of the full list of the education investment areas and the methodology for their selection in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS585]
Government’s Education Catch-up and Mental Health Recovery Programmes
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this debate on a hugely important subject. We have heard fantastic speeches from across the House. I recognise that I will not necessarily have the time to respond to every point that has been raised, but I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) that this is a vital topic in all our constituencies.
It is right that this debate cover both education and wellbeing recovery, as we know they are parts of the same thing. Recovery is a key priority for me, as it is for the Government, and a key part of building back better, levelling up and ensuring that we are ready and skilled for a future in which the next generation can prosper.
Many hon. Members have spoken about the ambition that we should do all it takes to ensure our children recover from the impact of the pandemic. I say clearly that I recognise that the education sector continues to face challenges caused by covid. Like so many colleagues in this debate, I thank everyone who works in early years provision, schools and colleges for their ongoing dedication to keeping education and childcare settings operating and supporting children and young people in this vital period.
The best place for young children to be, for their education, mental health and wellbeing, is in the classroom. That is why protecting face-to-face education continues to be our absolute priority. I know that children and young people in particular have had to adapt to the challenges presented by the covid-19 pandemic. My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, in his introductory speech, mentioned the importance of mental health resilience. Many children have shown and are showing remarkable resilience in difficult circumstances, but some have found this period especially difficult for their mental health and wellbeing, so tackling that is one of our key priorities.
Education plays a huge role in the lives of children and young people, and it is also a crucial contributor to wellbeing, as we heard from the children’s commissioner. That is one reason why protecting face-to-face education is so important: it can help to combat the understandable underlying anxieties that children have about their life, future and friendships. It is also why we have made clear that the recovery support that schools, colleges and other educational settings provide for their pupils should include time devoted to supporting wellbeing.
We are supporting schools to prioritise attendance and providing extra teaching where needed, to ensure that pupils stay on track with their wider learning and development. However, we must also ensure that schools understand the pandemic’s impact on children’s ability to engage in learning, so that they can adapt their curriculum and pastoral support to help pupils to stay engaged.
I have heard from a number of hon. Friends in this debate, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), about the importance of behaviour. To keep pupils engaged in education, it is crucial that we ensure that schools can offer calm, orderly, safe and supportive environments where both pupils and staff can thrive. Disorderly classrooms not only have an impact on children’s ability to learn, but can equally affect their mental health and cause some children to stay away from school, missing vital learning time.
We also know that dealing with misbehaviour can be stressful for teachers, and too many teachers have left the profession because of such problems. I want to ensure that teachers and schools have the best strategies and techniques at their disposal. That is why I am today launching a consultation on how schools can create a culture of good behaviour, to inform revised behaviour guidance, which will provide practical advice for all school staff on creating positive environments through consistent routines and high expectations.
I have seen on many visits to schools the difference that a strong behaviour culture can make, particularly for some of the most disadvantaged children and those with SEN. Schools and colleges must also be able to respond where children are facing specific issues and may need more expert support. We remain committed to promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing in our schools and colleges. Our recent £15 million wellbeing for education recovery and return programmes have provided free expert training, support and resources for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from covid-19. Around 12,000 schools and colleges across the country benefited from that support, delivered through local authorities.
We are also taking action to help schools to build their capacity to promote the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people, and their ability to ensure that those who need help with their mental health receive appropriate support. The Government are providing £9.5 million to offer senior mental health lead training to around a third of all state schools and colleges in England in ’21-22. This is part of the commitment we made in our 2017 Green Paper “Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision” to offer that training to all state schools and colleges by 2025. We know many senior mental health leads have already started their training, which will enable them to start to apply their learning this academic year. That will help them build on the incredible work they and their colleagues have done throughout the pandemic to promote and support the wellbeing of pupils.
Throughout the pandemic the Government have put in place a wide range of specialist mental health support for people of all ages who need it. For children and young people we have ensured NHS mental health services remained open throughout the pandemic, offering digital and remote access as well as face-to-face support where appropriate to maintain care and accept new referrals.
In the longer term, we are expanding and transforming mental health services through the NHS long-term plan with additional investment of £2.3 billion per year by ’23-24. This will allow at least 345,000 more children and young people to access NHS funded mental health support. I very much take the points of the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) on earlier interventions and will continue to discuss that with health colleagues.
