Schools: National Curriculum
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, perhaps I may remind my noble friend that this debate is for brief questions to the Minister.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I would be grateful if my noble friend would consider extending the Ofsted inspection to cover citizenship education. If it is not within the compulsory Ofsted inspection, that lowers its status. That is certainly not needed. Finally, I do not see why this subject should not be as necessary, compulsory and essential for non-maintained schools as for maintained schools.
Schools: Bullying
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, as this debate has run slightly short and we are still missing one or two of the speakers for the next debate, I suggest that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 2.20 pm.
Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Nash
I am surprised at the comments of the noble Baroness as it seems to me that by an excellent democratic process of consultation, we have arrived at a remarkable synthesis of views. Many people have advised that our exam system is in need of fundamental reform. The Select Committee, Ofqual and others advised that moving to a single exam board was a step too far, and we have listened to that advice. If criticising us for that is the Opposition’s best point, we must be doing most things right. No Secretary of State in living memory has done more for children’s education in this country than my right honourable friend. Contrary to what the noble Baroness said, I can assure her that he thinks most deeply about our education system.
We are making a great many changes, and quickly, because the state of the education system we inherited demands them. We need to make them in order to be internationally competitive. Over the nine years from 2000 to 2009 we fell from fourth to 16th in science; from eighth to 28th in maths; and from fifth to 25th in literacy. Even if we question the statistics, how many more NEETs do we need and how many more businessmen need to tell you that the people coming out of our schools are not fit for employment to realise that our education system needs fundamental reform?
On the question of embarrassing changes, perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us whether Stephen Twigg still supports a single exam board, as he stated last September. He seemed unable to answer that question in another place earlier today. Anybody who thinks that the current national curriculum is fit for purpose should get out there and sit through lessons, as I have done on many occasions, to see how content-light the current national curriculum is and how it is short-changing our pupils. That was brought home to me about four years ago when I watched a lesson by a so-called very good English teacher on “The Taming of the Shrew”. It was a 50-minute lesson and the sole material produced was a single sheet of A4 on which she had photographed the posters of the six films that had been made about “The Taming of the Shrew”. The subject matter of the lesson was how more or less the portrayal of the shrew in the photographs had been sexualised. Apparently that was relevant and something in which children could engage. That was when I realised what was going on in our schools.
We believe that pupils can achieve far more than we have hitherto asked of them and everything that I have seen in my experience confirms me in that view. EBacc is based on the best international systems that all have a core suite of academic subjects that sometimes is mandatory. We will substantially reduce controlled assessment, making exams linear, not modular. We will finally be ending the culture of dumbing down. We are putting in place an effective accountability regime which substantially reduces the chances of gaming and ensures all pupils receive equal attention, not just those on the C/D borderline. It encourages a broad and balanced curriculum in which all relevant GCSEs and approved vocational subjects will be treated equally.
Our exams will be modern; they will include computer science; they will be rigorous; they will require deep subject knowledge and understanding; they will test extended essay writing and problem solving and will give our pupils the skills they need for the future. We will also be stripping out unnecessary prescription as to how teachers teach, freeing them up to display their professional expertise and subject knowledge. One very important point, which has gone largely unnoticed so far, is that, as the chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, says in every speech he makes, we no longer care precisely how teachers teach provided our students are learning and making progress. There is a perception among all teachers that there is something called a standard Ofsted lesson. It does not exist but it is perceived to be no more than five minutes teaching from the front; a plenary at the end; group work; peer group discussion and so on. Teachers find this a straitjacket which they live in fear of. We are determined to end this but that message has not got through yet to all Ofsted inspectors; however, we are determined to get it through. When we end this, it will free teachers up to display their professional expertise and their subject knowledge, and make teaching much more enjoyable. We are determined to allow teachers to take back control of their classrooms.
We believe that this curriculum and the examination system we propose will help give our children and young people the education they deserve.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, just before we begin, I remind noble Lords to be as brief as possible to enable as many Members as possible to speak.
Education: Development of Excellence
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, it is a great privilege to open this debate on excellence in education, and I look forward with great pleasure to hearing the speeches from so many noble Lords today.
I know that all in this House share my passion for raising the standards in our schools so that every child can develop his or her own talents, and every Government have tried to achieve this goal. I pay tribute to the previous Government for having made education a priority during their time in office, and I acknowledge their heritage, not least in the creation of the best generation of young teachers that we have ever had and in the development of the early academies—just as, I hope, they are equally generous in acknowledging the heritage of their predecessors.
Today, I should like to address the measures which this coalition Government have put in place to achieve the elusive goals of every school a good school and an education system that allows Britain to win in the global race of the future. The themes of the Government’s actions in education, as in all aspects of policy, are a radical shift away from overweening state interference, a belief in the power of every individual to contribute to the public good, and a passion for excellence. For education, this means trust in the professionals in our schools and colleges, raising aspirations for all and thereby enabling achievement by the provision of structures within which students can aspire to succeed—and can compete for success in the fields where their talents lie.
I want to make clear that, for me, excellence is defined not just by academic attainment. There is far more to good education than exam results and far more to exam results than achievement in academic subjects alone. Vocational exams are every bit as valuable for those who choose that route; I will return to that issue later. Adult life, whether in employment, family life or friendships, asks of a social, emotional and spiritual richness. Good schools work to foster those skills, based on a strong framework of moral and ethical values that inform every aspect of the school’s life, both inside and outside the classroom.
Last week, I attended the opening of a new learning centre in a sixth-form college. I congratulated the young people and their principal on their new facility. Of course good buildings and equipment are aids to learning and it was good to see young people enjoying the fine facilities on offer, but excellence does not reside in those facilities alone. In every education debate that we have had in this Chamber over many years, there has been unanimous agreement that teachers are the one factor on which the quality of education rests. The question that this Government have addressed is what we can do to bear on the quality of teachers.
It is a source of sadness to me that the approach to improving achievement in recent times has been to regulate, dictate, control from the centre, inspect with the aim of finding fault, create league tables of examination results and punish where failure is discovered. This approach, although I am sure it is made with the best of intentions, simply has not worked. The message of this approach to schools and teachers is to work only to the regulator’s requirement, to seek the easiest way to achieve good grades in the league tables and to work with the children who will add to their league table scores while allowing the weaker students to be ignored and the brightest to go unstretched. While, happily, many schools refused to follow that route, the result has been to cause the biggest gap between the high-achieving pupils and schools and the lowest achievers that we have ever seen in our history.
The coalition Government have tackled this question by looking at what teachers—those key factors in quality—need from government to allow them to succeed. Overwhelmingly, the answer is that schools and teachers need freedom to exercise their professional competence and judgment. In short, they need trust. Some years ago, I attended an international conference about educational quality. Delegates from many countries whose international performance was in many cases far from outstanding enthusiastically told stories of curriculum change, investment in new buildings, legislation, regulation and so on. Finally, it came to the turn of the delegate from Finland, whose students score at the top of every international league table. “Well”, he said, “we do not have many of those things. You see, we just trust the teachers”. It was a lesson I never forgot.
