Schools: Health and Well-being

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am not sure that I would go that far, frankly. The best way is to educate children in school as to what is healthy food and allow them to make those choices for themselves. We are making strong movements in this regard.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that most Members of this House and many other people would accept that providing healthy food in schools, particularly to very young children, is an entirely laudable aim. What information does the Minister have about schools that are struggling to deliver this, both practically and financially, and what help is being offered to those that are having those problems?

[Lord Nash]

We have provided £185 million for cooking facilities for schools and we are training cooks in this area. More schoolchildren have this opportunity. It is reaching 85% of schoolchildren. Not all take it up—not all have been in school on the day in question—but it is receiving comprehensive coverage.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased to see that education had been grouped with culture in today’s debate on the gracious Speech, but I wish that I felt convinced that the Government accepted the need for them to keep equally close company in the development of education policy. That is what I want to talk about before touching briefly on two other matters. Last month, a letter from a head teacher appeared in the i newspaper, which I think would be of particular interest to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who is sadly not in his place—and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham. I understand that, at this hour in a long debate, the call of the dinner table becomes very insistent, but I am sad that neither of them is here to hear it because it very much goes to the points that they raised. It says:

“As the headteacher of a 1,000-pupil comprehensive school in the West Midlands I have mixed emotions as I look back over the school year.

At Christmas the school choir sang in a hauntingly beautiful carol service in the local church. Following a recent charity week, my pupils presented more than £4,000 to national and local charities. My Year 8 boys have just won the English Schools’ National Under-14 Football Cup. While walking in the Shropshire hills last weekend, I met 20 of my Year 10 pupils who were trekking as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The mixed emotions I feel are delight and despair: delight that all these activities are what a school is all about, helping pupils become well-balanced young adults able to take their place in society—and despair because nothing I have described to you counts a jot in the school league tables by which all schools are measured”.

That was from a head teacher in the West Midlands.

Those words precisely encapsulate what many of us find so troubling about government attitudes to education over the past five years and about the tone of the gracious Speech in promising further legislation, with its references to “failing and coasting”. The relentless focus on testing, the slow but unmistakable downgrading of arts subjects in the curriculum, the insidious undermining of teachers—my family is full of them, so I see the effects at first hand—all contribute to a good deal of anxiety and despondency in the classroom, in the playground and at the school gate. The determination of many schools to provide, in spite of everything, a creative environment for their students, which I see, for example, when I take part in the Peers in Schools programme, is almost a miracle in the face of a Government apparently bent on draining the joy that is so essential to effective learning out of education.

Polly Toynbee, writing recently in the Guardian—I know she is a leftie, so she will be ignored by a large number of people in this House, but none the less—said:

“Research shows how the arts improve attainment in all subjects: drama improves literacy, music improves maths and early language. The arts make most difference to children from low-income families—those who get arts teaching are three times more likely to get a degree and a job … but the English baccalaureate excludes the arts altogether, leading to a sharp fall in arts subjects, especially in deprived areas. I would bet both Gove and Morgan”—

her nomenclature, not mine—

“would reject any school for their own child that had abandoned arts teaching”.

I leave that one to stick to the wall, as they say.

I want to say a brief word on mental health care. Those of us who have had mental health problems know how frightening and lonely the experience can be. Appropriate and, above all, timely intervention is essential. Parity of esteem was the key mantra of the last Government. I noticed that it was absent from today’s speech from the Front Bench. It is a fine phrase, but the problem is that fine words, as we know, butter no parsnips. I do not know why parsnips, but proverbially they butter no parsnips.

Recruitment and retention of mental health professionals is still a huge challenge. Psychiatric beds, so vital for acute mental health crises, are being closed all over the country, and access to invaluable talking cures, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, is subject to long waits and significant rationing. Most disturbing of all, services for young people are under more pressure than ever, which is particularly worrying when we hear today, for example, that the incidence of anorexia nervosa is rising sharply. Given these realities, will the Minister explain exactly how the Government intend to deliver on the promise in the gracious Speech to improve access to mental health care?

Finally, I shall say a word on the BBC. I was amused to read, immediately after the appointment of the new Secretary of State for Culture, dark threats from some quarters about how he was plotting revenge on the BBC for its partisan coverage of the election. It amused me partly because the right honourable gentleman is an experienced politician and a cultured man and I have no doubt that he will plough his own furrow without assistance from headbangers in the press or elsewhere who see the BBC as an obstacle to their interests. I was also amused because I, too, spent quite a few hours during the election campaign with my pen hovering metaphorically over the green ink bottle ready to rail at the BBC for its partisan coverage of my party. It has often been said, and well said, that if we all feel ill-used it must be getting it pretty much right.

