Education: Foreign Language Teaching
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Coussins, and declare an interest as the vice-chairman of the All-Party Group on Modern Languages.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned the decision that was taken in 2004. That was preceded by a Nuffield report on the teaching of languages, which had pointed out very clearly that in most foreign countries children were introduced to a foreign language at the age of six or seven and that on the whole this was recommended as a more effective way of teaching foreign languages. She mentioned the trade-off, that key stage 4 would be dropped, which was done very reluctantly on the part of some members of the Opposition at that time. Many of us fought hard against it and have regretted that decision ever since.
The relatively slow development within the primary sector has been described, but by 2010 well over half of primary schools offered some teaching in modern foreign languages. Today, as we have heard, the figure is 97%. The Ofsted report in January 2011, Modern Languages: Achievement and Challenge, pointed to the achievements of primary schools: approximately two-thirds of the schools visited were rated either good or outstanding in this area, especially in listening and responding, as distinct from reading and writing, in the foreign languages. That picks up the point about rigour that the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, mentioned. What comes above all through from the report is the enthusiasm of the seven to 11 year-olds for their language studies and the diverse and imaginative approaches of teaching.
However, one feature that stood out from that Ofsted report was the importance of the competence of teachers. Some larger primary schools recruited language specialists themselves while others used part-time assistants, sometimes linking with the local secondary school and sharing their assistant. Ofsted noted that, generally speaking, schools that had access to native speakers achieved more highly than those that did not, although the imaginative use of DVDs and video facilities, linking up with partner schools and using the internet, e-mail and even Skype links substituted for this on occasion.
The NUT also emphasised the importance of teacher competence and the need to ensure sufficient time and resources for the training of teachers. Given the importance that Ofsted placed on the role of native speakers, there might be more of a role for training UK-based native speakers to help in schools—many French and German people are longstanding residents in the UK—as teaching assistants supplementing classroom teachers rather than substituting for them, but providing a very important link as a native speaker in helping with the teaching. It has always struck me that we send a great many young people overseas with as little as six weeks’ training to teach English as a foreign language. Why should we not reverse that and train some of our very competent native speakers in this country to do the same in our own schools?
The NUT also emphasised the importance of links with local secondary schools, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and others have also spoken about. The new national curriculum gives schools considerable leeway to decide what language to teach and how to teach it. However, if the idea is to encourage young people to pursue modern foreign languages later in their studies, it is vital not to demotivate them at key stage 3. Nothing is more demotivating than having to go all over again, often painfully slowly, the elementary stages of language teaching when it has already been covered at your primary school.
Some of the most successful experiments in primary teaching have come from the linking up of what were the specialist secondary language colleges with the feeder primary schools. Sometimes they sent their staff out to help with the training of teachers and with developing the courses in those primary schools. How far is the Minister’s department encouraging primaries and secondaries to work together in local cluster groups, as I gather happened in Hackney—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, mentioned this—to achieve a smooth transition from one stage to another?
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 125. I was slightly surprised by this amendment and spent some time puzzling as to what the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, meant by it. I am not totally sure when my name got attached to it but it did and I therefore briefed myself accordingly. I think I am right that the noble Baroness previously argued for the deletion of Clause 34(9) rather than subsection (3). She argued against special academies and so forth. Subsection (3) says:
“The child or young person may be educated in an independent school, a non-maintained special school or a special post-16 institution, if the cost is not to be met by a local authority or the Secretary of State”.
As I understand it, the noble Baroness did not argue about that subsection at all.
Nevertheless, I have a question about this area. I really saw this as a probing amendment because I cannot quite see how it is compatible with Clause 59, which deals with the local authority paying fees for special educational provision and makes it quite clear. My reading of Clause 34 is that it effectively says that no child may go to a special school except in very special circumstances and when everybody else agrees. Then Clause 59 makes it clear that a child without an EHC plan may be at a special school and paid for by a local authority. Yet it may be that that child, without an EHC plan and paid for by a local authority, needs to be assessed and sent to a special school. It strikes me that there is an incompatibility between those two.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
To make it clear, I suggested that it was a probing amendment. As it had been tabled, I felt it was my duty to put the case given to me. I am sorry that the noble Baroness and I did not have time to discuss it.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I am sorry about that, too. While I am on my feet, I should say that I have a great deal of sympathy with the other amendments in this group. In particular, I sympathise with the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Low. In some ways, my preference would be for Amendment 124 because it seems to me that there are occasions when perhaps a special school is appropriate. The wording of Amendment 124 makes it absolutely clear that, when it is in the interests of,
“the specific needs of the child or young person”,
this might be the case. That is why I think that that amendment has some merit. I also very much support the amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, concerning the Equality Act. I think that it is very important that we make it quite clear that this Bill in no sense overrides the responsibilities of local authorities under the Equality Act.