We spend a great deal of money on educating the dedicated young men and women who choose to serve as teachers in our schools and colleges. Many of them are among the brightest and best of their generation. This Government have done absolutely the right thing in pursuing policies that trust them to perform at the highest level. Setting schools free through the academies programme has been an act of faith, trusting schools and teachers to make the right choices for the young people in their care. That faith has been fully justified. Not only do we have over 500 sponsored academies, with sponsorship from every kind of charitable and business organisation as well as from churches and religious bodies, but we now have almost 2,000 academies from schools that have converted. This is a massive endorsement of the programme from the wider community and from the profession itself.
Most important, though, is the level of achievement that these academies have given to the young people who attend them. Through strong leadership, gifted teaching and high standards of discipline, achievement has been raised far beyond expectation. Other speakers today will give examples of the amazing success of the schools that were failing their pupils in every way but were turned into high-scoring, high-achieving academies in the space of a very few years. These are stories of life-changing opportunities for young people, raising their aspirations, giving them both academic success and all the self-confidence that gives, and pride in their school uniform, respect for the rules of discipline and loyalty to their school and its values. These are priceless gifts indeed.
Another significant and exciting development has been the creation of free schools: schools set up by local communities and groups involving parents, business, universities and professionals that meet the needs and aspirations of a community for high-quality education. About 80 of those schools have opened in less than two years, with many others approved to open in the next year.
The key result of those reforms, the biggest and most radical for generations, is that the Government have put the professionals in the driving seat, allowing them freedom from government micromanagement, taking the punitive, fault-finding inspections off their backs and allowing them to respond to the needs and interests of the children in their care. Of course, their freedom is balanced by proper accountability. They are accountable to their governing bodies, their students and their community but accountable, above all, to their own high professional standards.
It remains the proper role of government to provide the structures within which schools and teachers can work to ensure that their pupils will achieve. The framework of both the curriculum and examinations is under careful review, and the reforms that have so far been announced will begin to restore the world-class reputation which this country once enjoyed and which it has so sadly lost in recent years. The English baccalaureate certificate will set new demanding standards in maths, English, two sciences, a foreign language and a humanities subject. The pull of the curriculum which these new qualifications will provide will mean a huge increase in the number of pupils studying subjects such as geography, history and triple sciences. In 2010, only 23% of pupils were studying what in anyone’s terms are those basic subjects. That will rise to 47% next year. It is an achievement of which the Government can be proud.
In Ofqual’s review of the curriculum, it is my hope that the importance of religious education will also be recognised, and perhaps restored to the core of those qualifications. At a time when the understanding of other religions is so necessary and when knowledge of the established religion of our country is being alarmingly lost, the argument for good RE for all young people seems to me strong.
Single final exams, requiring students to master each subject with confidence, will replace the modular structure. A modular structure has encouraged spoon feeding and teaching to the test. One-off final exams offer freedom for teachers in methods and approach in ways that modular structures made impossible. Equally, they allow students to explore a subject in greater depth. The exams will discriminate appropriately between the highest achievers and those of more modest achievement, just as every other aspect of life does, from sport to show business to promotions at work and even in politics. We need to identify our stars if we are to compete in the world of the future.
The majority of 16 year-olds are capable of performing in those core subjects to the new demanding standard, and I have every confidence that with the freedom to work to their own professional methods, teachers will rise to the challenge of the new examinations. However, not all young people are motivated by academic study, and it is important to ensure that the substantial minority who do not wish to or are incapable of pursuing academic qualifications have satisfying alternatives. As a country, we have in the past not done enough in our education provision to provide for the nearly 60% who do not go on to university, and our economy has paid the price for that failure. Tough employer-approved vocational exams will replace the jungle of qualifications of varying value that are currently available.
I am also a huge supporter of the university technical colleges pioneered by my noble friend Lord Baker—I am pleased that he is speaking later in this debate. Maintaining the study of core subjects to age 16, they will provide high-quality industry-sponsored technical courses to inspire young people who are uninspired by a wholly academic programme. Five UTCs are already open, with 28 more approved. Within the next two years, I hope that at least 40 of those pioneering colleges will be open. Similarly, 16 studio schools are already open and another 16 approved. These cater to young people in the 14 to 19 year-old age range who learn in more practical ways. They offer work experience, sometimes paid, and a tough curriculum combining academic and vocational subjects. It is no surprise that those schools have proved to be both popular and successful in the early years of their life.
Many vocationally motivated young people are every bit as intelligent as their academically minded contemporaries, and their skills are vital to the economy of the future as well as to the fulfilment of their own aspirations. The growth of university technical colleges and studio schools under this Government has at last addressed the issue of a rigorous, satisfying vocational route for the many young people whose talents lie in that direction.
The primary years are perhaps the most important in any child’s education. They provide the basic skills that open the world of learning and the attitude to learning that he or she will take through the next long years. It is simply a national shame that in recent years one in three children have left primary school without an adequate ability to read, write and add up. More than 40,000 leave primary school at the age of 11 with a reading age of only seven. It is therefore much to be welcomed that the Government have put forward consultation proposals for a core primary curriculum that proposes rigorous high standards in the key areas of maths, English and science, with a much welcome requirement for a foreign language at key stage 2. Outside this core, teachers will have much greater freedom to follow their own professional skill. Very rapidly, we can look to a primary education that gives 11 year-olds the skills and attitudes they need if they are to succeed in their secondary years.
I cannot fail to speak also of the world of higher education, where this country punches so far above its weight. With centuries of academic freedom to their credit, our great universities take their place in the top few in the world. After the United States, no other country features in the top ranks of the international league as we do. It cannot be too strongly urged that nothing—no, nothing—is done to diminish the academic freedom that has fuelled this success. Our leading universities must be free to choose the brightest and best of each generation of young people. The competition for their genius is keen and our competitors recognise that success in this highly competitive global economy depends on them. Trusting the professional academics to spot talent wherever it can be found must be a priority for any Government.
There is much to be done. We have fallen so very far behind our competitors in the world and failed many of the generations of young people who are now out in the world without the basic skills needed to allow them to find a satisfactory place in adult life and work. The great task has begun, however, and the pace of change in this Government’s policies is amazingly rapid. I commend our Government for all that they are doing. I beg to move.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, but perhaps at this point I may remind your Lordships that this is a timed debate and it would be much appreciated if Back-Benchers could keep their remarks to the four minutes allocated.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(14 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise to my noble friend, but under the rules of Report noble Lords may speak only once in the course of each amendment.
Lord Touhig
My Lords, I have some concerns about these amendments, in particular Amendment 86 in the name of my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden and Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen. Amendment 86 would dilute the existing legislative protection which allows Catholic schools to give priority to Catholics when recruiting to any post, without the need to provide justification for doing so. That has been a long established practice and it is essential that such preference is given to ensure that the Catholic ethos, which is the whole basis of having a Catholic school, is allowed to continue and to be maintained and developed. I suggest to my noble friend that the proposed subsection (5A) in her Amendment 86 is unnecessary since schools with a religious character are already obliged to comply with the Equality Act 2010, which includes appropriate exemptions for such schools.
