Skills: Importance for the UK Economy and Quality of Life

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in Hackney. I join the chorus of thanks to my noble friend Lord Aberdare for this opportunity to debate the issue, and I congratulate him, as ever, on his hard work, his opening speech, and the fact that he has acquired the skill of speaking Welsh, which he kept very quiet. He is an inspiration to us all.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Hale, and Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, on their excellent maiden speeches. They were able, thought-provoking and delivered with a high level of skill.

I also thank all the organisations that sent me briefings for this debate, and admit that I read none of them. Because I do not think we needed to. Everybody agrees that skills are vital for the success of the UK economy and for the quality of life of individuals.

I am honoured to be among so many people with so much experience, particularly those responsible for the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee report. I described in an email how, having read only the first page of the summary, I had punched the air three times. Thinking about it further, the report does not go far enough. Perhaps that is why the Government rejected pretty much all of it.

In our schools, we are confusing knowledge with skill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, pointed out. They are not the same. The knowledge-rich curriculum is teaching students the art of learning large amounts of facts rather than skills. Some are obviously transferable; many are not. We are all aware that students lack the skills for life today. We decry that fact that they lack the basic skills for work or adulthood, yet we persist in doing nothing about it. We consider much of the vital work as extracurricular, or cram it, once a term, into PSHE day.

Our curriculum and methodology have changed very little since Victorian times; filling our heads with facts so that students go off to work in banks or the colonial service, or march unquestioningly across no man’s land. Why do we insist on memorising so much when we have the internet to hand? How many people can truthfully say that they do long multiplication these days? They have a calculator on their phone. Genuinely, who sits down in a sports hall and writes by hand for three hours?

I am fully aware that many noble Lords will be forming the words “hippy-dippy” in their minds, and deciding, “We tried that in the 70s and look what happened”. No, we did not.

We need to concentrate on what matters. Mental arithmetic needs to be hammered in, and grammar, punctuation, and good oracy skills, need to be the bedrock of any education. But rather than long division—which you can do on your phone—would it not be better to have an intuitive knowledge of how to design, populate and interpret a spreadsheet? Would it not be better to teach students about their bodies, so that they can look after themselves and save the NHS billions? Rather than study the plays of Shakespeare, would it not be better to write, produce, act in and record a film? I have said in this place before that I believe that every student should leave school having started at least one business. Dare I say that this might be fun to learn, and fun to teach.

These things would give students real-world skills that can be honed in tertiary education, or used instantly in the workplace. Add touch-typing and a high level of Microsoft Office skills and you now have a cohort who can hit the ground running when they leave education. The joyous thing is that this would actually save the nation money in filling the skills gap and helping with student attendance, teacher retention and student attainment.

To quote from one of my favourite films, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, on the subject of university,

“I didn’t go myself. I couldn’t see the point. You see, when you work in the money markets, what use are the novels of Wordsworth gonna be, eh?”


I have not even started on my own subject, design technology, which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, very kindly talked about, or craft skills. As far as I know, AI has not learned to change the fuse in a plug yet or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, repaired something. It cannot do sports, or loads of the other skills we need. The winds of change are coming. We have a once in a lifetime chance to start a revolution. Will the Minister join me in storming the barricades?

School Inspections: Funding

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I take the noble Lord’s point, but there is not a lot of evidence to suggest overall that inspection is not done well. There is significant quality assurance of inspections, and, during 2022-23, an overall judgment was changed in only 0.6% of state-funded school inspections.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I, like the noble Lord, Lord Baker, have been “Ofsteded”. Moving on from his question, while I feel that Ofsted’s methods and judgments need changing, because it does a vital job it is vitally important that it is valued and that the people who work for it are made to feel valued.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Again, I can only agree with the noble Lord. I was reflecting on the new verb that has entered the lexicon of being “Ofsteded”—we will leave that. This is important. The work that Ofsted is doing with the Big Listen, in talking to parents, teachers, school leaders and children, will, I hope, go a long way to ensure that trust and confidence is achieved—and that therefore, at the end of it, the institution and those who work for it are valued.

Student Loan Interest Rates

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I understand why the noble Baroness raises this point, and I am aware of the concerns around affordability. We have continued to increase the maximum loans and grants for living costs each year, with the most support going to students from the lowest-income families, and benefits for lone parents and disabled students. We have made wider cost of living investments as a Government and, in addition, have made £260 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023-24 academic year.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher. Does the Minister agree with me that this is part of a wider conversation that too many students these days are being sold the dream of a degree, when they would be much better suited to the route of education within a workplace or an apprenticeship?

