Educational Settings: Reopening

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend and neighbouring MP in paying tribute to the teachers in his constituency, and if I may, as he is a neighbour, I would like to add my thanks to all the teachers in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for the sterling work that they are doing, as are his teachers, in supporting children during a very challenging period.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

Schools are currently doing a fantastic job of providing remote education and reaching out to vulnerable families, but inevitably some pupils will fall through the cracks. As our 2020 Youth Violence Commission report highlights, the links between young people disengaging from school and an increase in the likelihood of them being victims or perpetrators of serious violence are well established. Until our schools reopen, what extra support can the Minister put in place to ensure that schools are able to support those most at risk?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Member raises an important point. This is why we have kept alternative provision and special schools open, and it is why we keep schools open to vulnerable children to ensure that they are in a school where they can be protected. I share her view that the most important risk factor for young people, leaving aside the pandemic, is not being in school, so we need to do everything we can to help children remain in school in normal times. That is why we want to reopen schools for all pupils as soon as the science allows.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I will begin with the Christmas guidance, which is certainly not late—I am sure the hon. Lady will understand that it is important that we get this right. I am working with the sector, with a sub-working group—the taskforce—to identify the issues and ensure that comprehensive guidance is forthcoming. That commitment to students on Christmas remains. Around 9,000 students currently have covid. This is the data that has been sent to us by universities. It is the cumulative number of cases over the past seven days and is based on a student population of about 2 million. Public Health England informs us that 68 universities have outbreaks. We will go back to those universities to ascertain that data and, as of next week, working with the Office for Students, there will be a new data regime, which will be much more transparent.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to support children with special educational needs and disabilities returning to school during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

Children with special educational needs and disabilities have faced many challenges during the pandemic, and some of them will find returning to school difficult, but the good news is that more than 80% of those with education, health and care plans are now attending. We have published guidance and resources to support schools to re-engage pupils with learning. We are increasing high-needs funding by a nearly quarter—a record amount—over a two-year period and we are also providing an additional £1 billion in catch-up support for schools.

[Vicky Foxcroft [V]]

I asked the Education Secretary on 2 July and again on 7 September about support for children with SEND during the covid-19 catch-up. He said that he would write to me, but that letter has not been forthcoming. I ask again: what assisted technology is being offered as part of the distribution of laptops and tablets to enable pupils to work from home if needed? Will the Minister provide an answer this time or will I have to do this again next month?

[Vicky Ford]

I am enormously proud of the fact that we are one of the few countries in the world that have asked schools to remain open for vulnerable children, including those with the most severe disabilities. Although we know that they could not all attend due to their own circumstances, it is incredibly important that they all get back to schools. On remote learning, to support schools in delivering remote education, we have delivered a range of resources and guidance, including specific support for children and young people with SEND. Obviously, those who were eligible for laptops, receive laptops and devices as part of that programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend raises the important point of young people’s mental health and the benefits they get from going to back to school, college or university. That is why we have worked incredibly closely with not just the school sectors but the university sector to ensure that that return is done in a safe, cautious and planned way, and I give thanks for all the work done in the higher education sector. We do recognise that covid has presented some quite challenging mental health problems to many young people as well as staff, which is why we announced a £9 million fund to support additional enhanced mental health work to support those who work in and those who benefit from being in the education sector, students included.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

On 2 July, I asked the Secretary of State if he would write to me to confirm what extra practical support was being provided to disabled pupils, such as laptops and other assistive technology. As of yet, I have not received a response. Will he please update the House now, or at least let me know when I might receive the promised letter?

[Gavin Williamson]

I will certainly go back to the Department and immediately check why the hon. Member has not received that letter. I can only apologise for it not arriving.