Amendment 88 in the name of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen relates to voluntary controlled schools only. There are no voluntary controlled schools in the Catholic sector but this amendment would affect Church of England voluntary controlled schools which convert to academy status. These schools, which currently admit only a certain proportion of children of faith, would be prevented from increasing that quota except in specific circumstances. My fear is that if my noble friend's amendment was incorporated into the Bill it would pave the way for imposing quotas on all schools of a religious character. I do not think that is reasonable, right or just. From the point of view of the Catholic sector, this would certainly limit the ability of Catholic parents to send their children to Catholic schools. For that reason, I could not support my noble friend’s amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, this debate allows us to return to the topic of faith schooling. As we have made clear in previous debates, the Government believe strongly in the role of faith schools in this country. As we have heard from my noble friend Lord Deben, faith schools existed before there was a state education system and have contributed a great deal to its development. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford set out, it is vital to faith schools that they are able to maintain their particular religious ethos and their ability to deliver the form of education which they have historically provided, and which parents want. We think the long-standing arrangements that provide for this are working well. The Government are therefore seeking to ensure that faith schools which seek academy status continue to have the freedoms they have previously enjoyed, subject to the same protections.
Turning first to the issue of faith staffing, I am aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, and indeed my noble friend Lord Avebury continue to have concerns with aspects of Clause 60, which seeks to replicate the staffing regime in voluntary controlled schools on their conversion to academy status. We are grateful for the discussions which the noble Baroness had with my noble friend the Minister on these issues and hope that the detailed letter sent to her and to my noble friend Lord Avebury on 5 October provided some reassurance on this matter. My noble friend referred to that letter in the course of his comments. We agree with many of the sentiments expressed by noble Lords today. The issues are really therefore more technical ones, about how these sentiments can best be given effect in law.
Education Bill
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, the current reporting areas for school inspections of maintained schools and academies have evolved over the years in a piecemeal way with new requirements being bolted on for the best of reasons but without there being any overall consolidation. Over time the arrangements have become crowded, with inspectors having to make numerous judgments and schools feeling that they have to jump through multiple and sometimes overlapping hoops. Clause 40 consolidates and refocuses the arrangements around core issues related to education in its widest sense, covering pupils’ academic and personal development. It specifies four high-level areas that must be reported on; namely, pupils’ achievement, the quality of teaching, leadership and management, and pupils’ behaviour and safety. It requires inspectors, in reporting on these, to consider pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and how the school is meeting the needs of the range of pupils. The new approach will mean inspectors spending more time in classrooms, observing teaching, listening to pupils read, and talking to pupils and staff. The space provided in the new framework will mean that inspectors can drill down more effectively into difficult areas. Ofsted has developed, piloted and now published a new draft framework built around these provisions and the proposals have been welcomed by both schools and inspectors. Ofsted is currently training inspectors in the new approach which, subject to the passage of this Bill, will be introduced in January.
The specific terms “well-being” and “community cohesion” in Amendments 77 and 78 are not included in the consolidated provisions set out in Clause 40. But as my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, that does not mean that they are to be absent from the new arrangements. There will be good coverage of these matters but they will be approached in an integrated way, linked to the core areas and underpinning considerations. This comes across clearly in the draft framework documents that Ofsted published at the end of September which were circulated to Peers in the open letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, on 14 October. For example, the new arrangements will give prominence to aspects such as behaviour, attendance and pupil safety—all of which are fundamental to well-being. Inspectors will spend more time looking at absence and reasons for this and at how the needs of any pupils who are educated partly off site are addressed. The wider safeguarding of pupils remains a key part of the assessment of leadership and management and noble Lords have rightly emphasised the importance of safeguarding. That also looks at how the school is working in partnership with other schools, external agencies and the community to increase the range and quality of learning opportunities for pupils. Inspectors will be considering pupils’ participation in activities to develop their social skills. Inspectors will look at how schools manage safeguarding arrangements, including effective identification of children at risk of harm. They will also conduct case studies looking at the experience of vulnerable pupils, including those with special educational needs, looked-after children or those with mental health needs.
There will also be good coverage of issues related to community cohesion. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and others who spoke in support of this that inspectors will focus on how well performance gaps are narrowing between different groups of pupils when assessing achievement. They will also look at how teachers ensure that all pupils have equal access and a fair chance to learn in an atmosphere of respect and dignity when assessing behaviour, at how the school helps pupils prepare for life in modern democratic Britain and a global society when addressing leadership, and at the extent to which pupils understand and appreciate the range of different cultures within the school and further afield, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, as an essential element of preparation for life when considering pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. This is in the draft evaluation schedule published by Ofsted which is available to all schools and the public, so I can also reassure my noble friend Lord Lucas that all schools will indeed know about it.
My noble friend Lady Benjamin asked how we would ensure that equalities issues were addressed. I reassure her that equalities are at the heart of the inspection system. Under the teaching limb, inspectors will assess the extent to which the needs of all pupils are being met. Under behaviour and safety, inspectors will look at whether all pupils have an equal and fair chance to thrive and learn. On leadership, they will assess whether there is a broad and balanced curriculum that meets the needs of all pupils. Where schools are not meeting the needs of all groups of pupils, this will be reflected in inspectors’ judgments about the school. In addition, schools of course have duties under the Equality Act.
Amendment 79 would amend the underpinning requirement for inspectors to consider pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development to add linguistic development. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, that I agree that linguistic development is highly important. That is reflected both in Ofsted’s new approach and in the early years foundation stage. The starting point for assessment of communication, language and literacy development is the early years foundation stage profile assessment, which sets the standards for learning and development from birth to age five. My noble friend the Minister met the noble Lord recently and shared with him the full detail of the assessment that is made on communication and language. I say for the benefit of the House that the assessment includes checking the extent to which children speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control, and show awareness of the listener. It assesses how they use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences, and how they use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events. It checks that children hear and say sounds and words in the order in which they occur; that they link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet; that they use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words; and that they explore and experiment with sounds, words and text, and retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns of stories.
We have recently consulted on revisions to the early years foundation stage. One proposal that we are looking to take forward is a new assessment for all children at age two. This would include personal, social, and communication and language development. The aim is to identify where children are doing well and where additional support may be necessary. The intention is to introduce this from September next year.
I turn to the new inspection system. In evaluating teaching and pupil achievement, inspectors will draw on the EYFS profile assessment in considering how well pupils develop skills in reading, writing and communication, and the extent to which pupils develop the skills to learn for themselves. Inspectors will listen to children reading, with a particular emphasis on weaker readers, and consider opportunities in the curriculum and through interactions with teachers and other adults for pupils to engage in a range of activities—for example, developing an appreciation of theatre and literature.
As the noble Lord has noted previously, social and cultural development presupposes linguistic development. We do not think that it is necessary to identify linguistic development separately from social and cultural development and, more generally, we do not believe that there is a pressing case to add to the legislation in this respect. The phrase “spiritual, moral, social and cultural development” has been with us since the start of Ofsted inspections in the early 1990s and continues to be just as useful and relevant today. To provide some additional assurance, we have agreed with Ofsted that linguistic development will feature explicitly in the training being provided for all inspectors in the coming weeks. We have asked that this important area be considered within the new framework for initial teaching training, on which Ofsted will shortly consult.
Amendment 76A from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, would introduce a fifth core area on which Ofsted would be required to report, covering the extent to which pupils of compulsory school age are “school ready” when they join the school. We have already had a useful debate during the first session about the importance of good parenting and support through the first five years of a child’s development, so I will not repeat the points that were made on this. However, I fully acknowledge that parents and early years providers have an important role to play in preparing children for school.