School Meals for Children

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I should clarify that I did not in any way want to diminish the importance of addressing ultra-processed foods, but the school food standards already restrict foods that are described as low-quality reformed or reconstituted foods, which include ultra-processed foods.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as someone who has eaten more school meals than I care to mention, most of them very good, and as someone who rather unwillingly teaches food at school at the moment, where we do a lot about nutrition. However, the research from Northumbria University has found that a quarter-pint of milk a day has an enormously beneficial effect on children’s confidence and concentration and against obesity. What plans do the Government have to increase the free school milk programme?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We know that milk is, as the noble Lord says, excellent for children’s growth and development. As part of the school food standards, lower-fat milk or lactose-reduced milk must be made available for children who want it to drink at least once a day during school hours, and it must be provided free of charge to all pupils eligible for free school meals. Schools can offer milk as many times as they wish, but it must be free to infants and benefit-based free school meal pupils when offered as part of a school meal.

Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I join the chorus of thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for tabling this debate; I pay tribute to her boundless energy. I would love to have the opportunity to show her around the school where I teach as well, because we have a very high standard of discipline and I did not recognise the institutional bullying that seems to go on. On that point, I must as ever declare my interest as a secondary school teacher in a state school in London. It is always an honour to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester, with his very thoughtful ideas.

There is no point in talking about the role of schools if children are not in schools. Some 1.8 million children are persistently absent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said. For a lot, that is the only place where their well-being is protected, and it is so important that we get them in there.

The Royal College of GPs advises that

“mild or moderate anxiety, whilst sometimes difficult emotions, can be a normal part of growing up for many children and young people”.

We need to get them back. Mild anxiety becomes anxiety. Nobody wants to go to school on a Monday morning. That leads to bigger things. I would be very interested to hear what the Government are doing, rather than being fairly punitive with parents and schools, about engaging students and getting them back in.

Anybody is better off in a school. School is where you can triage students; they can be sent towards CAMHS or MHSTs, whether or not they have been previously diagnosed. These all need to be funded properly. I have talked before about the playground; teachers are very good at spotting things, whether that is bullying or changes in behaviour. Again, they can triage and get the professionals in.

Children are social animals. They need school, which is where they build up all these techniques to get them through life. We need them back. SEN needs to be dealt with; again, that is dealt with at school. In a bedroom, it is very difficult to spot a symptom.

There are also external influences we need to look at. The very good charity Tom’s Trust provides mental health, well-being and psychological support for 536 children with brain tumours and their families—about 1,600 people. Children at school might have a very sick sibling; it might be invisible. I declare an interest in that the founder of Tom’s Trust, Debs Mitchell, is a great friend of mine.

We underestimate all this, but schools can obviously do more as well. The curriculum needs to change; how many times have I stood up and said this in my short career here? The House of Lords Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee published its final report in December 2023, with many excellent recommendations, pretty much all of which the Government have just rejected. The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, the chairman of the committee, said in yesterday’s Times that:

“This government’s attempt to recreate a 1950s curriculum is of little help to many disadvantaged schoolchildren”.


As many people here have said, we need more fun in schools. We need schools to be places where children want to go and teachers want to teach. We blame the Victorians for a lot of things—this beautiful building is not one of them—but we have this Victorian idea that education should be a grind; that medicine should taste horrible; that food is just to sustain you. School should be fun.

I will talk about something that I know the Minister will approve of—sport. Nobody has talked about sport. We need two hours-plus of team games for every student every week. There is nothing like getting muddy, bloody and possibly violent to make you feel better.

I adore swimming. Obviously, it is a difficult one. I defy anybody to get into a pond, swim in cold water and remember the problem they went in with in the first place. We have all talked about singing. What could be better than a load of students in a room singing together? The wonderful charity Young Enterprise has a series of lessons aimed specifically at mental health and money management called “Money on my Mind”, which should be on the curriculum.

The school where I teach has reduced the number of GCSEs so that students can take subjects such as art without having to take an exam at the end or do coursework. They can do it just for fun, which gives them more headspace. However, to do that we need teachers who are confident and rested and feel valued. If their mental health is good, they are confident and happy, and that goes through all their relationships. We all know what happens to relationships if you are tired and stressed.

We need a confidence reset for children. Dame Rachel de Souza was quoted. I quote from her foreword to The Big Answer:

“If adults are to learn one thing from this report, it should be as follows. This is not a ‘snowflake generation.’ It is a heroic generation”.


We need them to know that.

Schools: Financial Education

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in design and technology. I join in the thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, for raising this important topic.