In addition, as part of the Government commitment to build back better, in March 2021 the Department of Health and Social Care published our mental health recovery action plan, backed by an additional £500 million of targeted investment to ensure we have the right support in place for this financial year, including £79 million used to significantly expand children’s mental health services in the financial year. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) and others highlighted the important role of the mental health support teams in schools and colleges, which is stepping up over this period.
We all know that covid-19 has caused considerable disruption to the education of our nation’s children and young people. Evidence shows that while this has been significant for all children, it has been especially so for the disadvantaged and those with the least amount of time left in education. That is why nearly £5 billion has been committed to fund a comprehensive recovery package, following the evidence and providing support to all pupils while prioritising the most disadvantaged and vulnerable and those with least time left.
Our approach provides a mix of immediate and longer-term support, funding those interventions the evidence tells us will be the most effective. Universal programmes such as the £650 million catch-up premium in ’20- 21 and teacher training opportunities will support all pupils no matter where they live. They sit alongside targeted interventions, focusing on those most in need through our targeted tutoring programme, summer schools and the recovery premium, extended in the spending review by £1 billion for the next two academic years. It is right that we prioritise those with the least time left in education: from September 2022 funded learning over the next three academic years will also increase by 40 hours a year, giving every 16-to-19 student the equivalent of an extra hour a week.
Extensive evidence shows that tutoring can be one of the most effective tools to support learning and accelerate pupil progress. That is why we are investing £1.5 billion in tutoring to provide up to 100 million tutoring hours for children and young people across England by 2024. Building on the success of the programme’s first year, more than 300,000 tuition courses began last term: a good start to delivering our ambitious target of 2 million courses this academic year.
An estimated 230,000 tuition courses have been started through the school-led pillar, demonstrating that providing greater flexibility to schools to deliver tutoring is helping us reach as many young people as possible. I have seen fantastic examples of that up and down the country, where academic mentors and school-led tutors are delivering real benefits. I welcome the feedback from the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on the impact in her patch.
We have set high standards for the programme and feedback from schools shows the positive impact it is having in helping pupils catch up. In the first national tutoring programme satisfaction survey of this academic year, 77% of responding schools said the programme was having a positive impact on pupils’ attainment and 80% said it was having a positive impact on pupils’ confidence.
Although we are making good progress, I recognise that the programme needs to pick up more steam. We are closely monitoring the performance of the programme and its delivery organisation, Randstad, with daily and weekly operational reviews and regular meetings at senior level. A number of improvements have been made since September; for example, tuition partners identified a number of areas to improve the way they work with schools through the tuition hub digital platform, but I recognise there is further to go.
I cannot say everything I would like to say in this debate, but what I can say is that delivering on educational recovery is absolutely crucial and we will continue to work, taking the feedback from across the House in this excellent debate today.
Capital Spending
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
Today, my noble Friend The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System (Baroness Barran) made the following statement:
Today, we have published the Government’s response to the consultation on prioritising remaining places in the school rebuilding programme. We have also published guidance on how schools can be nominated for the next prioritisation round, which also opened today.
The school rebuilding programme was announced by the Prime Minister in June 2020. We have already announced the first 100 schools to benefit from the programme as part of a commitment to rebuild or refurbish the poorest condition buildings at 500 schools over the next decade. Replacing poor condition buildings with modern designs that will be net zero carbon in operation will transform education for hundreds of thousands of pupils.
The first projects in the programme are now under construction, and the finished buildings will bring pride to the students, staff and communities who use them. The programme also represents a close partnership with the construction sector, enabling us to invest in skills, drive growth and build back better as we recover from the covid-19 pandemic.
We will continue to make the best use of remaining places in the programme by prioritising schools with buildings in the poorest condition, or with significant issues that could pose a risk of closure.
In its consultation, the Department proposed an approach to assessing nominated schools using consistent, national data on school condition. Bodies responsible for school buildings would also be able to submit additional professional evidence of severe need, such as structural issues. The majority of consultation respondents agreed with these proposals.
The approach we are putting in place for selecting schools will, for the first time in this programme, allow academy trusts, local authorities and other bodies responsible for school buildings to put forward schools for consideration in a straightforward way that minimises burdens on the school sector. This approach also harnesses local insight into the schools with greatest need and maximises value to the taxpayer.
In addition to our building programmes, we also support the school sector with annual capital funding. We have allocated £11.3 billion to improve the condition of the school estate since 2015, including £1.8 billion in financial year 2021-22. Allocations for 2022-23 will be set out in due course.