The BBC is not just another broadcaster in a competitive marketplace. It is one of this country’s most significant cultural achievements, and we have quite a few to our name. The original mission to inform, educate and entertain—the words carefully arranged in that order—has, of course, been tested by the passage of time, the evolution of technology and societal change, but it stands up pretty well. The funding model which supports it has been challenged many times but still bears scrutiny when compared with other possibilities.

Over its long history the BBC has, of course, made many mistakes and infuriated many people, but that should neither surprise nor dismay us. However grudgingly, most people acknowledge that, with all its faults, it is a unique feature of our heritage, our future and our currency in the world. The Secretary of State should act as a critical friend, not an asset stripper, as he goes into the charter negotiations. He will not be forgiven if he gets it wrong.

Childcare: Early-years Funding

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I assure the noble Baroness that we will be taking this extremely seriously—that is why we are funding the review—and we will protect essential services.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, what measures will the Government take in delivering this, on the whole very welcome, initiative to ensure that those who are actually providing the childcare are properly paid and properly managed?

[Lord Nash]

We will have extensive consultation with the sector and discuss the rates to ensure that we strike the right balance between the right rate for the providers and fair value for the taxpayer.

School Curriculum: PSHE

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The national curriculum creates a minimum expectation for the content of a curriculum in maintained schools. Quite deliberately, it does not represent everything that a school should teach. It would not be possible to cover all that when there are so many groups wishing things to be included in the curriculum, but many schools already choose to include CPR and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE teaching. We will work with the British Heart Foundation to promote its call push rescue kit to schools, including through our social media channels and the summer term email.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, what work is being done with teacher educators to ensure that there is a good supply of properly qualified teachers to take this agenda forward, particularly in view of what my noble friend Lady Massey said about it being a whole-school enterprise and not a specialist subject?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right in her observations. High-quality professional development for teachers is an essential part of raising standards in schools. The PSHE Association has some excellent resources, which we signpost for schools. They include an online CPD course, which explores assessment policy writing, creating schemes of work and SRE education. Teachers can of course benefit from the national PSHE CPD programme.

Schools: Academies

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend, who makes the point admirably.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, would the noble Lord assist those of us who are, perhaps, not as clever as some other Members of this House and do not entirely understand the status of the money that is being held in these reserves? He said that academies are independent institutions and, of course, they are. However, they are publicly funded and the money held in those reserves is therefore, by most ordinary people’s calculation, public money. With reference to the answer he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, could he explain in what way these funds are different from, say, the funds held in a charity? Are they to be used wholly and exclusively for the benefit of the institution? Can he assure the House that nobody else can benefit from them?

[Lord Nash]

I can give that assurance. They are there for the benefit of the institution, which in this case is the school in question.

National Curriculum: Animal Welfare

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree. Children taught properly should be able to balance all these arguments. They should be taught about argument and they should have enough scientific knowledge to understand what is happening.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that it is slightly unfortunate that he chose to use this really quite innocuous Question to make a very crude party-political point? Would he also accept that, in doing so, he undermines the morale of teachers who have been working in the system for very many years and doing the very best they can, sometimes in quite difficult circumstances? Would he further he accept that the best primary schools have animals for the children to look after and that is how they learn about animal welfare?

Schools: Foreign Languages

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We are very focused on increasing the quality of literacy in this country. Our phonics programme is now acknowledged to have been a substantial success. We have focused the national curriculum, particularly in primary schools, much more on language skills.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

Will the Minister say whether any resources have been made available to schools to bring in native speakers? It used to be that teaching assistants—for example, French, German, Italian or Spanish assistants—were available and could be funded, particularly in secondary schools. My guess is that in primary schools they would be even more useful. Is there any effort to make that happen?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. We have given the British Council, for instance, £500,000 to recruit foreign language assistants to work in the UK. Currently, some 1,250 foreign language assistants have been recruited for English schools, and the British Council is working with Hanban to introduce a number of Chinese language assistants into the country.

Schools: Arts Subjects

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the right reverend Prelate. A rich cultural education, a knowledge of history and an understanding of British values are all part of a good education and should help combat any temptation to radical ways of life.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that everybody in this House would accept that the Government’s focus on STEM subjects has its merits, but does the Minister agree that the crude distinction made recently by his right honourable friend the Secretary of State between the value of STEM subjects and the value of arts-based subjects is unhelpful and that whatever he says about schools being encouraged to offer the arts, it is almost inevitable that subjects that are not promoted will be marginalised and that pupils will lose out?