Lord Nash
I thank noble Lords for their amendments on inclusive provision. This is the second debate that we have had on the principle of inclusion. Today’s debate has focused on how decisions are made about where individual children and young people with EHC plans are taught. As I said in responding to our earlier debate, our aim with this Bill is to build on what has gone before and to create a new framework that improves both support for children and young people so that they achieve better outcomes and choice for parents and young people.
I will take Amendments 123A and 124, from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, together, as they both relate to the factors that local authorities should take into account when naming an education setting in a child or young person’s EHC plan, where no request has been made for a particular institution or the parent or young person’s request for one has not been met. The statutory provisions in the Bill are designed to ensure that a mainstream place is considered thoroughly and properly, recognising that, with the right support, children and young people with special educational needs are successfully supported in mainstream settings. They also recognise that there will be occasions where a child’s inclusion in a mainstream setting would significantly impact on the education of others, whose interests should also be safeguarded. This could occur, for example, when the extremely challenging and disruptive behaviour of a child or young person could not be managed. The provision for local authorities to consider the efficient education of others is important in this respect.
I understand concerns about this condition being used indiscriminately. Clause 33(3) and (4) guard against this. A local authority can only rely on it if there are no reasonable steps that could be taken to prevent the placement of the child or young person being incompatible with the efficient education of others. In section 7.11 of the draft SEN code of practice, we set out a number of examples of reasonable steps that can be taken to support inclusion. I believe that provision on meeting the specific needs of the child should not be the preserve of a single clause. It is at the heart of Part 3 and is reflected in Clause 19 on general principles, Clause 36 on assessments and EHC plans, Clause 42 on duties to secure provision in EHC plans and Clause 62 on the duty on schools to use their best endeavours to meet children’s needs.
Regarding the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Low, that the Bill gives FE colleges a get-out clause by allowing them to refuse entry to disabled students that they previously would have accepted in line with their duties under the Equality Act, I can assure noble Lords that the Equality Act 2010 will continue to apply in full to colleges, and that they must continue to make reasonable adjustments to support the participation of disabled young people. Nothing in this Bill overrides these very important duties imposed by the Equality Act.
We believe that the principle behind Clause 33 is the right one. Young people with EHC plans should have the right to be educated in a mainstream setting if that is what they want. This Bill, for the first time, gives young people the right to say where they want to study, by requesting that a particular school or college is named in their EHC plan.
I understand the motivation for Amendments 124A and 126A from the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. During our helpful debate on disabled children and young people last Wednesday, I made it clear that we had drawn attention to the Equality Act duties in the SEN code of practice, in Chapters 1 and 6, and referred to other relevant guidance on those duties. We recognise the importance of making appropriate links between SEN and the Equality Act duties in the code of practice, and in last Wednesday’s debate I undertook to look again at the scope for improving the draft code of practice on this. I hope that that reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Howe.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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“( ) In exercising its functions under this Part, a local authority must—
(a) facilitate co-operation between local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care;(b) ensure that schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care have sufficient resources including financial resources, to meet and carry out their responsibilities under this Part;(c) develop strategies to ensure the identification and support of persons, who may be described as lead professionals or key workers who may come from local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care, and who shall take a lead role in the integration of services.”
Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, Clause 25 is about promoting integration. My amendment is about effecting that integration and,
“co-operation between local authorities, schools, other educational providers and providers of health care and social care”,
but also ensuring that there are sufficient resources for that integration to take place. It is a probing amendment intended to explore issues relating to multiagency working and the local offer. Integration of services, the alignment of assessment processes and co-operation among groups of professionals works only if those same professionals, especially at the early stages of such integration, have time to get together to talk things through.
The pathfinders, which were evaluated in the June document that we have all seen, suggested that attendance by the professionals involved—the teachers, healthcare and social work professionals—was highly variable, many of them pleading that their loads were so great that they had no time to attend the meetings required. However, the reforms will not work unless a realistic approach is taken to recognise those time constraints on the professionals involved, deliberately programming in time for them to build the relationships required. Of course, that means more resources, especially in the early phases of the development of the programme—not an easy prescription at a time when budget cuts are impinging so strongly on local authorities.