As ever, we are talking about the difference between following the curriculum and educating our children. Nick Gibb has been quoted as describing having “good maths” as the gateway to lifelong financial stability, and pointed out that financial knowledge already forms a compulsory part of the national curriculum in secondary school. However, as has been mentioned, only 41% of young adults are financially literate—whatever that means. I would contend that that figure is much lower in reality.

Core skills in maths need to be taught but we also need to get to a stage where students can learn financial skills—such as how to compare offers in a supermarket, read a simple balance sheet, shop around for a mortgage or fill in a tax return—as well as other vital skills that are either ignored or left for excellent charities such as Young Enterprise to fulfil during those rare PSHE days. At this point, I must declare that Young Enterprise used to be a client of mine when I was a photographer many years ago.

Might it be not only that children could learn some very useful skills but that those skills could perhaps be used in later life for them to start a business, employ people and pay their taxes? In fact, I think that every student who leaves school at 18 should have started at least one business while they were at school. Would that not be fun to learn and teach? Might it inspire students to return to school and teachers to enjoy teaching?

Schools: Safeguarding

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and I would like to introduce him to my 12 year-old daughter if he feels that girls cannot compete against boys at sports. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for giving us the opportunity to talk on such a vital topic. I can only stand here and admire the expertise in the Chamber.

To say that safeguarding in schools is important is like saying that it is useful to be able to breathe, so I assume that all noble Lords agree on this basic point. As, I believe, the only working teacher in both Houses of Parliament, I thought I would give the House my view of safeguarding from the trenches, as it were. I work in a very high-performing school in a challenging part of Hackney—which, incidentally, bans mobile phones. As Peter J Hughes, our CEO, wrote in his recent book on school leadership:

“Children in our Hackney community die. Children in our hackney community are often routinely stopped under Operation Trident. Children in our Hackney community are strip-searched and subjected to adultification in presumed places of safety. I am very aware that these are three very powerful statements, but they are true and they are every carer’s, parent’s, teacher’s, principal’s, CEO’s and community’s worst nightmare. It is something we cannot and will not ignore”.


It is against a backdrop like this that a school has get its safeguarding right. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. This is repeatedly drummed into teachers, ancillary workers and students. A change of behaviour in the playground, a dirty shirt collar or a new pair of trainers can be an indicator of abuse or grooming. Every one of those has to be reported, for it could be the final piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Playgrounds are great places to spot how a behaviour has changed, a pattern has emerged, a gang has formed, or a student has been isolated by online bullying. This is the front line—the short-term reaction—but in fact safeguarding is more than that. Schools should be fun places where pupils want to learn and teachers want to teach, and can succeed in this only when we begin to get some of the 1.8 million children who, according to the Children’s Commissioner, regularly miss school back into regular attendance. On this topic, I ask the Minister to comment on the Children’s Commissioner’s call that every school should have a legal duty to report its attendance daily.

As the Government’s guidance says:

“It is about the culture a school creates to keep its pupils safe so that they can benefit fully from all that schooling offers”.


That can be as simple as not setting an essay question like “A trip to the beach” or “A walk in the woods”, because a significant amount of children will not have experienced this and they could feel isolated. We are told not to celebrate the end of term because, for many children, school holidays signal the end of any structure to their life, including a hot meal, and a descent into chaos or just sheer boredom. For the majority, this is not abuse in the classic sense; it is just that parents and carers are too busy or distracted to provide more than the basics of life without any further stimulation or companionship.

Schools are where students can receive kindness, from their friends and teachers, and build and nurture relationships. Any teacher will tell you that it is the genuine connections with students that make them go to work each day. It is also about the environment of the school. The head teacher of my school, Rebecca Warren, always talks about the broken-window syndrome, whereby if something is left unfixed, be it damage or graffiti, more serious damage will follow. We underestimate the impact that school surroundings make on students; if small damages go unrepaired, then there is a sign of a more substantial malaise in the school. I think we also underestimate the subconscious effect on students that, if the school does not care about the building, it does not care about them. This is one thing that does not require much money, just organisation. The worry is that this could be another, as yet unseen, consequence of the RAAC saga.

Safeguarding needs to be baked into the curriculum and this is where Government and schools can do more to help changing behaviours in students, thereby helping from within. There are some lessons that need to be threaded through the term, rather than just saved for PHSCE, the once-a-term day when these topics are normally discussed. Many parents and children see this day as another Inset day, particularly those who hold beliefs that are challenged by the subjects studied then. Surely they are the students who would most benefit from a balanced debate on such subjects. Tender is a charity that uses drama workshops to provide a safe space where young people can rehearse for real-life scenarios and recognise what makes something healthy or unhealthy behaviour. By using this in drama lessons that all students study, say in year 7, all students can get a deep understanding of the issues. This could be more useful than a lifetime of PHSCE days, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on embedding more strategies for safeguarding and general well-being into the curriculum, rather than on drop-down days.