Education Settings: Autumn Opening

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. and learned Friend touches on an incredibly sensitive and important issue. We have been working closely with not just schools but local authorities and the police to establish local partnerships to support schools as they deal with some of the consequences of children not having the protection that schools have often wrapped around them. We recognise the sensitivity of the issue. I pay tribute to the Home Office and the work that the police have done in terms of forging new partnerships with schools and local authorities, so that action can be taken much swifter where there are fears and concerns about the wellbeing of children.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

As more children return to school, what extra support is being provided to disabled children, so that they can catch up following the covid-19 pandemic? Can the Secretary of State confirm whether assistive technology is being offered as part of the distribution of laptops and tablets to pupils working from home? If he is unaware, can he follow up and commit to writing to me with an answer?

[Gavin Williamson]

We have had a broad range of measures to assist all children, including children who have special needs. Many children in the sector have benefited from free laptops, and key elements of a covid catch-up will be about helping those children to catch up on what they have lost. I will happily write to the hon. Lady with further details, as she appears to be signalling to me to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The Government want to ensure that all children get an active start in life and engage in daily physical activity, which is why we launched the school sport and activity action plan last year. We will confirm arrangements for the primary PE and sport premium in the 2020-21 academic year as soon as possible.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

As a condition of its funding support for Transport for London, the Government are requiring TfL to withdraw free school travel for under-18s. That will make it even harder to get children and young people back into education, 60% of whom, in London, are from black and minority ethnic communities. Why are the Government so intent on making life harder for my constituents?

[Nick Gibb]

The key is to get more children walking and cycling to school, and using other forms of transport other than public transport, but we are working across Government, with the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to address the necessary transport issues in order to get children back to school in September.

Sure Start: IFS Report

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

Perhaps, Mr Speaker, that was because I believe that all women should be Privy Counsellors. They are very under-represented on the Privy Council.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about rurality. As I said at the outset—and I did not make the comment flippantly—we will ensure that all that we do is evidence-based, and that our evidence is robust.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Has the Minister any plans to look into the impact of centres providing early-years support on reducing youth violence? I ask because last year the cross-party Youth Violence Commission published a report that, as well as suggesting we should take a public health approach to tackling youth violence, said that early childhood centres should be revitalised.

The Minister refers to the need for evidence. Our report was written in partnership with Warwick University, and a great many academics gave evidence, including a representative of the Open University. Edward Melhuish is one of the leading academics analysing the impacts of Sure Start and early childhood centres. Will the Minister agree to read our report and respond to it, and will she also look into the material published by Edward Melhuish on Sure Start and early childhood centres?

Timpson Review of School Exclusion

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Yes. The recognition of childhood trauma is incredibly important. There is a very heavy overlap between children in need who are known to social services and those exposed to childhood trauma. We know that that group is more likely to be excluded, so I welcome what the hon. Lady says and the focus that her group brings to the issue.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

In order to learn lessons, will the Secretary of State publish a list of the 47 schools with in excess of 10 expulsions a year? Given the fact that off-rolling is a huge issue, will he also publish the list of 300 schools with “particularly high levels” of pupil movement? What action are the Government taking to deal with the increasing issue of off-rolling or children who are missing from the system? Many Members have raised concerns. What extra resources are available to back up these recommendations?

Finally, how will he continue to update the House? It needs to be regularly. We have waited since before Christmas for the Timpson review, and we cannot have delays like that again for updates.

[Damian Hinds]

I will be happy to continue to update the hon. Lady. We have Education questions regularly, and there are other opportunities to be kept updated. She asked about the publication of lists. This report was a major piece of work to find out the reality of practice and how it varies in different places for different groups of children. It is a very valuable piece of work for that reason.

On the hon. Lady’s point about the small number of schools with a large number of exclusions, it is necessary to remember that that might be in one year, and in other years the school is not in that position. Sometimes it is because a school has a particularly troubled set of circumstances—a new headteacher comes in, or there is a change, and various measures have to be taken. As I say, I think all of us would like to see the number of exclusions be lower rather than higher, but that is not to say that there is never a role for exclusion.

Secondary School Opening Hours

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 229178 relating to secondary school opening hours.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I will start by reading the petition:

“School should start at 10am as teenagers are too tired. Teenagers are so tired due to having to wake up very early to get to school. The Government should require secondary schools to start later, which will lead to increased productivity at school”.