The pathfinder evidence also highlights the need to develop a targeted learning and development programme for school lead professionals and/or other key workers. If the unspoken assumption is that all the new expectations will be possible because they can be discharged by school special educational needs co-ordinators, Members of Parliament need to visit SENCOs in their constituencies to ask them about their already unrealistic workloads. It is likely that far fewer teachers will opt to take on the additional responsibilities of being SENCOs if the new reforms are implemented without sufficient resources being allocated.
The question of which agency should take on the role of key workers and lead professionals needs much further explanation. The existing DfE advice about when schools should or should not be the lead professionals is very inadequate. It does not guide schools in how to decide whether they are the most appropriate agency to take on the lead. Teachers report that schools are often inappropriately named as being lead professionals because other agencies cite budget cuts as precluding them from taking the lead. Those nuances currently seem to be ignored in the Bill but could cause a considerable amount of trouble. I beg to move.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, we have two amendments in this group, Amendments 88 and 90B, so I shall speak to them. They would widen the scope of joint commissioning to include all aspects of support that children and young people might need by extending the definition of EHC provision and ensuring that children without EHC plans would also be included in the arrangements. I should add at this point that we support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which would in their own way go further to strengthen the joint commissioning arrangements. I very much agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about resources.
However, before I go on to the substance of our amendments, I should like to ask the Minister about the wording of the entire clause. I should be grateful if she could put on record exactly what the clause means and what it would require local authorities and health bodies to do. I say this because the clause does not seem to be about requiring local authorities to secure services through commissioning; rather, it appears to require them to set up the apparatus through which decisions about commissioning will be taken. Obviously, that is a very great difference. It says that a local authority and partner bodies must make arrangements; it does not say that they must jointly secure provision. It does not even say that they must secure the provision that they have agreed is needed. This is especially important with regard to health, where other legislation can be used to absolve them from improving legislation on the grounds of, for example, cost. So far as I can see, there is no mechanism for anyone to challenge such decisions.
Therefore, the danger is that Clause 26 as it stands simply builds a procedural structure that really does not have any teeth. Furthermore, I cannot see any leverage by which the partner bodies will be accountable for what they decide to commission. We have not tabled any amendments on these points as it would have meant a substantial rewriting of the whole clause, but I would be very grateful if the Minister could address the point about what is intended by the wording and how partner bodies will be held accountable.
I turn to our Amendments 88 and 90B. Our concern is that the needs of families, including those where the child does not have an EHC plan, are met as completely as possible. It is important that the kind of provision subject to joint commissioning is not just the kind that goes directly to the child or young person relating to either special educational provision, healthcare provision or social care provision, but includes support for families to enable them better to support the child and their siblings. Supporting a child with SEN or disabilities can be incredibly stressful for families, and it is important that we assist and support parents and families with the tools to understand and support their child’s special educational needs or disability.
In the Commons, the Minister said that there was nothing precluding joint commissioning arrangements from covering other services for children and young people with or without SEN, and that support for families needing social care services was provided for under Section 17 of the Children Act 2004. He added that the duty in Clause 26 relates to joint commissioning arrangements for children and young people with SEN, and where the services are needed to support the child’s family as part of that package, that might be included in the arrangements.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I thank my noble friend for her answer. I do not think that any of us who have spoken take issue with the fact that the Bill as a whole aims to improve the integration of arrangements. There is scepticism because we have seen several Bills where that hope has been there. Perhaps this Bill, in its way, is a stronger one. Clause 26(4) states:
“Joint commissioning arrangements about securing education, health and care provision must in particular include arrangements for … securing”,
EHCs. The Bill is quite explicit in making clear that integration should take place.
Economy: Culture and the Arts
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, for initiating this very important debate. I will speak about one relatively narrow aspect of arts and culture; namely, the conservation and preservation of our cultural heritage. I do so because some time ago I chaired a sub-committee of the Science and Technology Committee, which looked at the role of science in the preservation and conservation of our cultural heritage. Since then I have retained a considerable interest in the subject and continue to play a part. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, talked about the delicate ecosystem between science and the arts, and, indeed, there is.