I have been trying to be as optimistic as I can around this subject and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, that things have improved. There are great stories of great people doing great work but, while there are so many children living in poverty, a school is limited to what it can do. I spoke to a safeguarding lead recently who said that if they were one of these children today, particularly the boys, they would be in a gang, for so many of them feel that it is the only way they can earn money, perhaps for their family or even for a new set of trainers, because they see no other way out beyond starting to carry packages for cash. My Lords, we have a lot of work to do.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a teacher. Will the Government reconsider the priority given to parental preference in educational placements for children with EHC plans, given the opinion of many professionals that this is not in the best interests of the child or of efficient education provision, and that the popular schools are at breaking point?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Lord knows, a number of these things are under review, and we will test them as part of our pathfinders and in the improvement plan. It is very important that that balance be kept between the professional judgment of teachers, to which the noble Lord referred, and the sense of confidence that parents have in the system.

Access to Musical Education in School

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, for initiating this very important debate. As ever, I must declare my interest as a teacher of design and technology in a state secondary school. The Minister is going to be rather surprised and, perhaps, relieved that she and I are not going to go through one of our recent dances where I complain about the crushing weight of the curriculum and she replies that a knowledge-rich curriculum is good for everyone. No, I am going to suggest that there is, perhaps, some good news for once, because I think there is a simple first fix for addressing the problem of inequalities in access to musical education in schools.

When one thinks of music lessons, one tends to think of a single child playing an instrument, which, of course, is expensive and at the far end of the spectrum where most parents and children do not want to go, even if they could afford it. We must think of music lessons initially as a more collaborative process, whereby everyone gets to join in. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said, we cannot all sing in tune, but nearly all of us can clap, stamp or make a rhythmic noise. It is that unity—the training to get a group making sounds in unison—that is at the heart of music’s benefit to students, for this encompasses discipline, athleticism and co-ordination in a way that not even sport can better, often for students who hate PE. From this may come a lifelong love of music that will, perhaps, encourage students to continue the subject on to GCSE, take up an instrument, or follow it towards a career in the music industry.

The school where I teach has a thriving music department. We take the newly arrived year-7s and give them choir practice for an hour a week during the school day. After six weeks, at a parents’ evening, the parents are treated to 220 year-7s, around half of whom will be eligible for pupil premium, singing “Moving On Up” in three-part harmony. I also speak as a parent when I say that it is an experience that truly makes the hair stand up on the back of one’s neck. As a team-building, confidence-building, stress-relieving exercise for students, this is hard to beat. The music lessons then continue as part of the curriculum until the end of year 9, when GCSE choices are made.

For a rewarding music experience for all pupils, therefore, schools just need to provide the willingness to give music the opportunity to thrive: the room to do it in and the expert teachers with the enthusiasm to teach it. Therein lies the problem. As noble Lords have said, schools are under pressure. Teachers are leaving the profession and, from our experiences, new teachers are hard to find. Reintroducing bursaries in 2024 for music teachers can only be a good thing, but it will take time for that to filter through. The value of music must be recognised so that teachers, who are vital to any subject, may be persuaded to stay and can see their work valued.

Taught properly by specialist music teachers, the value of music can be as an effective way to foster the benefits of teamwork for all, to improve behaviour, to reduce stress and to benefit cognitive learning skills in maths and communication for a minimal cost. Why would anyone not encourage this?

Education: Advanced British Standard

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am afraid that I cannot reassure the noble Baroness of that. She will be aware that we have carried out extensive reform of our qualifications and will know that, as of August 2022, we had removed 5,500 qualifications with low or no enrolments. However, we still have the most complicated and duplicative landscape of qualifications in this area —at least 7,000 available qualifications—which we will address through our reform programme.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a secondary school teacher. The Minister said that the ABS will develop maths and English capabilities. For anybody who has just guided their son through the maths GCSE and maths A-level—as I have, rather badly—are we saying that the maths GCSE is not good enough? Surely that is enough maths for anybody.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not think that it is enough maths for everybody. As the House knows, we are an outlier in the G7 in not requiring maths to 18. We have made tremendous progress with our maths hubs and teaching for mastery pro approach. We can see that in Ofsted’s recent report on school maths, which described how a

“resounding, positive shift in mathematics education has taken place in primary schools”.

We are determined to invest more in maths and give every child the opportunity to succeed in maths.