One of the things I love about the Petitions Committee is that the petitions we receive are often direct and to the point. There is no political beating about the bush—no “on one hand” and “on the other hand”. This one goes straight to the point: teenagers are tired, so schools should start later. It has achieved huge cut-through; there has been huge public interest, which is why it is such a pleasure to open this debate.

Over the next few minutes, I plan to lay out some of the scientific evidence that backs up the petition. I will say a little about the huge number of responses, many from teenagers, parents and schools. I will report a little on the responses in my city of Cambridge, and I will say a little about the practical challenges, the wider implications and some of the possible travel benefits.

When I started writing this speech, I was tempted to conclude, in time-honoured fashion, with a politician’s reply of “yes—maybe”, because, sadly, these things are always more complicated than one might imagine, but the more I read, the more I found myself agreeing with the petitioner. Allow me to praise the initiator of the petition. It was started by Hannah Kidner, a teenager doing her A-levels at Blundell’s School in Devon. She is in the Public Gallery. This petition is a great example of people-powered democracy. It was started just three months ago and has already garnered more than 180,000 signatures, proving that there are issues other than our future relationship with the European Union that stir passions.

I will set out the legal position. I thank the Library staff for their excellent briefing, which has informed much of my speech. Academies and free schools set their own school days and term dates with their board and headteacher. Local authority maintained schools decide the length of the school day, session times and breaks, but school must open for 190 days in a school year, and the school year must start after July. That means there is scope for local decision making, rather than the Government issuing an edict. I am not fond of the academy structure, and I favour so-called free schools even less, but they all receive public money, so my guess is that a future Government could act, because they would hold the purse strings. On the other hand, it is always convenient for Governments to delegate decisions that they consider tricky. More of that later.

The question of starting times has been considered at various points in recent years. There are strong feelings on both sides of the debate. I am not an education or neurological development expert, but I am told that many studies across the world over the years, particularly in the US, have suggested that a later start time may have a positive impact on pupils. However, some reviews have found more mixed results, and some have raised concerns about the quality of evidence. In Singapore, a school found that a delayed start time had a positive impact after nine months. A study in Canada found that

“Students from schools that started later slept longer, were more likely to meet sleep recommendations and were less likely to report feeling tired in the morning.”

The authors claimed:

“The study adds weight to the mounting evidence that delaying school start time benefits adolescent sleep.”

Canadian researchers claim that letting teens start school just 10 minutes later might help them to get more than 20 minutes extra sleep on a typical night. Although that might not sound like much, for some sleep-deprived adolescents it might be enough of a difference to enable them to get the recommended minimum eight hours of sleep a night. A lead author of a study into this issue, Karen Patte of Brock University in Ontario, said:

“Our body’s circadian clock naturally shifts later at puberty, so teens get tired later at night (due to later melatonin release) and therefore, need to sleep in longer in the morning in order to get sufficient rest. Delayed (school) start times have been recommended for adolescents to align with their delayed sleep schedules.”

Generally, though, it is thought that a further exploration of the evidence is required. One study, “Delayed School Start Times and Adolescent Sleep: A Systematic Review of the Experimental Evidence,” stated that

“School start times were delayed 25 to 60 minutes, and correspondingly, total sleep time increased from 25 to 77 minutes per weeknight. Some studies revealed reduced daytime sleepiness, depression, caffeine use, tardiness to class, and trouble staying awake. Overall, the evidence supports recent non-experimental study findings and calls for policy that advocates for delayed school start time to improve sleep. This presents a potential long-term solution to chronic sleep restriction during adolescence.”

However, the study goes on to state that

“there is a need for rigorous randomized study designs and reporting of consistent outcomes, including objective sleep measures and consistent measures of health and academic performance.”

I am grateful to Harriet Sherwood, who wrote an excellent piece for The Guardian a few weeks ago highlighting some of the issues underlying this debate. She wrote:

“Sleep experts are warning of an epidemic of sleep deprivation among school-aged children, with some urging educational authorities to alter school hours to allow adolescents to stay in bed longer. Adequate sleep is the strongest factor in the wellbeing and mental health of teenagers, and a shortage is linked to poor educational results, anxiety and obesity”.