Further details, including guidance on how schools can be nominated in the upcoming prioritisation round, have been published on gov.uk. Copies of the consultation response and Equalities Impact Assessment will be placed in the House Library.
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International Teacher Training Qualification
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Department for Education has today confirmed who will pilot a new international teaching qualification called iQTS. The new qualification will support those who already deliver excellent teacher training in England to meet global demand for high quality professional development and provide more opportunities for teachers around the world to train to high standards. Six providers have been approved to deliver the pilot from September 2022. The selected pilot providers are available at: Introducing the international qualified teacher status (iQTS) pilot - gov.uk (www.gov.uk)'>www.gov.uk)
In February 2021, the Department for Education and Department for International Trade published an updated International Education Strategy, where it was announced that the Government would consult on plans for a new international teaching qualification.
The consultation set out the proposed framework for iQTS, built around methods and standards of English initial teacher training, with contextualisation to reflect the local setting in which the qualification would be delivered.
The proposals for iQTS received significant support and in August 2021 the Government response was published, announcing the intention to launch iQTS with a pilot in 2022. The response is available at: Introducing international qualified teacher status (iQTS) - gov.uk (www.gov.uk)'>www.gov.uk)
In November 2021, the Department for Education published guidance on iQTS, available at: Introducing the international qualified teacher status (iQTS) pilot - gov.uk (www.gov.uk)'>www.gov.uk). This set out further detail around the iQTS framework, criteria and pilot for institutions and trainees. Pilot providers will use this guidance to deliver robust iQTS programmes from September 2022. The guidance on gov.uk confirmed:
iQTS will be recognised by the Department for Education as equivalent to English qualified teacher status (QTS), subject to the will of the Parliament, and delivered in English.
Only accredited English ITT providers will be able to offer iQTS.
All of the English Teachers’ Standards will be included for iQTS, with guidance for how to apply them in different international contexts.
The core content framework will be used in its entirety, with guidance for international application.
The entry criteria will remain aligned with domestic requirements for ITT courses.
Six pilot providers have been approved to deliver the iQTS pilot from September 2022. This follows the completion of an exercise where accredited English initial teacher training providers were invited to apply to join a year-long pilot to test and improve the design and delivery of the iQTS qualification.
[HCWS582]
Oral Answers to Questions
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
Mr Speaker, I am answering this question on behalf of the Secretary of State, who, as you know, is isolating having tested positive for covid over the weekend.
May I offer my condolences to the family and friends on the day of the funeral of the late Member for Birmingham, Erdington?
Our top priority remains to protect face-to-face education. To reduce transmission of covid-19, regular testing continues across education and childcare, with over 109.5 million tests completed. A further £8 million will support the in-school vaccination programme. To improve ventilation, we have delivered over 353,000 carbon dioxide monitors and purchased up to 9,000 air cleaning devices.
Bob Blackman
I express my sincere condolences to the Mother of the House and the entire family on the sad loss of the Member for Birmingham, Erdington.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will join me in thanking and congratulating the headteachers and staff at all our schools—those in Harrow in particular—for keeping schools open as often as possible so that children can learn, as they should, in the classroom. Will he, however, join me in expressing the view that forcing young children to wear a face covering for seven hours a day is unfair, particularly for those who are hard of hearing?
Mr Walker
I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the immense contribution of teachers, leaders and all who work in our schools. We have consistently seen 99.9% of education settings open to support face-to-face education. The Secretary of State always said that, while masks in classrooms were brought in for a period as we tried to study the impact of omicron, they should not be in place for a day longer than necessary. We no longer recommend them, and no child should be denied the opportunity to study for refusing to wear a mask.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Safety includes warmth. What will the Minister say to schools such as the one that contacted me this morning to say that, due to its £30,000 energy bill, it will not be able to manage its budget this year? It is very worried about what it can spend on fruit, books, salaries and all the other things that a small primary school needs. What urgent action will he take?
Mr Walker
We recognise some of the pressures facing schools and, indeed, all parts of the economy as a result of rising energy costs. That is part of the reason why we have provided a £4 billion increase for schools in the next financial year, which is allowing them to deliver on all the pressures that they are currently facing.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Centre for Social Justice report published yesterday showed that more than 100,000 “ghost children” are still not returning to school for the most part, almost 800 schools are missing entirely a class-worth of pupils, and more than 13,000 children in year 11—a critical exam year—are severely absent from school. Will the Department get the proper data to find out where those children are and what is happening to them? Will it do as the CSJ has recommended and use the forecast underspend from the national tutoring programme to appoint 2,000 attendance officers to work with families to get those children back into school and learning again?