School inspection is concerned with holding schools to account for performance in educating their pupils. Inspection reports are therefore focused on the extent to which pupils progress and develop and not on reporting information about aspects of pupil intake, but I assure the noble Lord that inspectors will be interested in pupils’ starting points. The evaluation schedule that inspectors will use makes reference to the important assessment that is required to be made by schools under the early years foundation stage profile, the scores that inspectors will check as part of assessing what progress pupils have made at the end of each key stage relative to their starting points. Put simply, inspectors will look at the value that schools add while not lowering their expectations.
I know that the noble Lord is concerned also with what happens in other early years settings, the extent to which they are required to follow the early years foundation stage and how they are held to account. EYFS is mandatory for all early years settings, including reception classes in schools. The EYFS profile is an observational assessment of all children in the summer term of their reception year at school, the academic year in which they turn five. The reception class, of course, is attended by nearly all children. In addition, all children at ages three and four are entitled to 15 hours’ free early years education for 38 weeks a year, as are the most disadvantaged children at age two. For the most vulnerable children in need, we have debated previously the duty on local authorities to consider providing services which meet their needs.
The assessments are undertaken by teachers, supported by evidence gathered during the child’s time in reception year. It is based on practitioners’ ongoing observation and assessments of children’s progress in all six areas of learning and development. Parents are given a written report on their children which reflects the judgments of their child’s teacher based on the evidence that they and others have gathered. The information is used by the parent and the school to understand the child's development needs and to help plan for their future learning.
Data from EYFSP assessments are collected by local authorities, and they provide aggregate data to the department. The department publishes data annually at local authority and national level—these have been sent to the noble Lord. Last week we wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, detailing the various ways in which we collect information on the early years. We would of course agree with what she said in today’s debate about the importance of school governors in the whole pattern of these developments.
On holding local authorities to account, we are making data available about how children are developing at the end of the early years in each local authority area. We would expect schools and parents to use this to challenge the authority on its performance.
Ofsted inspects all early years providers against the EYFS. Where settings fail to meet the EYFS requirements, inspectors take action, instructing improvements as needed. Where improvements are needed, settings are inspected again, more quickly than they would otherwise be.
Finally, local authorities have a duty to provide information, advice and training to childcare providers in order to raise quality. To support this, the Government provide a substantial funding stream through the early intervention grant to enable local authorities to act more strategically and target investment where it will have the greatest impact, with greater flexibility to respond to local needs and to drive reform.
I hope that the noble Lord will agree that the EYFS profile is the right mechanism to provide the information about school readiness that he is seeking, and that the focus in school inspection should continue to be on the progress that pupils are making and the value added by the school.
The provisions in Clause 40 offer a coherent set of high-level reporting areas that have enabled Ofsted to put together a new approach to inspection that will be clearer for schools and inspectors and drive improvement.
I apologise if I have spoken at some length, but many important points have been raised in this debate. I hope that I have offered reassurance about coverage of well-being, community cohesion and linguistic development within the framework documents, and wider assurances about EYFS and how school readiness is monitored. I hope that, with those reassurances, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
Before my noble friend sits down, will she agree to write to me saying exactly where community cohesion is dealt with in the draft framework document or the evaluation schedule? I must be reading the words wrong, missing them or misunderstanding how they work.
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, if you were setting up a business to manufacture and sell bicycles and you were going to subcontract the construction of the wheels and maybe the bell to another provider, would you not inspect the wheels and the bell when they came in? Would you rely entirely on the provider to give you the inspection that you need to ensure the quality of the pieces that you were bringing in and putting together and on which your life’s work would depend?
The Minister has kindly given us a great deal of detail about what the EYFS does and all the inspections that take place, and it is very exciting that that is happening, but I am looking at it from the point of view of the school in this particular case. I think that the school needs to have an independent assessment to ensure that the input into the school is up to standard; and if it is not, then extra funding perhaps needs to be provided to enable the school to give special support, rather than having to take money away from its educational work in order to have to pay for restorative work to bring children up to speed.
I will read the reply carefully, but I am sorry to say that I do not honestly think that the Minister has covered the point that I tried to address. That may be my fault for not addressing it sufficiently clearly. Under the circumstances, I certainly do not intend to take the matter any further and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned for the day. The usual channels have agreed that Report stage should continue on Tuesday 1 November and not later tonight.
Education Bill
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Lord Hughes of Woodside
I do not know why my noble friend repeats the story that we are trying to stop people understanding the background, history and traditions of this country. Nothing is further from the truth. We are saying that of course one should be able to teach all faiths at any time; we have no problem with that. However, we should not insist on collective worship from which some people are excluded.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of the rules on Report. Members may speak only once to an amendment.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, I thought we were voting. I wish to speak to Amendment 61D standing in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight.
It is rather odd that we have just had a debate about an issue that has divided opinion since the establishment of early state education with the Forster’s Act of 1870 and we still have an enormous amount of confusion as to whether the debate on this amendment is beginning.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
For the sake of clarification, the last vote was nullified because no one called “Content” at the three-minute point, and the Not Contents have it. We are now moving on to Amendment 61D, which my noble friend Lord Willis is moving.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, the history of moving amendments on technology is fraught with danger. It seems rather odd in your Lordships’ House that we can have an hour-long debate about whether we should have collective worship and yet in the most technologically advanced nation on earth we cannot decide whether we have had a vote. Nevertheless, we will move on.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise again to my noble friend, but there is so much noise in the Chamber that it is quite difficult to hear what he is saying. I invite noble Lords either to come in and listen to the debate or perhaps to leave quietly so that we can continue with Amendment 61D.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
I am very grateful to my noble friend. The fact that the House is so packed to hear this amendment on technology brightens my soul.
When the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight, and I raised this amendment in Committee, we were hopeful that the Minister would reflect on the issues raised and the importance of technology in our schools, and bring back government amendments on Report that indicated that this Government listened to one of the most important technologies driving our education system, our society and our economy. However, there is not a word in this piece of legislation about how we empower our young people to enter a technological society where they can take full advantage of all that pertains.
In responding to the debate in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said:
“We are talking to a number of interested parties—school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts—about how the department should take forward its thinking about technology”.—[Official Report, 13/7/11; col. GC 306.]
Sadly we have not had a single word about where those discussions have led. We have not had a single idea from the Government as to whether technology has a place in a modern UK education system in the 21st century. It is enormously disappointing that we still have from the Government a view that technology, particularly information communications technology, is a distraction from the central aim of raising standards. It is absolutely essential to the raising of standards to have proper technology and technology policies in our schools.
We are not promoting the case for ICT as an alternative to conventional subject matter or pedagogy but as an integral part of delivering a world-class, 21st century curriculum. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, recently reminded us that,
“Lewis Carroll didn't just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton—but was also a published poet”.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who sadly died very recently, said:
“The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians who also happened to be excellent computer scientists”.
This amendment is about digital inclusion. It is about encouraging schools to meet their responsibilities to generations of young people who access ICT as both a tool and a discipline, and not to disadvantage themselves—or indeed the nation—as they move forward. However, it is so much more than just a pious and well-meaning amendment. All the evidence from studies from the Royal Society, the EPSRC, the Times Educational Supplement, the Government’s own department, major corporations, and charities such as futurelab and the e-Learning Foundation, of which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and I are privileged to be the respective chairs, emphasise the link between the use of ICT, educational motivation and achievement and future economic success and well-being. Not a single reputable study points to our young people or our society being disadvantaged as a result of access to high-quality ICT. You have to go to parts of the United States to get that view.