She reported that the French Education Minister recently approved a proposal to push the start of the school day back by an hour—albeit to 9 am—for students aged 15 to 18 in Paris. The article continues:

“Scientists say that humans’ circadian rhythms – the body clock that manages the cycle of sleep and wakefulness – change in adolescence. The cycle shifts two hours in teenagers which means that they are wired to go to sleep and wake up later. ‘It’s like they’re in a different time zone,’ said Dr Michael Farquhar, a consultant in paediatric sleep medicine at the Evelina children’s hospital in London.

‘We’re asking them to get up before their body clock is ready, because that’s the way the adult world works. So most teenagers end up sleep-deprived.’

Sleep is the ‘strongest predictor of wellbeing among teenagers’, said Russell Viner, professor of adolescent health at University College London and president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.”

There are strong scientific reasons for considering change, but beyond the simple correlation between teenage brain development and sleep patterns, and the impact that may have on school results, it is important to recognise that schools are more than just exam factories. I am afraid successive Governments have needed to be reminded about that. I suspect most of us would agree that schools are key parts of communities and play a key role in family life, and that that would have to be considered as part of a proposed change to the school day.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

rose—

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

Well, I am not sure I am going to go for that, but I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) .

[Vicky Foxcroft]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he agree with me and the BMJ that delaying the time children finish school is a very important part of this issue? On his point about our children being safe and part of the local community, ensuring that they stay in school between 3 pm and 6 pm has been shown massively to reduce the potential for knife crime during those hours.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. One of the difficulties with the proposed change is that starting later may well mean finishing later. There are pros and cons to that, which I will come to in a moment, but she makes an important point about safety.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on the way he introduced the debate. We can all agree that every child’s experience at school should be a happy one. The Government want them to do well at school and be alert and receptive to what is taught. Clearly, ensuring that teenagers are refreshed and ready to work when they arrive at school is hugely important.

The e-petition states, bluntly, as the hon. Gentleman said:

“School should start at 10am as teenagers are too tired”.

I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) that there is insufficient evidence at present to suggest that allowing teenagers to start school at 10 am across the board would necessarily be beneficial. A timely start to the school day in secondary school helps prepare pupils to enter the world of work after they leave school. Workplaces expect their employees to start and finish work at a set time and to demonstrate the value of hard work and application.

As the hon. Member for Cambridge acknowledged, delaying the start of the school day for teenagers might also cause difficulties for working parents, for example those with younger children at primary school, if start times were different from those for siblings at secondary school and finishing times were correspondingly different. That would present problems for working families, particularly those where both spouses are working.

The Government have high ambitions for all pupils, and we want to encourage and support greater social mobility. We want to ensure that pupils have excellent opportunities to thrive and to excel. There is broad, though not universal, agreement that teenagers generally need more sleep than they currently get, and while some results have shown a benefit from a later start to school, particularly in the United States, where schools typically start significantly earlier than in the United Kingdom, the effects of delaying school start times are as yet unproven here.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk cited research conducted by the University of Surrey and Harvard Medical School in 2017, which found that delaying school start times is unlikely to reduce sleep deprivation in teenagers. The research predicts that turning down the lights in the evening would be much more effective at tackling sleep deprivation. The research went on to say:

“The mathematical model showed that delaying school start times in the UK would not help reduce sleep deprivation. Just as when clocks go back in the autumn, most teenagers’ body clocks would drift even later in response to the later start time, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed. The results did, however, lend some support to delaying school start in the US, where many schools start as early as 7am.”

It continued:

“The mathematical model shows that the problem for adolescents is that their light consumption behaviour interferes with the natural interaction with the environmental clock—getting up late in the morning results in adolescents keeping the lights on until later at night. Having the lights on late delays the biological clock, making it even harder to get up in the morning. The mathematics also suggests that the biological clocks of adolescents are particularly sensitive to the effects of light consumption.”