Mr Walker
I share my right hon. Friend’s passion for ensuring that children are in school. I have discussed with the Children’s Commissioner the designation of “ghost children”, which we both feel is somewhat unhelpful. These are flesh and blood children who deserve to be in school and have the chance to benefit from face-to-face education. I assure him that addressing attendance and ensuring that they all have the opportunity to be safely in school is a top priority.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I, too, want children to be taught in safe spaces. That brings me yet again to the plight of Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, where, as the Minister knows, a botched £2.7 million refurbishment by Carillion has left the school with wrecked footings; a leaking roof; defective fire safety measures; inadequate drainage that floods the school with raw sewage; and playing fields that still resemble the Somme. It needs £5 million for that to be put right, or a new build. Baroness Barran wrote to me last week and basically said, “Tough—there’s no money.” That is not acceptable, is it? This is not levelling up. Let us get the purse strings opened and rebuild Russell Scott.
Mr Walker
The hon. Gentleman is clearly a champion for that school—he has made the case for it many times before. I would be surprised if that was the content of my noble Friend’s letter, because a programme is due to open shortly, as he will know. Of course, we cannot pre-empt the programme, but I know that he has made a strong case for his school.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Ofsted’s inquiry last year into the Everyone’s Invited campaign, which exposed sexual harassment and other safeguarding concerns in schools, focused on the importance of mandatory sex and relationship education, as did Ministers. As a result of the actions of this Government, such education is mandatory for all school-age children. Will the Minister look to Ofsted to do further work on how schools are implementing relationship and sex education, because I am sure Members across the House are concerned about that?
Mr Walker
I know from discussions with Her Majesty’s chief inspector that this is a priority for Ofsted, and we continue to work together on it. We are also supporting teachers to build their confidence in teaching this newly required subject, which my right hon. Friend has campaigned for strenuously.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
With much more school work being carried out online and with digital literacy among pupils rising extremely quickly, what protections are the Government putting in place to ensure that online platforms are a safe learning environment for young people?
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
As I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the Government continue to support a number of proportionate measures to reduce the spread of covid-19, testing regularly across settings, delivering 353,000 carbon dioxide monitors and up to 9,000 air cleaning units to ensure adequate ventilation, and committing a further £8 million to support the in-school vaccination programme. All that helps to protect face-to-face education.
Bill Esterson
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies advised the Government to improve ventilation in schools in May 2020. It warned the Government to prepare for winter in July 2020. More than 10 million days of in-person teaching were lost last term. More than 400,000 children were out of school with covid last week. A quarter of schools faced teacher absences of 15% or more. Air cleaning devices are more than 18 months late, and are being offered to fewer than one in 30 classrooms. Why did Ministers ignore the advice about the importance of ventilation in schools for so long?
Mr Walker
The Government have consistently guided that ventilation is an important part of the measures against covid. We have had a world-leading programme of rolling out CO2 monitors so that we can identify the classrooms that need extra support in this respect. Roughly 3% of classrooms came back as needing the extra support and the Secretary of State confirmed last week that every school that meets the criteria and that has applied for that will get it, paid for by the Department for Education. This is a successful response to ensure that schools have the support that they need.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Vaccination is key to protecting our children’s learning in the classroom, yet 46% of 12 to 15-year-olds have still not had their first dose. One in eight children were off school earlier this month, causing more avoidable disruption to their education. Ministers missed their own target to offer every child a vaccine by October half term, so can the Minister tell the House what his vaccination target is now, and when he expects to meet it?
Mr Walker
As the hon. Gentleman will recognise, vaccines have never been compulsory for children. We want children to have vaccines, but they are optional and something that requires consent. We are continuing to support the vaccine programme, and the Secretary of State announced last week that we have accepted £8 million from NHS England to accelerate that in the schools pillar. The community pillar continues to be available to children in this age group.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his immense work on “The Reading Framework”. The resulting framework is a vital and evidence-based tool to enable schools to teach reading effectively. It shows that phonics is just one part of becoming a fluent reader. Teachers should also focus on speaking and reading stories to foster a love of reading. English hubs tell us that the framework has been well received, and they are delivering a series of well-attended webinars to support schools to implement its recommendations.