However, some 4 million people in Britain today are not online and are usually the most disadvantaged. Forty-nine per cent of those without access come from the lowest socioeconomic groups, and 70 per cent are in social housing. Thirty-eight per cent of those who are currently unemployed are not online, despite the fact that 70 per cent of all jobs are advertised online. That is a very cruel deception. Ministers must understand that the majority of those households will have children, who, without our support, will be part of tomorrow’s statistics.
One million children in our schools today cannot get online at home. Yet so much of the work they are being set in schools, and so many of the projects which they are being asked to complete, rely upon them being able to get online and do their work in that way. By encouraging schools to be proactive—particularly in recognising that an IT policy must extend into the home, where often the greatest disparity exists—the Government can make children and their schools part of a solution to support a wide range of government objectives.
This amendment is not a plea for special funding. I have not mentioned funding once, and nor have my noble friends. Encouraging schools to use their pupil premium would go a long way to meet both school and home access requirements. However, it requires the statutory authority of this amendment to say to schools, “Technology should be at the heart of what you do, and you need to report every year on that to the Secretary of State, as well as to your pupils’ parents and to your governors”.
Finally, this amendment would also address one of the real challenges facing our schools and colleges: that of addressing the shortfall in the number of students studying computing across the UK. According to the current Royal Society study, from 2006 to 2009 we saw a fall of 33 per cent in the number of students studying ICT at GCSE level. There has been a similar fall since 2003 of one-third of students studying ICT at A2-level. We have also seen a 57 per cent reduction in A2 level students studying computer science. Such dramatic falls in numbers of students going into our universities to study computer science are having a seriously detrimental effect on our ability to produce the sort of graduates we need for our modern economy. That alone is a reason for us to put ICT and technology at the heart of delivering the 21st century curriculum.
I hope that, as this will not cost the Minister anything but will win him friends throughout the nation, this is one amendment about which the Minister can simply say to the House, “I accept the wisdom of your words”. I beg to move.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Willis for raising this important issue. We agree entirely with him, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate that the effective use of technology is critical to education in the 21st century and indeed to employment.
In his speech to the Royal Society on 29 June, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State outlined the importance of technological innovation in supporting good teaching and how successful ideas need to spread rapidly through the system. The role of Government in this area is to encourage schools to take better advantage of opportunities presented by digital technologies to engage pupils, improve teaching and deliver education more effectively and efficiently—and, from the messages in this debate, more excitingly as well. The Secretary of State will say more on this later in the year and I cannot pre-empt what he plans to say in that speech.
We know that many schools and teachers are already making excellent use of technology to help deliver their educational aims, and we need to learn from them. As noble Lords have set out so eloquently today, though, there is room for more widespread and innovative use across the system. Some teachers also need more knowledge about how to use technology effectively to support their practice, and we heard from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Paisley, how the very young are often far more proficient in technology than their teachers, parents or, dare I say, grandparents.
However, we should not seek to dictate how schools use technology or seek to plan this centrally. We should allow schools to innovate, working in partnership with industry and other experts. Schools need to respond to these opportunities, making informed decisions about whether and how to adopt new approaches in the best interests of their pupils.
We have spoken to many interested parties including school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts about technology in schools. The department is also taking forward work to help ensure that schools can get best value when purchasing technology—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned procurement as one of the issues here—and we are working with industry to agree data standards for educational systems. It is at this level that we feel the department should be involved in supporting schools to make best use of technology.
There is no doubt that the effective use of technology can support good teaching and help to raise standards. We welcome the noble Lord’s commitment to the potential of technology to improve education and are grateful for all the ideas that have come forward in this debate and in previous ones.
Lord Puttnam
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I have a question before she sits down. Do the Government conceive it possible that a school might be considered successful that was unsuccessfully delivering ICT, coding and all the other things that this debate has thrown up as being fundamental? Again, my experience of education, having worked in the department, is that heads will react and respond to what they consider will win them brownie points, and the ultimate brownie point is to be deemed a successful school. Could she possibly give us a firm commitment that schools that fail in this area could not be deemed successful?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It would be almost impossible to deliver the curriculum successfully in a 21st-century school without the effective use of technology. I would have to come back to him on chapter and verse, but I cannot think that it would be possible for a school to deliver the curriculum successfully without a good use of technology.
The ideas in today’s debate and previous debates will be passed back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. As I said, later this year he is planning to say more about technology in schools and the role and work of government in this area. We have had a typically constructive and diverse debate today that has taken in acorns, tadpoles and apples. These issues are under active consideration and I hope, in the light of this, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the contributions of noble Lords on all sides of the House in what has been a fascinating 45-minute debate on a subject which your Lordships clearly feel incredibly strongly about. In his question to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, put his finger on the pulse of this issue: can a school be successful if it does not have ICT and technology at the heart of delivering a 21st century curriculum? The Minister was generous enough to admit that she did not believe that it was possible. In spite of all the research that she might do, she will not be able to point to a single school in the whole of the United Kingdom that is successful without using technology to deliver its curriculum.
I was interested in the short speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It was telling. She said that her grandson was making good progress with his computer and iPad. Sadly, a million children do not have access to either an iPad or a computer, and they are the ones who are the most disadvantaged. The great sadness about the Minister’s response to this debate is that these children will remain disadvantaged unless a benevolent head teacher in a benevolent school decides that ICT is going to be a priority for that school. Unless it is part of the league table culture it will not be part of it at all.
I am not worried about whether or not it is part of the English baccalaureate. I am much more interested in ICT being the electricity—the energy—that delivers, motivates and turns youngsters on to a high-performing education system.
I leave the House with three comments. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, quite rightly talked about employability and I mentioned that most jobs are advertised on line, yet those that need them most cannot access them online. The educational case was made strongly by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and by my noble friend Lord Lucas, whose passion for technology and ICT knows no bounds. I loved his description of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, sitting on a toadstool somewhere, with frogs all around him spawning. It was a wonderful analogy.
However, my noble friend was fundamentally wrong when he talked about there being only two ideologies: Stalinist or laissez-faire. There is another way and this amendment was neither Stalinist nor laissez-faire. It says to the Secretary of State, “Please take your duties seriously about creating the sorts of framework that allow schools to operate and on which we will judge you”.
This has been an interesting debate. I believe that we will not get much further on this occasion. We have been told that the Secretary of State will make an announcement from on high later. Perhaps he will become the Steve Jobs of government. Or perhaps he will become part of the Amish sect. We will see. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Education Bill
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The Earl of Listowel
Before the noble Baroness sits down, can she say whether she thinks it important that there is a good, continuous institutional base for parenting training and development? I may have misremembered—
Baroness Garden of Frognal
If the noble Earl will forgive me, on Report people may speak only once to each amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
I thought it was the case that one could ask a brief question before someone sits down. I do apologise if that is wrong.