Finally, it said:

“The model suggests that an alternative remedy to moving school start times in the UK is exposure to bright light during the day, turning the lights down in the evening and off at night.”

A further study, the Teensleep Project, looks at adolescent sleeping patterns and the impact of sleep education on teenage students. Professor Foster from the project says:

“Our pilot study showed that about 25% of teenagers had clinically poor sleep—can we justify late starts when it might only benefit 25% of students? Instead, we must introduce sleep education with parents, teachers and students. We are not ruling out a later school start, but we need a good set of data to show this is having a huge impact on adolescents. Unless later starts are combined with sleep education, it may actually worsen the issue”.

That conclusion tallies very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk said.

The Government welcome the chief medical officer’s report into screen time, which was published on 7 February and includes advice on managing screen time and social media use in a sensible and effective way. The report is clear that scientific research is currently insufficiently conclusive to support the chief medical officer’s evidence-based guidelines on optimal amounts of screen use or online activities, such as social media use. However, the report provides advice for parents and carers based on child development research. It includes leaving phones outside the bedroom at night time or taking screen-free meal times, which I am sure that the shadow Minister also does.

We recently consulted on the draft regulations and guidance for relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education. The guidance sets out the content for the subjects, including health and prevention. It says that pupils should know the importance of sufficient, good-quality sleep in promoting good health, and that a lack of sleep can affect their weight, mood and ability to learn. It also sets out that teachers should make sure that pupils are aware of the benefits of physical activity and time spent outdoors, which should be linked to information on the benefits of sufficient sleep and good nutrition.

Good mental health is a priority for the Department and for the Government. It can have a profound impact on the whole of a child’s life, not just their attainment. Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people by putting in place whole-school approaches tailored to the particular needs of their pupils and students.

The decision on when to start the school day lies with individual schools, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Cambridge. All schools have the flexibility to decide when their school day should start and finish. Most schools start their days at 9 am or earlier. That is not to say that a later start time can never work, and some schools have decided to begin their school day later. Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside trialled a 10 am start, but has since reverted to 8.55 am.

In 2011, we revoked the regulations prescribing the procedure for changing school opening times. Since then, maintained schools and academies have had the autonomy to change their own school opening times. The Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999 require all maintained schools to be open to educate their pupils for at least 380 sessions—190 days—in each school year, with every school day consisting of two sessions separated by a break in the middle of the day. Academies and free schools are not bound by these regulations, but their funding agreements state that the duration of the school day is the responsibility of the trust.

There are no specific legal requirements for how long the school day should be. Governing bodies of maintained schools are responsible for deciding when sessions should begin and end on each school day, the length of each lesson and the timings for the morning sessions, the midday break and afternoon sessions. The governing body has the power to revise the length of the school day as it sees fit. Schools are also responsible for setting the timetable for their school day, and so could, for example, schedule more intellectually challenging subjects later in the day if they decide that that is when their students are more receptive to being taught.

Schools also have the autonomy to extend the length of the school day or offer provision after the end of the school day if they believe that it would be beneficial to their students. Extending the school day, or offering extra education activities around the school day, can help children—particularly from the most disadvantaged backgrounds—to improve attainment and social skills, raise aspiration and help parents with childcare.

We expect schools changing the length of their school day to act reasonably when making those decisions, including by consulting parents, giving parents notice and considering the impact on pupils and teachers, and on parents’ work commitments and childcare options. They should also consider the impact of reducing students’ time in school. Our evidence shows that every extra day of school missed can affect a pupil’s chances of achieving good GCSEs, which has a lasting effect.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge for highlighting this issue. The Government cannot, and should not, insist that schools delay the start time of the day. Schools already have the power to do so themselves, if they feel that it would be in the best interests of their pupils. That is a key point: schools know what is in the best interests of their pupils. They are best placed to make a decision on whether to change the content, structure and duration of their school day to get the best outcomes for their pupils, and they know the individual circumstances of their pupils and of the local area.