Nick Gibb
I am sure my hon. Friend will have seen the recent report by two education academics challenging the Government’s focus on phonics, despite all the evidence of its success in teaching children to read. Does he agree on the importance of continuing to make the case for phonics and the importance of the Government’s clear focus on the curriculum, and on how it is taught, in helping us to complete our mission to transform the life chances of every child in this country?
Mr Walker
To coin a phrase, I agree with Nick. The evidence for phonics is very secure, and robust studies led by the Education Endowment Foundation show that phonics is extremely effective in teaching students to decode words. Schools do not teach phonics in isolation, and it is just one element of becoming a more fluent reader. Teachers must also focus on other elements of developing a passion for reading. My right hon. Friend is right that the evidence is very clear and that we should continue to follow it.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Department has extended the covid workforce fund to at least the February half-term, so that schools with high absence and financial pressures can continue to access these additional funds. Other measures include asking former teachers to come forward if they are available to temporarily fill absences in schools during the spring term.
Rebecca Long Bailey
On 20 January, more than 415,000 pupils were off school and 15% of teachers were absent, but only 9,000 air purifiers have been promised, for approximately 300,000 classrooms. The Minister lauds the Government response, yet Germany has promised to subsidise 80% of the cost of air cleaning equipment in all schools to ensure that education is not disrupted. Why is he failing to ensure that our pupils have similar levels of protection?
Mr Walker
Very simply, because we are taking an evidence-based approach. We have listened to schools and we sent them the carbon dioxide monitors so that they can monitor where classrooms need the extra support. About 3% of classrooms needed that extra support and they are the ones where the devices are being provided entirely funded by the Department.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
Ensuring that schools are well maintained and support effective education is a Government priority. We have allocated £11.3 billion since 2015 to improve school buildings, and Dorset Council received £2.9 million this financial year in school condition allocations. We are delivering rebuilding projects in West Dorset, and our school rebuilding programme will transform 500 schools over the next decade.
Chris Loder
Twenty-five years ago, I attended the Gryphon School in Sherborne and was schooled in temporary classrooms. I returned to the school only a few months ago, to find the same temporary classrooms, in a terrible state, being used for students today. I am making limited progress with my hon. Friend’s Department, so might he offer further support so that we can get the situation sorted out?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend is right to speak up for his old school. I am concerned to hear of the issues there. I understand that he met my noble Friend the Minister for the School System and senior officials. We have been engaging with the Sherborne Area Schools’ Trust on this matter and it has received £585,000 this financial year to improve its school buildings, but I would of course be happy to meet my hon. Friend again.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Today, I send my love to the family of Jack Dromey, who will be deeply missed by us all. Through you, Mr Speaker, I also send to the Secretary of State my best wishes for a swift recovery.
According to the most recent figures, the number of children who are out of school because of covid has risen by 34%. In the light of that, do Ministers not regret all the time and energy they have wasted on defending the Prime Minister rather than prioritising our children’s learning?
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The hon. Lady may wish to play party politics, but we are focused on making sure that children can safely learn in schools.
Bridget Phillipson
If only that were true. It is a year this week since the Prime Minister appointed Sir Kevan Collins
“to oversee a comprehensive programme of catch-up”,
only for Sir Kevan later to resign in protest because, in his words, the Government’s plans risked
“failing hundreds of thousands of pupils.”
We can all see covid’s impact on children’s learning and wellbeing. Labour’s “Children’s Recovery Plan” meets the scale of the challenge we face, so when will the Minister finally put children first and match Labour’s ambition for their future?
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Mr Robin Walker
I thank the hon. Gentleman, but we have a strong plan for recovery in schools and a strong plan for attendance, which is vital. There has been unavoidable absence as a result of covid, but we must crack down on avoidable absence, which is a reason for one of my visits to the north-east last week.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
We in Stoke-on-Trent are proud to be the home of Staffordshire University, but sadly it seems that cancel culture has arrived on our doorstep after the wokerati made formal complaints about criminology professor James Treadwell for tweeting that transgender women should not be allowed in women’s prisons, citing research that found that half of women in prison have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Does my right hon. Friend share my despair over this tiny extreme minority, who wish to silence anyone whose opinion they disagree with, and will she join me in lending support to Professor Treadwell?
