Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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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]
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(5 years, 6 months ago)
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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(5 years, 7 months ago)
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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(5 years, 10 months ago)
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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.
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.
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(5 years, 10 months ago)
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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)
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(5 years, 10 months ago)
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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?
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.
Pupil Referral Units
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Could the Minister outline what funding is provided for pupil referral units and alternative provision in order to provide the important inreach work being done in mainstream schools to support kids so that they do not end up in a pupil referral unit in the future?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. I hope that my remarks will continue to deal with the issue of funding and how much investment we are making.
As I was saying, the funding of £10,000 per place is supplemented by top-up funding from the commissioner of the place. Both the number of places to be funded and the amount of top-up funding are matters that are decided locally. Top-up funding is the funding that is required in excess of the £10,000 place funding to reflect the full cost of the provision needed, depending on how long the pupil is expected to be in the unit and on other local factors. It can also reflect costs that enable those units to remain financially viable, which goes to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West’s point. It is important that places are available when they are needed.
In our operational guidance, we have advised that commissioning local authorities and schools should carefully consider the top-up funding arrangements to ensure that there are no perverse incentives and that the funding achieves the intended outcomes. It is possible to develop a top-up funding system that more closely reflects the achievement of the desired outcomes, as a way of encouraging high-quality AP. For example, an element of the payment could be withheld from the pupil referral unit until the pupil returns to his or her mainstream school or achieves another outcome.
Funding for AP comes primarily from the high-needs block of the dedicated schools grant. Based on local authorities’ reports of their spending, the Department estimates that around 10% of the high-needs budget is spent on AP. The proportion of spend on AP from the high-needs budget has remained roughly stable in the past few years. Last year, local authorities reported approximately £632 million of expenditure on AP, including on pupil referral units. However, schools are also able to commission AP places and services directly, and when a school does this, it is funded from its delegated share of the school block, which the local authority distributes to it through its local formula. Last year, the core schools and high-needs budget was almost £41 billion. This is set to rise to £43.5 billion next year. While more money is going into our schools, including into the high-needs block, we recognise the budgeting challenges that schools face and that we are asking them to do more.
Acknowledging that and the cost pressures on local authorities, and because children only get one chance at a great education, the Government have prioritised and protected schools and high-needs spending even while having to make difficult public spending decisions in other areas. Last month, we announced £250 million of additional funding for high needs over this financial year and the next, bringing the total high-needs allocation to £6.1 billion this year and £6.3 billion in 2019-20. We have listened to the particular concerns expressed by many local authorities and others, including Members of this House, about high-needs budget pressures, and additional investment will help local authorities to manage those pressures.
However, while funding is important, which is why we have protected the core schools budget in real terms per pupil from last year to next, funding is just one part of the story, because what happens to the money and the quality of AP are both important. That is why my Department is committed to reforming alternative provision and set out its plans for doing so in a reform road map last March. The plan for reform set out the aspirations of strengthening partnership arrangements for commissioning and delivering AP and the steps we are taking.
We are providing a stable evidence base for the reforms. The Department contacted Isos Partnership to undertake research into local AP markets. The research, published late last year, looked at the range and efficacy of different AP commissioning and funding models. It sought to engage local authorities, schools and AP across the country and shows that some areas are developing effective commissioning and funding arrangements between local authorities, schools and alternative providers to ensure that suitable provision is made for children with additional needs.
In Bath and North East Somerset, for example, funding from the high-needs block is devolved by the local authority to six behaviour and attendance panels across the area. These panels of primary and secondary heads are responsible for co-ordinating in-year admissions, supporting children at risk of exclusion, and managing referrals into alternative provision. The vast majority of schools in Nottinghamshire belong to schools partnerships, which receive high-needs funding from the local authority for both alternative provision and SEN support. When a school in Nottinghamshire excludes a pupil, the cost of their placement in alternative provision is recovered from the school or partnership in question. That system has resulted in an inclusive school system, with a low incidence of permanent exclusion—less than half the national average.
To build on what we have learnt of such arrangements, the Department announced its intention last month to launch a call for evidence to understand better the financial incentives that can affect decisions within the wider high needs funding system, including decisions relating to alternative provision, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West rightly highlighted. We are also investing £4 million into an innovation fund for AP. This externally-evaluated fund is supporting nine innovative projects, from across the country, to understand more about how to improve outcomes for children in AP. The initiatives focus on supporting children in AP to make good academic progress and successful post-16 transitions, reintegration into suitable mainstream or special school placements, and increasing parental or carer engagement.