We would not want to take away the freedom of any school by requiring them to start the school day at a set time, especially when evidence on delaying school start times in the United Kingdom is, at best, inconclusive.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I have listened intently to the Minister’s speech, and he is absolutely right about the lack of evidence on delaying start and finish times. However, I mentioned the BMJ research on young people and their likelihood of being stabbed or facing violence, and the lack of evidence around that. Will the Minister commit to getting more research on delaying start and finishing times, to make sure that our kids are kept safe?

[Nick Gibb]

I am interested in the staggered end times of schools, as mentioned in the BMJ research that the hon. Lady cited. That feeds into schools’ autonomy to decide when to start and finish. We trust headteachers to make those decisions, which will be based very much on local circumstances, including when other schools in the area finish for the day and so on. We are always open to more research being conducted on these issues. We certainly want to make sure that children are safe when they leave school and walk home in the evenings.

The focus should be on ensuring that children and young people understand the importance of sleep and how best to get sufficient sleep at night, to enable them to achieve their best.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On the matter of birthdays, it is also the birthday of the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), and I see that he is seated next to another birthday boy, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), which is very encouraging—birthday boys sitting together.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

T10. In response to my recent Adjournment debate on the relationship between exclusions and youth violence, the Minister for School Standards failed to address how the Government’s strategy links to the vital role that education plays in the public health approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) just asked a similar question, which was also not answered. I have since sent the Minister a copy of the Youth Violence Commission’s report. Has he read it, and if so, can he update us on what he will do?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My right hon. Friend has read the report, and there is cross-Government work through the serious violence taskforce. As I said, exclusion from school must not mean exclusion from education. It is vital that pupils who enter alternative provision following an exclusion have a high-quality education, which is why we are reforming AP.

School Exclusions and Youth Violence

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring this extremely important debate to the House. As I hope that the Minister and other hon. Members are aware, I am chair of the cross-party Youth Violence Commission. I established the commission in 2016 as a response to an alarming increase in deaths among young people in my constituency, in London and across the country. We published our initial policy recommendations in July 2018.

I have called many times in the House for the development of a public health policy to tackle violence, and I was pleased that the Government and the Mayor of London committed to that approach at the end of last year. The commission is now working hard to ensure that those words turn into action, and I am pleased that the Mayor of London has established a violence reduction unit similar to that adopted in Scotland to develop this approach. I am still waiting to see what the Government are doing. As part of its ongoing work, the commission is starting to flesh out some of its individual policy recommendations. I would like to use the debate to focus on recommendation No. 4 from our report, which is about boosting support in schools. More specifically, I will be examining the relationship between exclusions and violence, and the role of pupil referral units and alternative provision.

This is in no way intended to be an anti-PRU debate. During my time with the commission, I have seen some brilliantly run PRUs that achieve great outcomes for many of their students. However, I believe that we need a radical re-think of how funding is organised so that we can prevent the need for PRUs in the first place.

I hope that the Minister has had time to read the commission’s report for himself, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) clearly had when she responded to my Adjournment debate on the role of youth services in tackling violence. I was pleased to see in today’s press that she continues to stand up for vulnerable young people by criticising her Government’s delay in introducing a law to make it illegal for sports coaches to have sexual relations with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care.

The number of pupils being permanently excluded from schools is on the rise. Between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the number increased by 67%. Referrals to children’s services when gangs are identified as a factor at assessment rose by 26% between 2015-16 and 2016-17. During the same period, hospital admissions for under-18s who had been assaulted with a sharp object rose by 20%.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has brought an important issue to the House for consideration. The stats show that 72% of parents think that when their child is excluded from school they are at risk from youth violence. This suggests that there is real concern among parents about the problems that follow exclusion from school. Does the hon. Lady agree that that concern must be addressed to ensure that there is life and a place to go after exclusion?

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Therein lies one of our problems: when kids are seen to be excluded, they are not only excluded from school; they can sometimes feel like they are absolutely excluded from society as well.