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Given that section 406(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996 already outlaws
“the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school”,
will the Government take appropriate action without further delay against Brighton and Hove City Council, which is planning to indoctrinate seven-year-olds with critical race theory?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities has been clear that critical race theory should never be taught as that—it is a contentious political viewpoint. We are working on making sure that we update our guidance on political impartiality in school, to make that absolutely clear.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Mr Walker
I know that the hon. Gentleman recently met my noble Friend the Minister for the School System to discuss the case for that school. Cheshire West and Chester Council received £4.6 million in school condition allocations this financial year. Our school rebuilding programme will deliver 500 projects over the next decade, transforming education for thousands of pupils. The hon. Gentleman has made his case once again.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Mr Walker
The Government’s covid guidance is about keeping both staff and pupils safe. On the hon. Lady’s point about volunteers, we published figures at the beginning of January that show that, at that point, responses from about a quarter of supply agencies showed that 585 teachers had come forward in answer to that call to arms. We expect the full number to be significantly higher.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
According to the latest Ofsted inspection ratings, only 55% of Derbyshire secondary schools are rated good or better, compared with a national benchmark of 80%. If levelling up is to mean anything, it must be about fixing the glaring educational inequality. Will the Minister agree to meet me and fellow Derbyshire MPs to discuss how we can improve education standards and opportunity for all in Derbyshire?
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The chatty mums network of Bermondsey and Rotherhithe recently met me to raise concerns about the cost of living and lack of affordable childcare. What assessment have Ministers made of the impact of cuts to universal credit and the new Tory tax on working mums from April?
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I recently met my school leaders and heard how, in a recent inspection by Ofsted, no account had been taken of staff absence due to covid. Can my hon. Friend confirm that Ofsted should take into account covid impact when inspecting and set that out in writing?
Mr Robin Walker
I can say to my hon. Friend that having discussed this matter with Her Majesty’s chief inspector, I know that she does take such impacts into account. Ofsted is offering deferrals to schools facing particularly high levels of staff absence, but I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the case to which he refers.
Mr Speaker
Before we move on to the first statement, I assure the House that following the comments made at the start of questions—[Interruption.] I do not think that is appropriate for what I am going to say. You ought to be ashamed. I assure the House that following the comments made at the start of questions, there will be an opportunity to pay tribute to our friend and colleague the late Jack Dromey. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That will take place on Wednesday. I am sure that hon. and right hon. Members will welcome the opportunity to pay tribute at that point.
I should inform the House that given the brief period of time available to review the report, I will be allowing the Leaders of the Opposition parties a little longer to question the Prime Minister than is usually the case. I am sure the Prime Minister may wish to take a little longer at the beginning.
School Improvement
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Department for Education will today publish a Government response to the public consultation on reforming how local authorities’ school improvement functions are funded.
The Government response summarises responses and notes that Government will proceed to implementing the proposals consulted on. These are (i) that the local authority school improvement monitoring and brokering grant, forecast to be worth c.£42 million in 2022-23—based on October 2021 funding levels—will be reduced by 50% to c.£21 million for financial year 2022-23, prior to full removal in financial year 2023-24; and (ii) that provision will be included in the School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2022 to instead allow local authorities to deduct funding for local authorities’ core school improvement activities from maintained school budgets.
These changes should be viewed in the context of Government continuing to deliver year-on-year, real-terms per-pupil increases to school funding, as the recent spending review invests an additional £4.7 billion in the core schools budget by 2024-25, including significant additional funding for high needs. Taking DSG allocations together with the £1.2 billion new schools supplementary grant announced in December 2021, mainstream school budgets are due to see an average 5.8% year-on-year per-pupil cash increase in 2022-23, with every local authority forecast to see at least a 4.7% increase per pupil.
I will place a copy of the Government response in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS527]
Antisemitism: Bristol University
Robin Walker Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) on securing this debate on antisemitism at the University of Bristol. I echo his comment that it is profoundly troubling that we should have to have this debate at all. It feels especially poignant given that Holocaust Memorial Day is just a few weeks away. I should point out that I am responding to the debate on behalf of the Minister for Higher and Further Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who is isolating pending the outcome of a PCR test. I wish her well with that.