Education Bill
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Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I also support Amendment 33, which I have added my name to. I will not rehearse the arguments that have been made by noble Lords who have already spoken except to say, as I said in Committee, that these issues about safeguarding are absolutely paramount. There is one area that no one has picked up on but of which I have personal experience. Looked-after children, foster children or children with difficult family arrangements often have complex arrangements at the school gate. For this particular group, it is always vital that the parent with the residency order knows exactly what is happening.
My own experience was at primary school level, where the school was fully on board with all the issues. In a large secondary school with 1,200 pupils, I worry that a teacher or head of department handing out a detention might not be aware of such complex arrangements. For such reasons, which also come back to safeguarding, this is really important. Amendment 33 does not ask for much. The key thing from this Side is for the Minister to please look again at the wording. We want a really clear statement that nothing will be done that will compromise the safety of the child. That is the absolute nub of it. We can all give many more anecdotes but fundamentally, at its root, this is about the safeguarding of children.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, there is clear evidence that good standards of behaviour are vital if children are to receive a high-quality education. We know that a clear and consistently applied behaviour policy, including rewards and sanctions, helps schools to achieve these standards—indeed, noble Lords have acknowledged that in their comments.
There is strong public support for improving the standards of behaviour in schools. A recent survey for the Times Educational Supplement found that 91 per cent of parents and 62 per cent of children favour tougher discipline in secondary schools. The same poll found that 88 per cent of parents and 60 per cent of pupils supported teachers in giving after-school detentions. The head teachers who gave evidence in the other place made clear that detentions are a key part of maintaining good behaviour. As has already been mentioned, Sir Michael Wilshaw went so far as to say that detentions were,
“a crucial plank in our behavioural policy”.
There is a certain level of agreement among us that behaviour patterns and detentions are part of a way in which a school operates effectively.
This clause removes the requirement for schools to provide 24 hours’ written notice of detention outside school hours. In doing this, we seek to enable head teachers and teachers to use detention in the way most suited to the circumstances of their individual schools and in the way that is most appropriate to the pupil or incident with which they are dealing.
Various concerns have been raised today. It might be helpful to noble Lords if I set out what a school has to do, by law, to issue an after-school detention at the moment. First, under Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, the head teacher must determine and make generally known in the school and to parents whether the school issues detentions outside school hours.
Secondly, Section 91 of the same Act requires that detentions must be reasonable and constitute a proportionate punishment in all the circumstances. There must also be strong assurances that, when issuing a detention, school staff must have regard to any known special circumstances of the pupil, including the pupil’s age, any special educational needs, disability or religious requirements. That would certainly affect any looked-after children or children with caring responsibilities.
Thirdly, a further safeguard in Section 92(5) of the Act provides that if arrangements have to be made for a pupil to travel home after a detention then, when deciding whether a detention is reasonable, the member of staff must take into account whether suitable travel arrangements can be reasonably made by the pupil’s parents. Many noble Lords have raised concerns about children being unable to get home after detentions in rural areas but we believe this safeguard is designed to address that concern. It is already there, as one of the safeguards that the school must have regard to. A detention that left a child unable to get home in a safe way would not be reasonable in the circumstances and would be in breach of the existing safeguards. I can well understand my noble friend’s point about children with caring responsibilities, and with these other difficulties that we have outlined, but the safeguards above prevent a young carer being given an out-of-hours detention if it is unreasonable, given their individual circumstances.
There is one additional requirement: that parents must be given 24 hours’ written notice of a detention outside school hours. So, in the long list of requirements that schools must follow before issuing an after-school detention we want to remove just one. Why do the Government want to remove the requirement for 24 hours’ written notice? We have had briefing from the Association of School and College Leaders, which made it clear that,
“generally such punishments are most effective if they take place as soon as reasonably practical”.
Indeed, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Howarth, both acknowledged the fact that immediacy of punishment for a crime is a much more effective way of disciplining young people.
The requirement as it stands also places many good schools that issue 15-minute detentions at the end of the school day in breach of the law. These schools do not and would never for a moment consider jeopardising a pupil’s safety or damaging relations with parents. Of course, even with the present requirement for written notice in place there is no guarantee that parents will be aware that a detention is happening. Schools may send the notice home with pupils, who may or may not pass it on to the parent. Equally, an e-mail from the school may not be read that day or parents may not be contactable by telephone. This means there may be cases where parents have not been aware of detentions in advance, but we have absolutely no evidence that this has led to children’s safety being compromised.
My noble friends’ amendment seeks to replace the present requirement, which I think we agree is problematic, with one under which parents must confirm that they are aware of a same-day detention after school, or must receive 24 hours’ notice of it. We well understand their intentions; we would all want parents to play a full part in ensuring high standards of behaviour and to be aware when their child is at school. I fear, however, that the amendments would cause similar problems to the current requirement. Asking that a parent confirms that they are aware of a same-day detention means that a teacher would be prevented from keeping a pupil back, even for 15 minutes at the end of the last lesson of the day, without first making arrangements to contact the parents. Noble Lords can imagine how long that could take and that on many occasions it will be impossible to gain confirmation at short notice that a parent is aware of a detention. I remind noble Lords of all the safeguards which are already in place to make quite sure that transport is there and that the young people do not have caring responsibilities, where after-hours detention would obviously not be appropriate.
There are other cases where an unco-operative parent could, in knowledge of such a requirement, ignore attempts by a school to contact them in order to prevent a same-day detention. They could simply let phone calls go to voicemail or not answer an e-mail, so the whole thing could escalate way beyond the 24 hours —and way past the time when the young person had done the disciplinary matter—and escalate the punishment to a level which was never intended. It is because of these consequences of well intended regulation that we believe it is necessary to remove the requirement and rely on the extensive existing safeguards, which require schools to act reasonably in all the circumstances.
Having said that we are not attracted to regulation we take immensely seriously the concerns raised today and in Grand Committee. We therefore propose that advice to schools on this matter could be strengthened to make sure that schools understand what they should do to act reasonably. An addition to the guidance on behaviour and discipline in schools will say:
“When judging whether a detention outside school hours is reasonable teachers should consider whether it is appropriate to give notice to parents”.
They should obviously make every effort to contact parents, but with all the other safeguards in place, and never in any circumstances take actions that would compromise the safety of the child.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I am grateful for the Minister giving way. Will she consider this point? She is stressing that the other requirements, particularly that the school act reasonably, are sufficient safeguards. Would she agree that in removing the requirement to give parents notice she is, in a sense, changing the threshold of what schools could regard as reasonable? Reasonableness is going to mean something else and it could mean—would mean I would argue—that it would be reasonable for the school not to try to inform parents. Therefore, the stress she is putting on the safeguard of reasonableness would actually be completely diminished.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I take the point the noble Baroness makes. However, we have to accept that schools take massive care of the children in their care and do not take these measures lightly. We are talking about short periods of detention after school for pupils who can get home safely; those who do not need to catch the school bus and so on. All those are already enshrined in the care and the regulation. We seek—and we hear the very grave concerns being expressed by noble Lords—to make quite sure the guidance is strengthened to ensure that child safety is never compromised by the school’s actions. We feel that the safeguards already in place strike the right balance between ensuring that children are safe and allowing schools to take proportionate action—to use their discretion and professional judgment—to establish the arrangements that work best for them.
We hope that my noble friends and the noble Baronesses will agree to work with us to see how we can strengthen the guidance that goes with these measures and meanwhile will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I want to clarify when she is proposing now. We were sent a copy of a draft document on detention, which says:
“When judging whether a detention outside school hours is reasonable teachers should consider whether it is appropriate to give notice to parents”.