To go back to my point about figures and statistics, I believe that this is incredibly concerning, particularly given that the Government’s own serious violence strategy recognises school exclusions as one of the risk factors for involvement in serious violence.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate and her generosity in giving way. Analysis was done of 60 serious cases of youth violence in Croydon, and in every case, that child was outside mainstream school. We also have in Croydon a situation that is mirrored elsewhere: some schools seem to exclude huge numbers while others tend not to exclude at all. The disparity makes it clear that something has gone wrong, so does my hon. Friend agree that we need to consider what Ofsted and other organisations can do to try to stop so many exclusions happening in certain schools?

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. The work in Croydon has been fantastic at identifying the need to follow the evidence, and the evidence clearly points to the link between school exclusions and youth violence. It is important that we continue always to follow the evidence.

I know of 10 young people in my constituency who have been killed as a result of youth violence since I was elected in 2015, and we know about those cases only because they have been reported in the press or the families have contacted me. It should not come as a surprise to Members that certain groups of children are more likely to be excluded and end up in alternative provision settings. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research’s 2017 report “Making the Difference: Breaking the Link Between School Exclusion and Social Exclusion”, excluded pupils are many times more likely to come from a vulnerable background compared with the general student population in England. They are 10 times more likely to suffer from mental health problems, seven times more likely to have a special educational need, four times more likely to qualify for free school meals, and twice as likely to be in the care of the state.

What about the outcomes for those young people? The commission’s research has shown that it is difficult to separate out pupil referral units from data on all alternative provision settings, which include those that provide education for children who cannot attend a mainstream school for other reasons. However, the data that we do have makes for depressing reading. In 2016-17, only 4.5% of children educated in alternative provision settings achieved a 9-to-4 pass—an A to C in old money—in GCSE English and maths. By comparison, of the mainstream school population in England, 72.4% achieved a pass in English literature and 70.7% in maths.

Reintegration into mainstream education may also be used as a measure of success. However, the Education Committee’s 2018 report “Forgotten children: alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing exclusions” suggests that it

“is often not a possible outcome for pupils, with some schools being reluctant to reintegrate pupils.”

Although some PRUs provide support for pupils who are reintegrated, that does not apply across the board. When pupils are reintegrated without such support, schools can struggle to keep them in school, and they are likely to return to alternative provision. Once they leave the pupil referral unit, the picture remains bleak.

A 2012 Ministry of Justice study found that 42% of prisoners reported having been permanently excluded from school, with the figure rising to 63% for temporary exclusions. That provides a stark contrast when compared with the less than 1% of the general population in England who end up in prison. The same Education Committee report found that 94% of year 11 pupils from a mainstream or special school go on to sustained education or an employment or training destination, compared with 57% from alternative provision. That has had the knock-on effect that pupils from alternative provision face limited choices when they leave education.

Of course, it is not inevitable that pupils who have been excluded will go on to become involved in serious violence and crime. However, we cannot ignore the link between school exclusion and social exclusion. Once children and young people are permanently excluded, it is difficult for them to re-enter mainstream education. That means that they are more vulnerable to grooming by criminals and to becoming the victims or perpetrators of violent crime.

What are pupil referral units costing us? The answer is not entirely straightforward. Each place receives £10,000 of central Government funding, but that is topped up by local authorities to varying degrees, depending on each individual’s need. In answer to a written question, the Department for Education told me that it estimates the average per-pupil cost of alternative provision, including PRUs, to be £17,000 nationally. By way of example, the average cost of a place at Abbey Manor College, the PRU local to my constituency, is £18,000, which is £1,000 a year more than the average cost of a place at a private school in 2018, and almost three times the cost of a state secondary school place in the same year.

As part of our research, the Youth Violence Commission held five evidence sessions. At the third of these we heard from experts, teachers, practitioners and, most importantly, young people themselves about the vital role that education can play in the prevention of youth violence, but what shape should that role take? Our interim report made five recommendations in this area. The first, and perhaps the most important, was for a long-term aspiration of zero expulsions from mainstream education and a reallocation of funding away from PRUs towards support and earlier intervention in mainstream schools. In order to achieve that, schools must be properly incentivised to keep pupils on their books.