I would like to begin by stating that there is no place for antisemitism in our society. The Government are clear that racism and religious hatred of any kind should not be tolerated. Universities and other higher education providers should be at the forefront of tackling antisemitism, and must make sure that higher education is a genuinely fulfilling and welcoming experience for everyone. Colleagues may be aware that in November, within just a few weeks of his appointment, the Secretary of State for Education visited Auschwitz, which demonstrated his resolve to learn the terrible lessons of the holocaust and to eradicate antisemitism from our education system. During his visit, he warned that if universities failed to consider the views of Jewish students, the risk was “obvious”, adding that antisemitism is not simply a historic debate; it is a present danger and a scourge that exists, sadly, on our campuses. We must do more to stamp out antisemitism and ensure that Jewish students and staff feel welcome on all our campuses.
Eliminating antisemitism from our society, including our world-leading university sector, is one of our key priorities. We have been clear that we expect providers to take a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism in all its forms. The Government have taken decisive and long-standing action to tackle antisemitism in higher education. The working definition of antisemitism developed by the IHRA is one important tool for identifying and tackling antisemitism. Adopting it sends a strong signal that higher education providers take the issue seriously.
Christian Wakeford
Getting from where we were a couple of years ago to where we are now with regard to the number of institutions that have adopted IHRA is something we should be proud of. However, adopting IHRA is clearly just a badge. What can the Minister and the Department do to make sure that adoption is only part of the journey and that the definition is truly enforced as well?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend pre-empts some of the comments I am about to make. I absolutely recognise that it is only a step on the journey and not the destination itself.
In October 2020, the previous Secretary of State wrote to all higher education providers, urging them to adopt the IHRA definition. He wrote again in May 2021, emphasising the importance of adopting the definition in the light of increased antisemitic incidences following the conflict in the middle east.
To support that, in the previous Secretary of State’s strategic guidance letter to the Office for Students last year, he specifically emphasised the importance of work on the IHRA definition and asked the Office for Students to undertake a package of work aiming to increase adoption levels across the sector. Last month, in response, the OfS published a list of providers that have adopted the definition along with case studies of where it is being used most effectively. I am pleased to see the progress made—my hon. Friend commented on this—with a marked increase in the number of providers adopting the definition from about 30 to more than 200, including the vast majority of universities.
Although that progress has been made, we are acutely aware that adoption of the definition is just a first step towards eradicating antisemitism in higher education. The Community Security Trust recently published statistics indicating that there is still much work to do. Some worrying examples were cited that demonstrate how much more needs to be done.
Mr Walker
Which is clearly far too many. I was going to say that while I welcome the fact that the CST found that the vast majority of Jewish students have a strongly positive experience at university, it is deeply troubling to hear that there were about 111 antisemitic incidents in the sector in the 2020-21 academic year. To see a number of high-profile universities, including Bristol, named by the CST as providers with high numbers of incidents shows that there is still much more work to do—even at providers that have embraced the IHRA definition.
Those worrying statistics follow the CST report on campus antisemitism between 2018 and 2020 that named six cities with five or more recorded incidents throughout the period, of which Bristol was one. It is even more concerning that many of the institutions named by the CST had already adopted the IHRA definition. I take this opportunity to echo the comments made in the debate and wholeheartedly express my support and that of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education for the work done by the CST. I recognise how it provides invaluable assistance to the UK Jewish community, including in schools, for which I am responsible, and I know that the Minister for Higher and Further Education and the Secretary of State are looking forward to welcoming the CST to the summit that they are leading later this month focused on tackling antisemitism in universities.
We know from the statistics mentioned that while our work to increase adoption of the IHRA definition is important, it is not enough on its own. That is why the Government have provided, via the Office for Students, £4.7 million to support 119 projects with a particular focus on harassment and hate crime, including 11 projects targeted at tackling religion-based hate crime. Those projects concluded in spring 2020, and an independent evaluation showed that they led to increased collaboration between the sector and external partners such as charities or community organisations aiming to tackle religious hatred.
In relation to steps that the OfS is taking on tackling antisemitism, as well as publishing on 10 November the list of providers that have adopted the IHRA definition, it has published supportive guidance for providers. In 2019, Universities UK published a briefing note on tackling antisemitism, with which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education has urged all providers to engage seriously. The OfS is also undertaking an impact evaluation on its statement of expectations on harassment and hate crime, which was published in April 2021. That work will take place from January to August. As part of the OfS’s next steps, it will consider options for connecting the statement of expectations to its conditions for registration.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury South raised the important question of how the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill will apply in this context. The Bill will strengthen existing freedom of speech duties and introduce clear consequences for where these duties are breached. Recent incidents such as those at the London School of Economics show the importance of the work in this area. I am absolutely clear that the Bill does not give a green light to antisemitism and holocaust denial. In particular, any attempt to deny the scale or occurrence of the holocaust is morally reprehensible and has no basis in fact. I am categorical that nothing in the Bill in any way encourages higher education providers or student unions to invite antisemites, including holocaust deniers, to speak on campus. The strengthened protections for freedom of speech are likely to support students from minority backgrounds, who, on a number of occasions, have had their speech shut down by others.