Like other noble Lords, I will not go into detail about the role of cultural heritage in the economy, because others have mentioned it. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, in particular identified the importance of this sector for attracting tourism and £115 billion annually; tourism is the fifth largest industry in the country. Somewhere in the region of 70% of people who come to this country do so because they want to visit our cultural heritage: our historic towns and villages, castles, stately homes, museums, art galleries, theatres, and music and other festivals.
I will concentrate on the issue of preservation and conservation. Why do we want to do it? One answer is that we would not reap the economic benefit from our cultural heritage if it were not there. Further to that, it is of course an essential part of our culture. What do we mean by cultural heritage? Essentially, it is those parts of what we value in our arts and artefacts, and in our ideas, that we want to pass on to other generations. Conservation is vital—and not just of material things such as paper and textiles. I remember the director of the Natural History Museum, Michael Dixon, telling me, “We have a great problem because insects eat insects, so we have to keep the insects away from our collection of insects”.
Even stone degrades over time, as we know so well from what is happening here to our own Palace of Westminster. That is a great problem. Increasingly, many of the things that we create are transient. We are corresponding, not by letter—which can be kept these days—but by e-mail. We record notable events on YouTube or on Facebook. We gather information from websites. The preservation of our digital presence is an increasing part of conservation, and a great problem posed to the British Library, which, for example, has to keep a record of all the websites that are created.
I have an interesting example of the transience of all material things. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, mentioned the David Bowie exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Some time ago, the textile conservation centre at Winchester was charged with repairing a pair of Freddie Mercury’s pants, the bright red ones he wore at a gig in 1979, which sadly were made out of faux leather and had begun to wear away. Later, it was also charged with conserving his famous yellow jacket and white trousers. On one level it was doing this because it was preserving his memory for potentially millions of Queen fans, but on another level, it was undertaking important work into the longevity and vulnerability of degradation in modern materials. As one of the conservators put it,
“everyone has this idea that modern fabrics are indestructible ... But in fact there are some that are very unstable—and polyurethane happens to be one of them”.
Conservation and preservation help to preserve more than just memories and artefacts. They also provide us with a great insight into attitudes and behaviour. We learn so much about Tudor England from Shakespeare plays or, for that matter, about Egypt 3,000 years ago from such artefacts as the Book of the Dead, which was displayed so admirably at the British Museum a couple of years ago. These are not only the things we enjoy looking at and value; they are the stuff of our history and help to explain our present. We did not inherit the past but hold it in trust for our children and our children's children. It is therefore important that we value these things not just because they contribute to the economy, but because our children, and their children and their children’s children should also be able to enjoy them.
I end therefore with a plea that, while recognising the value of these assets, we do not neglect the need to put resources—that means money—aside for their maintenance and conservation. It is too easy in these days of austerity to forget that, as I said earlier, even stone degrades. Unless we are prepared to put money and effort into conservation and into developing new methods of conservation, we shall not be in a position to hand them on to our children. Yesterday, my noble friend Lord Lee raised the question of the possible closure of the Science Museum Group museums in the north of England. The Minister himself noted that last year 19.1 million people visited these regional museums and that they are often at the heart of their region’s creative industries, preserving artefacts and skills which characterise their local history. It would be a tragedy if these museums have to shut. But if we want the Science Museum to continue to maintain and preserve its collections, it has to be given enough money to keep them all in good repair. I hope that the cultural and economic importance of such museums will be considered carefully in the forthcoming spending review.
Economy: Growth
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Kramer for introducing so expertly this timely debate. In preparation, I went though a number of the documents that have been issued by BIS over the past couple of years or so. I was struck by the introduction that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable, made to A Strategy for Sustainable Growth back in 2010. He said:
“The growth we need should be different from the past. Instead of relying on ever increasing household debts financing unaffordable consumption, we should look to greater business investment … We need to position ourselves to prosper through the transition to a greener economy. Our country should make more use of its scientific excellence, so that innovation becomes a motor for long term growth and change”.
In other words—and this was picked up by a number of speakers, notably my noble friend Lady Kramer and the noble Lord, Lord Bates—we need a shift from a consumption-led economy to one led by investment. As my noble friend Lady Kramer has said, there is great hope that we shall see this investment coming from the small and medium-sized enterprises that constitute such a considerable part of our economy. There is real frustration that all the efforts to increase money supply do not seem to reach that sector. We see it in the renewed efforts of the Chancellor in this past week to ensure that that money is targeted for small and medium-sized businesses.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, the problem is also one of confidence. To some extent, one can see that in what is happening at the moment. Britain is locked into what Keynes would have called the “classic liquidity trap”: we are increasing the money supply but it makes no difference. Until confidence among businesses changes—the “animal spirits”, as Keynes called them—we will not see this rising investment that we so badly need.