We are committed to protecting all children from exploitation and abuse, whether from county lines, gang activity, or sexual abuse, which is why this Government have invested £3.6 million in a new national county lines co-ordination centre as one of the key commitments in the serious violence strategy. The Department is also providing up to £2 million for a new national response unit to help local authorities to support vulnerable children at risk of exploitation by criminal threats. Good discipline in schools is essential to ensure that all pupils can benefit from the opportunities provided by education. The Government absolutely support headteachers in using exclusion as a sanction, where warranted. It is equally important that the obligations on schools are clear and well understood to ensure that any exclusion is lawful, reasonable and fair.
A review of exclusions, led by Edward Timpson, is under way. The review is considering how schools use exclusion and how it affects all pupils, but it is particularly considering why some groups of children are more likely to be excluded. The review will report its findings early this year, with the Department’s response to follow.
Vicky Foxcroft
The Minister said that he would return to the point about the inreach work that PRUs do with mainstream education and about how much funding is allocated towards that work. I have listened with great intent, and I do not believe I have heard that question answered.
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for coming back on that point, which I was about to address. Local authorities can make arrangements for the supply of specialist support for mainstream schools by staff working in pupil referral units. The Department’s innovation fund has funded projects that include such measures and links between AP and schools. If she is unhappy with my response, and if she writes to me about a specific case, I will be happy to look at that as well.
I thank the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West and the hon. Member for Strangford, who is no longer in his seat, for contributing to this debate. I also pay tribute to the hard work of schools and local authorities, which continue to give their best and to raise the standards of our education system.
Improving Education Standards
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I agreed with what the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said about exclusions, which I will touch on more later in my speech. Some Members may know that when I speak in the Chamber, I tend to speak about youth violence and I will be doing that in this debate because education is very much at the heart of the solutions to this. There is no doubt that some of the funding cuts have proven difficult in terms of tackling youth violence. In particular, it has put pressures on those working in education. I want to focus some of my points on that.
Improving education standards is a good thing, but it is not just about improving grades or about increasing the number of young people who go to university—although, obviously, that is a good thing. It has to be about ensuring that our schools develop our young people and present them with all the opportunities and skills for the future that they so desperately need and thus reducing the likelihood that they will ever be involved in violence. Schools are at the forefront of tackling youth violence. We do lots of school intervention programmes that say, “Don’t carry a knife as you’re more likely to be stabbed”, but we know that that message is not quite working. It is not quite getting through to them, because they are still carrying knives and getting involved in youth violence. We need to make sure we give them far more positive messages and training that says, “You are the future doctors, nurses, politicians. You can be what you want to be.” We need to have that, and the fear of losing it in the future, as the reason why they are too terrified to carry a knife.
The Minister may be aware of the recent research by The BMJ showing that children under 16 are at the highest risk of being stabbed on their way home from school. That backs up what the police, youth workers and teachers have been saying to me for years. I thoroughly believe that as policy makers we have a responsibility to intervene where we can. For example, could we consider keeping our kids in school until 6 pm, staggering their leaving hours or making sure we have youth workers in schools during those times, given that we have such convincing evidence before us? I asked tons of questions on this in the past, but the Departments do not actually hold this information. Perhaps the Government should look at that seriously in order to make sure we really can analyse it.
Other measures could help keep young people safe while they are at school. Over the summer, the Youth Violence Commission published its interim report. I urge the Minister to read it if she has not had a chance to do so yet. It takes only about 30 minutes and it is written in a brief way. If she is keen to read a lot more, she can look on the website, which also has a ton of information.
One of our recommendations was to attach a dedicated police officer to every school in the country. The idea was not to police our kids in school; it was very much about building trust between police and young people. We know that there has been a breakdown in the relationship between young people and the police, but if they see a police officer in school—they might even play football with the police officer—that relationship will start to build. Hopefully, they will feel able to speak to police officers if in future they have worries or troubles. When we went to schools that had dedicated police officers who did have that relationship with young people, many of those young people wanted to go on and become police officers in future, and quite often they were from backgrounds that we would not traditionally think would mean they would want to join the police.
The Youth Violence Commission recommends a long-term aspiration to have zero exclusions from mainstream education. We cannot ignore the link between school exclusion and social exclusion: once children are permanently excluded, it is very difficult for them to move back to mainstream education. Once in a pupil referral unit, a child has a very low chance of achieving five good GCSEs. PRUs have often been called pipelines to prison, which is hardly surprising when more than half the current prison population were excluded while at school. Worryingly, exclusions are on the rise, having increased by at least 40% in the past three years. When we know that something is not working, why are we still doing it? Why do we not invest the money from the PRUs and put that into school early intervention programmes? We should speak to primary school head- teachers about who they see as the vulnerable children who could perhaps do with that wrap-around love, care and support, be it from nurses or peer role models. Why are we not investing the money at that point to provide support for our young people?