The launch of Ofsted’s consultation on its new framework for the inspection of schools and colleges offers some hope that things may be starting to move in the right direction. The proposals aim to address concerns that education has become too narrowly focused on exam results, and schools that push out less able children—a practice known as off-rolling—could now risk being punished by inspectors. However, it is clear that a great deal remains to be done if we are to achieve this necessary shift in focus.

The Youth Violence Commission’s report also recommends an overhaul of the way in which careers advice is delivered in schools to ensure greater inclusion, greater emphasis on high-quality sex and relationships education, and better integration of support services such as school nurses, social workers and mental health professionals.

Once we had our recommendations, we needed to test them on the professionals. Earlier this month I met representatives from five teaching unions. I have to admit that I had expected some push-back against the commission’s recommendations. Teaching, as we all know, is already a demanding and stressful job, and I feared that the unions would view the recommendations as putting more pressure on their already overworked members. Well, I am pleased to report that I could not have been more wrong. I learned that there is huge appetite and enthusiasm for teachers to be able to do more to help vulnerable pupils. However, they simply lack the time and resources.

Four main strands came out of our discussion, the first of which is that we need to learn from what worked in the past. In 2002, the Labour Government set up the behaviour improvement programme as part of their street crime initiative. The programme targeted 34 local authorities that had some of the highest crime rates, and worked with two to four secondary schools in each area and their feeder primaries. The programme’s behaviour and education support teams provided a full range of specialist support to vulnerable pupils.

The same Government’s “Every Child Matters: Change for Children” agenda was launched in 2003 to promote the wellbeing of children and young people. Ministers wanted to ensure that every child had the support that he or she needed to stay healthy, to be safe, to achieve economically, to make a positive contribution to society and to enjoy life. That is not unreasonable, as I am sure the Minister would agree.

Healthcare practitioners, social workers, early years practitioners and other agencies shared information about vulnerable children. The child was central to their plans, and partners regularly worked with them in an attempt to achieve the best possible outcomes. Sadly, the coalition Government brought those programmes to an end in 2010.

Secondly, the union representatives suggested that pupil referral units should play a greater part in early intervention and prevention. In the past, PRUs engaged in inreach work with mainstream schools to try to prevent exclusions from happening in the first place. Unfortunately, that is no longer happening due to funding cuts, which mean that PRUs are able to perform only their statutory minimum duty.

I made an intervention on last week’s Adjournment debate secured by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) on funding for pupil referral units to raise this point about funding for inreach work. Although the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), went some way towards addressing it, I hope that the Minister for School Standards might be able to give a fuller response today.

The third point that came out of the consultation meeting was the need for inclusive accountability. It was suggested that schools should be held accountable for every student who walks through their doors in year 7. Although that might cause some problems with schools refusing to take perceived “problem” pupils in the first place, it would address the problem of off-rolling in GCSE years in an attempt to improve results. This clearly links with the proposed changes to the Ofsted framework I mentioned. Finally, the unions highlighted the need to build resilience in young teachers, especially regarding how to cope with behavioural issues and violence. Behaviour management should be a higher priority in teacher training programmes. At present, trainees are given inadequate guidance on how to support and manage behaviour.

In conclusion, I am asking the Department to consider conducting a fundamental review of how funding for alternative provision is best spent. As I stated earlier, the Youth Violence Commission’s findings ultimately point towards achieving zero exclusions, but we note that this is a long-term goal and that smaller steps need to be achieved along the way. Primary school teachers frequently tell me that they can identify which of their pupils are likely to be involved in future violence. The current system is failing too many of those children and simply has to change.

I will finish with a few words from one of the young people who attended our evidence session:

“I didn’t get a lot of support at school. I just got moved from place to place and I didn’t have a mentor to be able to talk about my problems with. I basically grew up in prison—I went when I was 15.”

I hope that the Minister agrees that that is categorically not the outcome we want for our vulnerable young people and that he will be able to address some of the points I have raised.