Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers

Debate between Kate Green and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

Nobody has said that centre-assessed grades are perfect. On the day that the Leader of the Opposition called for them, he acknowledged that problem, but we were in such an extreme situation at that point, where it was vital to put the best interests of young people first. It took days and days of agony and anguish for those young people and their families before the Secretary of State made the right decision.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech concentrating on A-level results, but weeks after the A-level issue was resolved, I still had BTEC students who had not received their grades. We talk about lessons to be learned in 2021, but what about the BTEC students who deserve some justice now?

[Kate Green]

My hon. Friend speaks for the constituents of hon. Members all around the House. Indeed, I expect that we may hear some examples of that in the course of the debate. Those students had a particularly difficult experience waiting for further re-marking of their awards, and I think it was only last week that the Secretary of State said that they would all be expected finally to receive their results.

We also need to be clear today about the decision-making process that led to the announcement a few days after A-level results day to award students their centre-assessed grades. In his evidence to the Select Committee, Roger Taylor said that that decision was taken by Ofqual. Can the Secretary of State confirm who made the decision to award the CAGs? Did he do it or was it Ofqual? Is it right that Ofqual did not agree with the Secretary of State’s policy to allow appeals based on mock results, believing that that would not be credible?

While responsibility for decision making appears to have been complex and confused, there is no confusion when it comes to who carried the can for the failure. In the aftermath of this fiasco, the chief regulator of Ofqual and the permanent secretary at the Department for Education were forced to resign—but in our democracy it is Ministers, not officials, who are accountable.

School Funding

Debate between Kate Green and Alex Sobel

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher.

Over the past few months, I have conducted two surveys in my constituency about the adequacy of school funding and the impact of funding cuts to schools. The first was of the schools concerned, which described the impact of funding cuts on their ability to deliver the educational outcomes that their pupils deserve. The second was of parents, who are all too aware of the impact of the school cuts on their children’s education. I want to channel their voices and tell hon. Members more about schools and parents in Leeds North West. and by extension the whole country.

For schools the problem is clear: every school surveyed had experienced the need to make some form of cut since 2015. More than 57% have been forced to make staffing cuts due to funding pressures, and 86% have had to reduce the number of books and the educational equipment available to students. More than half the schools surveyed had to let teaching assistants go, and the same number had to make cuts to cleaning and maintenance services, potentially putting our children at risk.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Teachers and students in my constituency told me just the other day that A-level students have only just been able to get textbooks at this point in their second year of their studies, when they are taking their A-levels in the summer.

[Alex Sobel]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, which I will reinforce later in my speech.

All the respondents expected further cuts to be made in the future. Some 43% of schools had experienced a rise in pupil numbers, and 100% of respondents were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. It is uncertain how schools will take on the extra family support obligations created by the cuts to council services elsewhere. One school said:

“We cannot continue to hit the DfE’s expectations for pupil achievement and take more pupils, with less staff and resources. We are at breaking point in this profession. As the council continues to make cuts in other areas, more is put onto schools. We cannot provide the support that is needed for families without the funding to do so.”

The fact that schools are willing to use the term “breaking point” is shocking to me, and should be shocking to the Government.

We heard the same refrain in the parents’ survey. One parent said:

“schools are doing an amazing job and are often the only source of support for children in crisis. Schools should not be trying to provide mental health support and there is no alternative provision for kids with heart-breaking mental health and behavioural issues.”

Another said that

“there is a complete lack of adequate mental health provision for children in primary schools due to funding cuts elsewhere in the system. This is very marked, and I have spoken to a number of parents who are at their wits’ end about where and how to get the right support for their children.”

I had a huge response to my survey. More than 90% of respondents felt that schools had been negatively affected by cuts, and that the cuts were making their children’s education worse.

With those cuts being layered on top of cuts to council services, schools are now clearly at breaking point. That has an effect right across school activities. School trips, for example, are the canary in the coalmine—the first sign that is something going wrong with the school budget. One parent of a year 6 pupil said:

“The head sent out a letter last week explaining that they can no longer subsidise school trips and events in school due to cuts in the school budget. This is very concerning to me … as I know this will prevent a number of children from attending trips … and missing out on the important experiences these trips bring. Also, a lot of class work is focused on the trips children go on”—

so some children cannot go on trips, and that means they are behind on school work. It is not an optional extra, but part of the curriculum of that school.

Children are being left not with the bare minimum of an education, but with an inadequate one, which promises to have knock-on effects for their future and for wider society. Even the most ardent Conservative must be aware that the cost to the public purse of the loss of revenue generated by reduced educational attainment in this country will be far from inconsequential, as will be the social cost of failing in the historical promise that has long linked the old to the young—that things will continue to get better, that the future will be brighter and that we pass on the promise of more than we had ourselves. One constituent put it this way:

“As parent and teacher, I firmly believe the quality of education we are providing this generation is dire. Between funding cuts, inaccessible exams, no support for SEN or EAL, no trips and extracurricular activities being squeezed, I see a generation being told they are failures because we are not providing the funding or resources to help anyone except the most well adapted and able pupils to achieve. We are a laughing stock at best. Shame on this Government for letting it get to this.”

Those are not my words, but those of a parent and teacher in my constituency.