Education standards are part of the problem. The Government’s narrow focus on improving grades has led to schools quietly off-rolling students in attempts to improve their overall results. As part of their work to improve education standards, I hope that the Government consider our rising exclusions problem. In fact, is it not time that the Government entirely reviewed the merits of implementing a zero-exclusions policy across the board?
When the commission was carrying out our research, we consulted young people across the UK, and the same issues with the curriculum were raised with us consistently. Young people told us they wished that basic life skills—from how to write a CV to how to budget and how they might apply for a mortgage—were taught in school. Indeed, when we teach some of these life skills, we can also teach basic maths and literacy and other parts of the curriculum.
Many employers look for social media skills in new recruits, so that they can promote their business or reach out to new audiences, so why not start teaching social media at school? Not only could these lessons help young people to become more employable, but social media is often pointed to as the reason for violence flaring up between young people, so lessons could also focus on keeping young people safe online in a way that is relevant to the platforms they use. When I met a number of young people, some children in that conversation did not know how to hide their location—ghosting on Snapchat. One child taught another child, who had been followed and beaten up because their location had been known, how to hide it. With that knowledge, they could hide their location, which was incredibly valuable.
We need an overhaul of how careers advice is delivered in schools, ensuring that diverse role models and relevant work placements are on offer for young people. The serious shortage of diverse role models involved in careers programmes must be addressed. Young students of colour and working-class students need to see people like them in a range of different job roles. They need to know these options are available to them, too. Perhaps we could consider diversity in our history and literature syllabus. History lessons can sometimes feel like most of the people worth learning about were white, rich or male. Is it not time that the curriculum reflected the true diversity of our history?
We need more emphasis on high-quality sex and relationship classes. Primary school students should be taught what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like, to build resilience from a young age. A diverse curriculum is so important. The Government have left cash-strapped schools with no option but to cut creative subjects from the curriculum. Art, drama and music should not be seen as nice but unnecessary. These subjects are equally important to a well-rounded education.
I think of my own background: I did not get any A to Cs when I was at school, for a multitude of reasons that I will not go into. But I then studied at college, where I did a BTEC in performing arts—some would say that is a natural thing for someone who becomes a politician, but hey-ho—and went on to do drama and business at university. My arts education did not just teach me about the creative subjects; I was taught about history, problem solving and team work, and it got me excited about learning and education.
I could go on. There is so much that I could say about how I think schools could play a greater role in tackling youth violence. But for schools to start truly playing a greater role, there needs to be much more dedicated funding. There needs to be funding for the arts and funding for school nurses and mental health support. There needs to be funding for school police officers and funding for special educational needs. The Government have claimed that austerity is over, but we are seeing no evidence of this on the ground. It will take years to reverse the impacts of the Government austerity agenda.
If we are to try to start to do something and truly look at how we can reduce violence, we must work with and listen to teachers, young people and parents, and all the different agencies that come into contact with young people. In short, we must seek to deliver a public health approach, diagnose the problem, and treat the disease. We need joined-up working among everyone who comes into contact with young people. I welcome the announcement today of a debate on Thursday 13 December on the public health approach to tackling youth violence. I hope that the Minister and her team will come to that debate and at least listen to the contributions, if not report back on it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I do welcome the Home Office’s commitment to this, and I hope the Mayor of London will do the same for the schools of the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) in Croydon.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Youth violence is up and the number of mental health issues among young people is up, yet the number of qualified school nurses is down. The evidence shows that they can be part of how we address the root causes of youth violence. May we have qualified school nurses in every school as one step to tackle this issue?
Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Lady knows we are making further investment in mental health in schools to make sure that every school is able to deal with the issue in an appropriate way.
Oral Answers to Questions
Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Goodwill
We are of course well aware of the cost pressures that may fall upon nurseries, and we are keen to work with them to address some of the business management decisions that they may need to make in order to live within the funding that we are making available. As we have discovered, the mean cost of funding is £3.72 per hour, and our funding is £4.94 per hour and therefore allows for adequate funding, as the evidence has shown.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Mr Goodwill
Local authorities make decisions about how best to address the needs of children from underprivileged backgrounds. Much has changed since 2010, including the early years pupil premium and the 15 hours of free childcare for those who would qualify for free school meals, for example. It is up to local authorities to decide how best to deliver that. Indeed, my local Sure Start centre raised with me the issue of the many children who should be at the centre who are not. That is a role for those who are going out to mentor people in their communities.