I find myself worried by what is proposed by the Opposition in terms of a reduction in VAT. It seems that their solution—to reduce the VAT and people will start spending money—is not correct. It just takes us back to an economy which is based on consumption, not on investment. It is vital that we see investment improved.
I will concentrate my remarks on two sectors that Vince Cable mentioned in his introduction: first, the transition to a greener economy and, secondly, making the most of our scientific excellence; on that, I will pick up the whole issue of skills. Mariana Mazzucato, who is now a professor at my former university home of the science policy research unit at the University of Sussex, has pointed out in relation to the eurozone crisis that, in many ways, the message and advice that other European countries ought to be getting is, “Do what the Germans do”, not just in terms of cutting back and austerity but in terms of mirroring how Germany has created its competitiveness. In an article in the Guardian on 17 May she wrote:
“German competitiveness is not due only to its lower unit labour costs (which are not low when welfare benefits are included), but to its strategic investments in research and development, vocational training, state investment banks that create ‘patient’ finance, and its recent emphasis on greening the economy. Similarly, the engineering group Siemens did not win a UK contract for fast green trains because of low wages, but because of its innovation investments, which have made it one of the most competitive companies in the world”.
It is not just in so far as its labour costs are low. It is also because its investment in innovation, and training its staff to use these investments, effectively means that its productivity is far higher than most EU countries, including the UK.
In some respects, one might say that the coalition Government are following this advice precisely. The green investment bank, which was launched last week, is in many respects a state investment bank, aimed at helping firms, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, make the transition into the green economy. This does not just mean photovoltaics and wind energy developments, which have been given so much publicity, but solid investments in better heating systems and insulation. Fifty per cent of the energy consumed in this country is consumed by domestic heating. It remains shaming that the average home in Sweden—a country with a much colder climate than ours—consumes only 25% of the energy used by the average British home. Investments in insulation, draught-proofing and double glazing remain among the best that we can make. They require no long-term planning and development, provide jobs in the hard-hit construction industry and can provide them now, not in three years’ time.
As my noble friend Lady Kramer indicated, we Liberal Democrats have for some time been urging a major programme of housebuilding. In Sweden, new homes use hardly any energy; they are energy-neutral. A major programme of new, affordable homes, built to modern standards, would improve our performance enormously. In the 1960s, when the population was increasing at a similar rate to the present one, the target was to build 300,000 homes a year, many of them in the social housing sector. Today, our target is 170,000 homes over five years—34,000 a year—and last year the number of affordable homes under construction fell to 15,698. The potential is there to use this period of recession to invest in a long-lasting asset that will increase general well-being and the benefits of which should last for a very long time. I can only hope that we will seize this opportunity, for it would appear be a win-win proposition.
I also want to talk about science and innovation. I applaud the ring-fencing of the science budget of £4.6 billion and the extra money that has gone into the research budget in the past 18 months. However, the 2010 spending review slashed capital expenditure in the science sector and, as the Campaign for Science and Engineering has exposed, left the sector as a whole £1.7 billion worse off in cash terms. Spending on science is not just money for research to underpin our science base. It simultaneously trains a cadre of scientists and technicians, who are essential if we as a nation are to pick up and use modern technologies to the full. That is precisely what underpins Siemens and German competitiveness.
I fear that while all eyes have been on undergraduate fees and their impact, we have given no thought to the postgraduate situation. Yet it is the availability of these highly trained and highly skilled workers that attracts high-value-added foreign investment, such as that in the pharmaceutical industry, and which—note the position of Pfizer—will leave us if we do not maintain the training of a large number of highly qualified people.
We may well be ring-fencing science in relation to other public expenditure but we ignore what is happening overseas. Figures for 2009 show that, at 1.8%, the UK spends a smaller proportion of its GDP on R and D than any other G7 nation except Italy, while the government spend of 0.17% is bottom of the G7 league table. Germany, the US and Japan are now up to 3%, while China is fast moving up the league tables, as others have noticed. If we are to meet the aspiration expressed in David Willetts’s speech in January—that Britain should be the best place in the world to do research—we need to increase our spend substantially.
I very much endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said about the visa issue. We are doing much harm to ourselves with our current visa arrangements, which discourage many postgraduate students from applying to do their work in Britain.