Is the noble Baroness now saying that is going to be strengthened or is that the wording that is on offer? I want to clarify that point.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
These are draft guidance documents at the moment. We hear the strength of feeling that has been expressed around the House and would certainly welcome consultation to see if we can find a form of words that reassures noble Lords. We feel that all the measures are in place, but obviously some noble Lords feel that they are not strong enough, so we will be looking at the draft guidance to make quite sure the wording is appropriate.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for her reply. We would all agree with some of her opening remarks that there is strong public support for good behaviour in schools. We all know that that helps children to learn. However, I do not accept there is strong public support for this particular measure and like the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I, too, did some research over the summer with some ordinary parents and I had exactly the same responses as the noble Baroness.
The Minister said that schools must do this in a way which is most appropriate for the pupils with whom they are dealing. Where does it say that? It certainly does not say it in the legislation. It must say it, or something like it, in the guidance. My noble friend carefully went through the other duties that schools have to safeguard children, which have been laid into other statutes. I accept all that. Punishments have to be proportionate and reasonable and travel arrangements have to be considered. They are already there, but the question for a teacher looking at the guidance is: where are they? The guidance needs to have these duties clearly spelt out on the same page where a teacher is being told what they can do under this new law. It needs to be very clear.
I often wonder where this idea came from. My noble friend the Minister has told us that it came from the ASCL. Why does the ASCL have such influence over this Government? The other head teachers’ union does not have the same influence and other ordinary teachers’ unions do not. I am afraid I have a nasty suspicion that this bit of the Bill seeks to enable legislation to catch up with practice, and that some schools are following this practice without giving 24 hours’ notice. I accept that notes in satchels do not always get to parents and that the current requirement for 24 hours’ written notice often does not reach the parent and the parent is not notified. We are asking for something better than that. We are suggesting a way of ensuring that the parent is informed to enable them to make other arrangements for the child to get home safely, if possible. If they are not able to do so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, because they do not have a car and an alternative bus is not available, they can make the school aware that there could be a safeguarding problem if the child is kept in. It is then up to the school under the other duties that my noble friend has outlined to punish the child at a different time.
My noble friend suggested that some unco-operative parents may fail to answer the phone and let the message be recorded on the answerphone. I do not think that these parents have a crystal ball. When the phone rings, they cannot possibly know that it is the school ringing up to say that little Johnny will be kept in after school that day. That is stretching things beyond reality.
I am delighted that my noble friend has accepted that there is scope for strengthening the guidance. I was very pleased to hear that. She made it very clear on the record from the Dispatch Box that teachers should not do anything that compromises the safeguarding of the child. That gives me comfort. If we can work together to ensure that that is made crystal clear in the guidance, I will not feel that I need to return to this at a later stage. Can my noble friend nod and affirm that we can do that work and get the guidance to say something of that nature? It is vital that we help teachers to make good decisions about when to use this weapon in their armoury.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
Before the noble Baroness concludes, will she also reflect that essentially what we are setting in place is a two-tier style of punishment? If you think of it from the teacher’s point of view, what is underpinning this is that a detention on the same day as the crime that has been committed is more effective because it is closer in time to that crime. We will now have schools with two groups of pupils—those pupils who are eligible to receive that punishment and those who are not.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise to the noble Baroness but I am double tasking as a government spokesman and a Whip today. The rules at Report state that a noble Lord may not come back after the Minister has spoken.
Baroness Walmsley
Perhaps I may complete my remarks. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. As I have said, rural schools will not be able to use this measure but some urban schools will. However, as my noble friend Lord Storey said, not all urban schools will be able to use it because there may well be safeguarding issues in urban schools as well. However, as I said, I am comforted by what my noble friend the Minister has said. I look forward to further discussions with officials on how we can produce guidance that really helps teachers to do what they need to do but at the same time not compromise the safeguarding of children. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for interrupting my noble friend but he will be aware that the convention of the House is that 15 minutes is normally considered the maximum speaking time, and he has now been speaking for 19 minutes. I wonder whether he would be kind enough to wrap up his comments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I apologise to the House for overrunning the conventional time. I suppose it is because I take such a profoundly serious view of these curtailments of free speech that I have overrun the 15 minutes. However, I will wrap up my remarks quickly. Not one of the statistics to which I referred relates to the subject matter of Clause 13, which is pre-charge publicity—not allegations but pre-charge publicity. As regards allegations, 28 per cent led to disciplinary proceedings, more than 50 per cent had some substance and 18 per cent involved suspensions.
I am grateful to my noble friend for the concessions he has made. He may have had to battle for some of the concessions that he has wrung out of his colleagues. However, he does not accept my Amendment 48, which deals with the raising of the cap on freedom of speech in the case of a teacher who resigns or is dismissed, or Amendment 51, which allows a parent whose child has come home complaining of an assault to at least e-mail the other parents in the class to ask them whether they have had any experience of Mr Jones doing what he ought not to do, or e-mailing the staff, for example. To prohibit that seems to me utterly wrong. I speak to these two amendments in that spirit.
Education Bill
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The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I am sorry if I am rather too new to this process. I though that the Minister stood just to address some of the narrow points that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made. I hope the Committee will allow me to react, not surprisingly, to some of the comments that have been made. Is that in order?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is perfectly in order if the right reverend Prelate addresses the amendments that have been set down.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
They are precisely what I want to address, as well as the debate that has just happened. I was here on Monday, when it seemed to me that the debates reflected a common purpose. Although they came from slightly different slants and slightly different views, they were not very far away. It is difficult not to regard the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in a rather different way. Indeed, it is difficult for me to sit here without regarding it, perhaps mistakenly, as more akin to a full-frontal assault on the dual system as we have it.
I observe that the noble Lord began by saying that he is a member of the National Secular Society.
Lord Peston
The right reverend Prelate does not seem to understand my question. I was simply asking: do we know the facts? My view is that we do not. For example, I am not sure how many religious schools there are in the right reverend Prelate’s diocese, but does he know the religious composition of all the teachers in all those schools—and if so, can that be made public?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It might help the Committee if this debate were continued on a different occasion, because we are straying from the amendments which are on the Table. The Committee stage is designed to focus very much on the specific amendments that are here, rather than the more general debate such as we have on Second Reading.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
I wanted to stress the point about the trusts because it seems to underline all 12 of these amendments, in terms of how they seek to unpick the dual system that we have and challenge so much of what is there about voluntary controlled or voluntary aided schools. I was grateful for the earlier points from the noble Baroness about Amendment 129. I think we have come to a similar point about that, in that quite clearly we would not want it to be impossible for head teachers to be reserved teachers. The Minister has kindly clarified that the current situation is that they may be, not that they are required to be. We certainly would not want any change in the legislation that made that impossible.
On Amendment 128, the voluntary aided power to use religious criteria for staff appointments is quite clearly a strong power. We readily acknowledge that, as would others here. It is bound to be regarded with concern by some—I appreciate that. However, the key for us is that trustees need to be able to ensure that the purposes of their trusts are being fulfilled. That is why the powers are given in quite the way that they are. Hence, an ability to appoint staff with a proven commitment to the religious character of the school is essential in order that the purposes of donors and the duties of trustees are not frustrated. That also seems fundamental within big society issues.
