Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Perry of Southwark and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I shall not trouble the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, with having to time me because I shall be very brief. I always listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, with great respect, but my noble friend Lady Hughes has a point in talking about the “gaping void” and in going back to the Every Child Matters agenda.

I am interested in the later amendment, Amendment 114, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, and the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Lexden. This amendment talks about what she calls a “visitor”. I do not want to go into that right now, but this has echoes of what used to be called “school improvement partners”, who were in schools when I was a governor. The school improvement partners were incredibly useful people to have around because they helped with the business plan, the school ethos and the curriculum. I think that if I were a director of children’s services—and I am glad that I am not—I would welcome a local commissioner who would have a responsibility for schools, because a director of children’s services has enough to be getting on with anyway, with the safeguarding role in particular. How would the “visitor” envisaged by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, have some kind of influence on what is going on at that local level without some co-ordination? Perhaps visitors are not like the school improvement partners, but I suspect they might be. As I understand it, they would have responsibility over a number of schools. I think she is saying that they would then report to Ofsted or the skills and children’s services board. Is that right? They have to report to someone.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

To Ofsted.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

That seems to be rather a large jump. Would it not be better to have someone at a local level—a local commissioner, or whatever they might be called—to try to co-ordinate the concerns of visitors and do something about them?

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Perry of Southwark and Baroness Massey of Darwen

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I make one or two comments following up what other noble Lords have said. First, on the Graham Allen report, what struck me was that it talked not just about emotional support, which of course is necessary, but about brain development. We must tackle that issue. Children's brain development happens very early, from the day they are born. If we do not get in there early with interventions, the child's brain will suffer as well as its emotional development. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the assessment, and with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about resources. I believe that the second part of the Graham Allen report will be launched shortly—so the Minister keeps telling me. I wonder whether the Minister has any news on the launch of the second part, which is to do with the resourcing of early years. I hope that he will be able this afternoon to give us some news about that resourcing.

I also want to make a point about stepping back. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has often talked about the need for parenthood education—not just developing children when they are born but stepping back to the generation before and teaching them how to be good parents. That is something that we may pick up on when we talk later about personal, social and health education, or whatever we are calling it. Parenthood education has to be borne in mind when we talk about early intervention for children.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I think we are united on all sides about the importance of the early years. I congratulate the noble Lord on suggesting the designation of the foundation years; that is particularly welcome.

However, I must express considerable concern about subsection (2) of Amendment 1, which puts massive responsibility on local authorities. That is a responsibility for every child born in that the local authority area, including children of parents who are more than competent and motivated to provide all that is necessary for their child, with,

“healthy physical, social, emotional and cognitive readiness to enter school”.

The resources required for a local authority to be able to do that for every child are enormous. Surely those resources should be targeted on children where there is inability—for good or ill reasons—in the family to provide that readiness.

Perhaps it is a matter of wording, but I do not think that we should give responsibility to the local authority for every child born in its area. For every family, every time a baby is born, to have the local authority and its various agencies move to intervene in the raising of that child is neither feasible nor desirable. Let us concentrate our attention where it is needed and not impose those blanket requirements on a local authority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I have real concerns about this part of the Bill. If ever I saw a can of worms—I do not see them very often—this is it. It is contentious and sensitive. Obviously, ideally, we do not want young people to be searched at all, but I want to get over negative and punitive provisions and move on to more positive ones. I will give a couple of examples to illustrate that in a moment.

This part of the Bill is likely to result in a lack of dignity for both pupil and teacher or a security person—the person who is doing the searching. Some amendments about boundaries for examination, issuing rules about items for which a search may be made, training of staff and the search being carried out by a senior member of staff, may mitigate all that, but consider the chaos that may ensue.

Many years ago, I went to school as a pupil in Darwen, Lancashire, a sleepy little town in the foothills of the Pennines. It was in the news about two months ago because teachers had gone on strike due to a breakdown in discipline because of confiscated articles. As I said, the town is very sedate, and I could not believe what was going on. They had gone on strike because of discipline issues about confiscating mobile phones, I think. It was about who confiscated what—it was highly subjective—and why they were confiscated. One minute, something was confiscated; the next minute, it was restored. It was absolute chaos.

The other example that I recall from when I was teaching was of a male teacher grabbing a 15 year-old girl’s handbag. A nasty fight broke out, which I could hear from down the corridor. I heard her yelling, “Get your hands off a lady's handbag”. I had to intervene, being her head of year. I said, “What is in the handbag?” She said, “My hairbrush and some personal items”. I merely use that example to show the inappropriateness of a male teacher being seen to interfere with what a girl pupil sees as her private items.

What is in the Bill is more contentious and dangerous than the examples that I have given. It states that staff can go through phones, laptops and delete information,

“if the person thinks that there is a good reason to do so”.

Imagine what that means. It could set up conflicts between pupils and teachers, staff and senior management, staff and parents, pupils and parents, pupils and pupils. All kinds of things could go on. There is the same-sex issue. There are cultural issues, abuse issues and special educational needs issues.

I accept that pupils should not be bringing into school items that can harm others, which are illegal or which can cause chaos in the classroom—for example, mobile phones—but, and it is a big “but”, surely a school must have rules and contracts which do not permit certain items to be brought in or, if they are, insist that they should be placed in the pupil’s private locker. That provision exists in many schools.

I know many schools where searching is not an issue. A head teacher at a school in east London said to me recently, “We have no tolerance of mobile phones, not an issue about searching at all. Pupils understand this; parents understand this”. Much of the provision is heavy-handed and can give rise to real negative, personal, contentious issues arising. Surely an amendment can be thought of which gives schools the power to ban certain items and make that clear to pupils and parents.

Educating to encourage respect for people and property is a must. No doubt we shall come on to that when we discuss personal, social and health education. Discipline in schools is not just about punishment; that does not work. This part of the Bill is about punishment and creating difficulty for parents, teachers, pupils—the lot. I plead with the Minister to look carefully at it again. Otherwise, in searching pupils, schools will provide the catalyst for conflict for young people in any context.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, always talks a great deal of sense, and I absolutely agree with her about the can of worms. The whole issue is a can of worms, not just what the amendments address.

It would be wonderful if we could assure ourselves that every school in the country had such excellent discipline that rules about what can and cannot be brought into the school would be instantly obeyed, that children who have been told that they had to put things in lockers would do so, and so on. Unfortunately, in many schools, that is not the reality. There are crisis incidents where a teacher will suddenly become aware that not a child but a large, hulking teenage boy is carrying a knife and bringing it into the classroom at the end of a fight or row outside and there is every chance that he may intend to use it. At that point, a teacher has to take action. Whatever legislation and whatever framework the House or Parliament can produce has to allow for such a crisis for teachers.