The Bill provides for the appointment of a director for freedom of speech and academic freedom to the OfS board, with responsibility for overseeing its free speech functions, including championing freedom of speech and recommending redress via a new complaints scheme where speech is unlawfully restricted. This will place an appropriate focus on these fundamental rights.
The Bill will protect the freedom of speech of Jewish students, staff and visiting speakers, which has at times been under threat, as we saw recently with incidents in our universities. It will stop universities using security costs as a spurious attempt to cancel mainstream speakers, such as has been the case when a society attempted to invite the Israeli ambassador, and it will mean that universities and student unions have to take genuine action against those who use violence or threats of violence to shut down speech, including that of Jewish students.
In addition to the Bill, there needs to be cultural change, and we welcome initiatives by universities, academics and students to drive this, but as we have seen historically on issues such as gender equality, race discrimination and human rights, cultural change occurs more readily when backed by appropriate legislation.
Christian Wakeford
I appreciate the offer of a meeting. Obviously, I will raise this in the meeting, but I will also raise it during this debate. Cultural change can only happen with open dialogue, training and transparency, so will the Minister commit to writing to the university to request details of the provider and what is actually being covered, as well as the assurance that this is meaningful training about how to tackle antisemitism?
Mr Walker
I think I can probably make that commitment on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education, but I will certainly make sure that the Department follows up on it.
I did want to address specifically the case of Professor Miller at the University of Bristol. Universities are of course independent and autonomous organisations. Accordingly, the Government have not intervened directly in this case. I also understand that there are ongoing legal proceedings in relation to the case, so for that reason I cannot address all the specifics that my hon. Friend raised. However, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education has said publicly on a number of occasions that the views of Professor Miller, in particular his accusations against Jewish students, are ill-founded and wholly reprehensible, and the Government wholeheartedly reject them.
My right hon. Friend met representatives of the University of Bristol in May 2021 not to intervene in its investigation, but to seek their reassurance that the university recognises its obligations to protect Jewish students from harassment and hate crime, and to support them if they feel in any way threatened. She also wrote to the university twice to ensure that it was supporting Jewish students and staff who may have felt threatened at the time. We of course welcome the university completing a full investigation into the conduct of Professor Miller, but we expect that future instances there or elsewhere should be dealt with in a much swifter and more decisive manner.
Tackling antisemitism is a priority for me, for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education and for the Government. We are keen to hear from Jewish groups about what more can be done to make Jewish students and staff feel safe on campus. The Secretary of State and Ministers will continue to work closely with Lord Mann, the independent adviser to the Government on antisemitism, and also meet regularly with Jewish stakeholder groups.
As I mentioned earlier, later this month, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Education and the Minister for Higher and Further Education will be leading a summit specifically focused on tackling antisemitism in higher education. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that he intends to bring together key stakeholders from the sector to examine what more can be done to make Jewish students and staff feel safe on campus. This event will encourage discussion about what more can be done to eradicate the scourge that is antisemitism, and to agree concrete actions that providers can take to keep their Jewish students safe from it.
My hon. Friend asked specifically about antisemitism training at the University of Bristol. As I say, I am happy to make the commitment that the Department will write to the university again. I urge the university and other providers truly to engage with the communities that suffer from these abhorrent behaviours and to work with them to increase awareness of the impact of antisemitism and how it can be tackled most effectively.
My ministerial colleagues have worked closely with the Union of Jewish Students, which provides training on how to recognise and tackle antisemitism. I urge the University of Bristol to consider how it can learn more from those who are directly affected, and I know the UJS would be keen to support such work. My hon. Friend asked whether the UJS can be part of a meeting with him, the CST and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Higher and Further Education; as I mentioned earlier, she is happy to commit to that.
Our HE sector has enormous capacity to change lives for the better. I know that universities are serious in their commitment to tackling antisemitism, but there remains work to be done, as this debate has demonstrated. For our part, we will continue to work across Government to ensure that racism and religious hatred of any kind are not tolerated anywhere, including in our world-leading universities.
Question put and agreed to.