[Lord Nash]

On average, pupils take over 11 key stage 4 subjects, so there is plenty of scope for the arts. The Secretary of State does not underestimate their importance, but we need to encourage more young people—particularly young women—to consider widening their options to STEM subjects.

Early Years Intervention

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has stimulated an excellent debate, for which we should all congratulate her. Coming nearly at the end of the speakers list, the temptation is to spend your time saying how much you agree with everybody else. I would like to do that but I shall not, although I would like to say that I was particularly struck by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, which I hope I shall be able to reflect on by implication in some of what I say. The House will not be surprised to know that I want to talk about the arts in early years provision, but I am afraid that I am going to start on a slightly sour note, which I hope the House will forgive.

On 10 November last year, the Secretary of State for Education made a speech at the launch of the Your Life campaign in which she said the following:

“Even a decade ago, young people were told that maths and the sciences were simply the subjects you took if you wanted to go into a mathematical or scientific career, if you wanted to be a doctor, or a pharmacist, or an engineer”.

I am not absolutely sure that that is true but that is what she said. She went on:

“But if you wanted to do something different, or even if you didn’t know what you wanted to do, and let’s be honest—it takes a pretty confident 16-year-old to have their whole life mapped out ahead of them—then the arts and humanities were what you chose. Because they were useful for all kinds of jobs”.

So far, so good, you might think, but then she went on:

“Of course now we know that couldn’t be further from the truth, that the subjects that keep young people’s options open and unlock doors to all sorts of careers are the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and maths”.

Those remarks are deeply disappointing and wrong on so many counts and in ways which go directly to the heart of this debate. As we know and as we have heard, children are capable, if they are encouraged, supported and educated thoughtfully from early on, of learning many different things in many different ways. The flexibility of mind that comes from a broadly based education is exactly what employers look for in all fields. I thought that we had left the idea of two cultures far behind but apparently not. It is profoundly unhelpful for such simplistic distinctions to be made.

Many of your Lordships—perhaps most in this House—are parents. Some of us are lucky enough also to be grandparents. Over the past few weeks lots of us will have had the pleasure, albeit occasionally a mixed one, of taking young children to arts events and/or of just sitting on the sofa with them reading, or watching, for example, “Frozen”—a cultural reference for those of your Lordships who have very young daughters or granddaughters in particular. We will have observed their joy and their absorption, and the way in which that kind of experience moves them on. They find new language, new questions to ask and new ways of thinking about the world—even the very little ones do. However, as we have heard, not all children are lucky enough to get this kind of stimulation as a natural part of their family lives, which is why it is so important that we understand and value how it can be incorporated into other areas, particularly school.

I want to mention briefly one organisation which is contributing magnificently to this important work. Artis Education has been in business for 10 years. I stress the word business for it is not a charity. Schools have to pay for its services, which they do. Nearly all its schools are in the maintained sector. I was until recently a director and the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, who is not able to be in his place today, was involved in setting it up. Artis trains specialists from performance backgrounds to deliver inspirational cultural enrichment which can be, and often is, directly related to national curriculum requirements. Its programmes are of particular benefit in raising levels of confidence and self-esteem in young children, and are recognised by head teachers and other educationalists for contributing to increased concentration, improved behaviour and overall eagerness to learn.

I recommend the Artis website to your Lordships and especially to the noble Lord the Minister. It is an inspiring read. On it you will find, for example, a wonderful blog from the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, entitled “I am not an artist”, which gives 10 excellent, evidence-based reasons why arts education is so important for young children, for society and for the economy. You will also find details of Artis’s 10 tools for transforming the new science curriculum, which set out how teachers can use arts-based techniques to address science topics. Artis says:

“This sense of wonder and fascination with the surrounding world is as important in performing arts as it is in science, and the two disciplines have many points in common”.

Well, who knew? How very true and how very obvious, but not, apparently, to the Secretary of State. Perhaps her noble friend the Minister will put her straight after this debate.

Schools: Academies

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Where we receive an instance of fraud we immediately investigate. The EFA has investigated 35 cases of fraud in academies in two years. That compares with 191 reported in maintained schools over one year. If we feel that there are causes for concern we will inform the police or, in more minor cases, introduce a financial notice to improve.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how many of the cases of fraud that have been alleged were uncovered by investigation by his department or by Ofsted, and how many by whistleblowers?

[Lord Nash]

I do not have the exact answer to that question, but it is likely that a high proportion of all cases of fraud, whether in academies or in local authority maintained schools, will be uncovered by whistleblowers.