Education Bill

Viscount Eccles Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, one disadvantage of the Grand Committee system is that, if one has an interest in the Chamber, it requires one to be in two places at the same time. I apologise for missing the introduction to the amendment as I needed to be in the Chamber.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, has brought me to my feet. I was very struck by what she said about the shortage of training in behaviour management. In the 1980s, I chaired an inquiry into discipline in schools. One day, when I taught in an education college, I discovered I had lost the attention of my otherwise normally engaged adult trainee teachers, so I inquired why that was. They said that it was because they were having their first teaching practice the following week and that was all they could think about. I said, “It is not too difficult; you know three times as much as the best child about your subject and all you have to do is keep reasonable order and carry on”. They said, “Yes, but—”. I said, “Haven’t you been told anything about keeping reasonable order?”. “No”, they said, “not a word”.

I carried that with me into the inquiry and we inquired of all the training colleges in the country whether they taught behaviour management. They all said yes—and, after a comma, added, “as a cross-disciplinary subject”. I thought, “I know what that means”. We wrote to all the students who had been to the colleges in recent years and we had more than 1,000 replies. We discovered that only one college had actually successfully tackled the subject on its own and none of the others had taught it at all. It is very important because you can have someone with everything that the children need to know in his head but no means of getting it to them because he cannot get them to sit down and stop talking. It is as simple as that. It takes training, time and confidence. I could go on at great length about the different elements. Perhaps there is a means of instilling in the department and the Minister the necessity of not recognising training until it includes training in the management of behaviour in the classroom, because otherwise it will be inadequate.

Another matter I will raise concerns the second leg of the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. I see the impracticalities of it; the idea of having four consecutive hours is well beyond the reach of most places. Apart from anything else, who has a lesson for four hours? Children disperse and go to different lessons. The timetabling would be terrible.

I will address another question. Having heard the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, I wonder whether my experience of 20 years ago is not still in date. We were very much aware of a phenomenon called “classroom isolation”. Teachers went in, shut the door and taught. They were alone with their problems, which they did not like to share because their colleagues would think that they were not succeeding. This provision would open the classroom door regularly. That may have changed, in which case I give three large cheers—but if it has not, something along the lines of the noble Lord’s amendment would be welcome.

[Viscount Eccles]

My Lords, this might be a good opportunity to follow my noble friend, whom I think I first met 60 years ago. We are discussing best practice and experience, and it seems to me that the three amendments represent a lot of experience and best practice. However, I would be very doubtful as to whether any of the matters in the three amendments should be statutory or matters for the Secretary of State. If these matters cannot be dealt with within the education system itself, I do not think that they ever will be.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, perhaps I may return to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, who has called himself a novice but was extremely cogent. The amendment refers to the,

“duty to promote academic partnership”.

I wonder whether that is what the noble Lord really means. I know that there are partnerships of all kinds between schools. He mentioned some in music and sport. I am slightly worried about the word “academic”. I am not challenging him but I want to highlight it.