I jump forward to Amendment 136, which seems to be asking to allow reserved teachers to be appointed but not to allow them to be selected using any religious criteria. If that were included, I would find that a strange consequence. Would it not perhaps be a little like selecting a Labour candidate who may turn out to be a Conservative supporter? That may happen, but I would prefer not to see that in our church schools.
There are too many issues to want to dismantle the dual system. I do not want to go back over the more general points and debates that noble Lords have had about that previously. I also pick up the point made by the Minister on the “as is” issue. There are voluntary controlled schools that want to be able to change and become voluntary aided. That is currently the case. If they were to become academies, it seems to be important that what is available to them under the present situation should continue to be available under the new legislation. Similar points apply to independent schools which, in some cases, have similar trusts to those voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools.
I believe that I have said enough to make the point about some of the concerns, in particular, but also about the more fundamental issues that underline them to make it clear why I have deep concerns about all 12 of these amendments. Rather than go through others in similar detail, I hope that what I have said will be understood and applied as they affect the rest of the amendments.
“This is subject to sub-paragraph (1A).(1A) If a leasehold interest in land is held for the purposes of a new Academy, this paragraph does not apply to—
(a) that or any other leasehold interest in the land, or(b) a freehold interest in the land.(1B) An Academy is a new Academy for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1A) if, by virtue of section 9(1)(a) (new educational institutions), the duty in section 9(2) (impact on other schools etc) applied when the Secretary of State was deciding whether to enter into Academy arrangements in relation to it.”
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments to Schedule 14 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hill. They were the subject of his explanatory letter of 8 September. Concerns were raised in the other place and elsewhere about the breadth of the new powers in the land provisions. Many land provisions in the Bill merely re-enact existing powers in previous legislation, with a small number of amendments. There are two main areas where there are new powers. First, the Bill puts the protection of publicly owned land and public investment in land used by academies on a statutory rather than a contractual basis. I am sure that noble Lords will agree with this objective. Secondly, it introduces new powers to transfer the publicly funded land of foundation and voluntary schools to free schools and academies when a school closes or the land is otherwise disposed of. I seek to provide reassurance in relation to these powers in my remarks.
Amendments 139H, 139K and 139L reduce the reach of the second area of new powers so that they do not apply to land that is leased to a new academy by a private landlord. Where we are engaging in commercial negotiations with private landlords for the lease of land to new free schools, it is more appropriate to protect any public investment in that land by contractual means rather than in statute. In addition to speaking about these amendments, it may be helpful if I say a little more about the circumstances in which we envisage the powers being used in respect of land held by the trusts of schools and academies, many of which are church diocesan trusts.
While we will consider each case on its merits, where trustee land is being disposed of, our intention is that, as a general principle, the Secretary of State will consider using his powers to direct the transfer of land only where the value of the public investment in it is greater than 50 per cent. We shall have further detailed discussions with interested parties with a view to developing agreed guidance about the operation of these powers, including how the value of the land and the public investment in it is calculated. Similarly, the Secretary of State will not normally use his powers to transfer trustee-owned school land in which there has been public investment if the land continues to be used for other purposes of the trust where these obtain. If it were proposed that such land should be removed from educational use, yet in the view of the Secretary of State there were compelling reasons why it should be retained, any such transfer would take place only following full consultation with the trust and any relevant religious authority, and having regard to any relevant views of the Charity Commission. Should this arise, there would, of course, be appropriate payment to the trust in respect of the private interest in the land. Notwithstanding the above, where trust land that has been enhanced at public expense is disposed of, any public investment will continue to be protected in statute.
Finally, Amendments 139M to 139T are largely technical drafting improvements, most of which arose from our discussions with the Charity Commission. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I will simply thank the Minister—and her officials, who have been in negotiation with the National Society—for the clarification that she has given.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, during the Recess I read a book about the lives of crofters in the Western Isles of Scotland during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Children had to leave the parental home in order to go to school with the result that families were broken up and teenagers were not supervised by their parents and received much less adequate care and supervision. For children in those situations this idea could have considerable value. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that there is no reason why this sort of service should not be provided by schools other than academies in appropriate situations. However, I understand why my noble friend Lord Lucas tabled the amendment to this Bill. I am not sure whether legislation is required. Perhaps the Minister will explain the situation in that regard. We must take advantage of what technology can offer to ensure that certain children can get as good an education as any other child—provided that the proper safeguards and protections are in place—without having to split up families.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lucas has spoken persuasively on this occasion of the merits of cyberlearning. We thank him for sharing that range of evidence and experience with the Committee. There is no doubt that this is an area of growing relevance, importance and potential. I am pleased to say that academies already have significant freedom about how they organise the education they deliver to best meet the needs of their students. This includes the use of distance and online learning where that is appropriate. Indeed, I understand that schools in this country increasingly provide services of this kind to deliver greater choice of subjects and teaching methods for pupils. That is clearly a good thing. It can also clearly be valuable for online teaching services to be available for pupils who are unable to attend school regularly, such as those groups which my noble friend Lord Lucas and Lady Walmsley have mentioned, which would, of course, include Gypsy and Traveller pupils, whom we discussed earlier this week, those who have been excluded or those in hospital, young offender institutions or prisons. Again, academies already have the freedom to provide such services for their pupils and maintained schools will have similar freedoms to do so. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that these freedoms will be available for maintained schools as well as academies.
We think that the noble Lord’s amendment goes a little too far in providing for the absence of a teacher. We think that the role of the teacher is crucial to the quality of provision to ensure coherence of the overall educational experience for the pupil. There remains an important role for an experienced professional and for a personal relationship between teacher and pupil. In the Government’s view, distance education of the kind described in the amendment, without the presence of a teacher at any time, represents a risk to pupil outcomes and educational experience.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
On a point of clarification, and drawing together two debates that we have had this evening, if a school were to open as a free school, would that not mean that it would not need a teacher?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
No, but they still need teachers. You are quite right: they do not need qualified teachers, but they need teachers who help to communicate and teach subjects to pupils.
In conclusion, we believe that much of what my noble friend intends is already possible and is already happening. To the extent that it is not, I would ask him to recognise the value that a good teacher can add to the educational experience of a pupil. We recognise that there is a growing place for technology, alternative teaching and learning provisions. Many of us will remember, with gratitude, the impact of inspirational teachers during our own education and the difference that that personal motivation and contact made to our enthusiasm about learning. On that basis, I hope that my noble friend has been reassured that those freedoms already exist and that we may not need to return to this on Report. Therefore, I urge him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
I am very encouraged by what the noble Baroness says about all this being possible. I am also very pleased about what she said on the role of the church. I entirely agree with her. I hope that she will have a chance to pass that news on to the prison education service which appears determined to eliminate teachers and do it all online. Doubtless, I will come back to her or, I suspect, to my noble friend, on the subject of funding, which has arisen from time to time. The complexity of the guidance offered by this otherwise excellent department confuses local authorities from time to time and certainly schools as to whether particular arrangements qualify for funding and, if so, on what basis. To take a particular example, if a home-educated child wishes to go to a further education college at the age of 14, they can get no funding for that. Perhaps that is something to be followed up by letter rather than in this forum. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.