School Week

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on introducing the debate. She spoke powerfully about a number of issues of shared concern: the impact of the pandemic on children’s mental health; the anxiety and stress some children face when they go to school; the need to ensure that school works for everyone; how a four-day week may increase pressure on children, and how a reduction in school days could disadvantage children from poorer backgrounds. I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for engaging, as part of her Committee’s work, with a number of children to understand their views and concerns, including about the solutions to the issues that have been raised.

I understand that the petition was co-ordinated mainly by children, so I want to take a moment to applaud their campaigning efforts and dedication to raising the issues that matter to them. Their voice is not always heard in this place. Unfortunately, on this occasion I cannot give them exactly what they want, but their petition raises some important issues that I would like to address.

First, Labour believes that the best place for children to learn is in a classroom with their friends. Although the impact of the pandemic still looms large on absence rolls and in attainment, the majority of children are now back in the classroom on a regular basis. Given the two and a half school years of unprecedented disruption that pupils experienced, with millions of days of school missed and a lack of access to extracurricular activities, I do not think parents or the wider economy would thank me if the Labour party were to advocate for a shorter school week, which would mean losing a further 38 days per year.

We know that those who spent the most time out of school during the pandemic suffered the greatest disadvantage. We also know from a recent report by the Children’s Commissioner that the majority of children missed their friends and that they value those relationships, which are so important for children’s wellbeing and for honing the skills they will need throughout their lives.

Ministers have announced a 32.5-hour school week as part of their White Paper and subsequent Schools Bill, but that is business as usual for most schools. Eight out of 10 are already delivering it, and the reality is that those that do not are so close that the change will add only minutes.

There are ways that we can enrich the school day without being prescriptive about its length. Both the Education Policy Institute and the Education Endowment Foundation have said that delivering a range of extracurricular activities, from arts and music to academic and pastoral support, should be a critical part of any lost learning recovery plans. As you will be aware, Ms Rees, the Labour Government in Wales are seizing the initiative by running a fully funded national trial that guarantees five hours of enrichment activity for children per week. It may be small in scale but it is big in ambition. Activities include art, music and sport, as well as sessions linked to core academic skills such as reading. The schools involved volunteer to take part in order to support disadvantaged learners and improve access to social and cultural opportunities following the pandemic.

A couple of months ago, I travelled to Neath to visit a school taking part in the trial. Although we arrived as the school day was ending, the halls were buzzing with activity. I met students who had done a cooking class, making spaghetti, cookies, and even pizza in a mug. I met a pupil called Ben, who was carefully sculpting a small clay pot. He eagerly explained that he had never done anything like this before, and around the room a series of other creations were coming to life. Welsh Labour’s investment in children’s futures is filling classrooms with knowledge, creativity and excitement.

For these reasons, extracurricular activities are central to Labour’s recovery plan. Our proposals would deliver a fully funded range of extracurricular clubs and activities to boost time for children to learn, play and socialise after months away from their friends. Labour is prioritising the value and experiences that children get in school. That delivers genuine enrichment in a way that Ministers’ arbitrary clock watching does not.

The petition and the associated survey rightly prioritise the importance of mental health and wellbeing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North mentioned. Children and schools increasingly find themselves on the frontline of that silent pandemic. Even before covid, the NHS suggested that as many as one in six children aged between five and 10 suffered from mental ill health, but across England last year three quarters of children were not seen within four weeks of being referred to children’s mental health services. Worse still, over a third of children were turned away from mental health services, despite having a referral from a professional. On this Government’s watch, waiting times have exploded and the availability of treatment has plummeted. That is why Labour’s children’s recovery plan prioritises having a mental health professional delivering quality support for children in every school.

The current school week is also important in the context of childcare—a problem facing many families across the country. Childcare is critical for learning and development, and it is intrinsically linked to our wider economic prosperity, but the cost of living crisis means that parents are increasingly priced out of care. Before the pandemic, children on free school meals arrived at school almost five months behind their peers. Spiralling costs will make that worse.

The average cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two has risen by almost £1,500 over the last five years. The United Kingdom has one of the highest childcare costs as a proportion of average income; at 29%, we are 19% higher than the OECD average. That is perpetuating a gross inequality that is holding women back. Some 1.7 million are prevented from taking on more hours of paid work due to childcare issues. We lose £28.2 billion in economic output every year as a result. That contributes to the farcical situation in which a young family’s income would actually be higher if they remained on universal credit than if both parents were back in work and paid for childcare. Of course, that is more punitive for single parents.

Changing the length of the school week would mean that those parents would find childcare solutions even more challenging. That is not a cost we can reasonably ask them to bear. We need wider action to tackle the cost of childcare, which was rising even before the cost of living crisis. The latest bright idea—to cut the number of adults looking after groups of children—will likely reduce the quality of provision, and it will likely have no impact on availability or affordability. That is why Labour’s children’s recovery plan includes investment in childcare places for young children on free school meals—and because we know that childcare pressure does not stop when children start school, we would invest in before-school and after-school clubs for children.

I will briefly mention the wider problem of persistent absence, which is urgent. The Children’s Commissioner found that 22% of pupils were persistently absent in autumn 2021. Labour welcomes the long-overdue proposed register of children not in school and wants to see it implemented without further delay, but that treats the symptom and not the cause of the problem. Ministers should properly address post-pandemic learning and development, provide the mental health and wellbeing support that is needed, and show a bit more curiosity about why such a large proportion of those persistently absent are pupils with special educational needs or disabilities and those who are disadvantaged. Addressing the structural challenges that mean those children are not in school should be an important part of the Government’s approach. Fining parents will work in some cases, but many others will see it as a punitive and regressive approach, which could mean that children are lost in the system for good.

Removing a day of school a week is not the solution to challenges that children and parents face. Instead, we must restore the support that children and parents need so that pupils thrive in school. That is Labour’s plan—because, after two and a half school years of disruption, that is exactly what they deserve.