Schools: Arts Teaching

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, dance is included in PE, which we have promoted particularly in primary education through the £320 million PE premium. However, the noble Baroness is correct that dance provides young people with emotional and physical exercise. She will be aware that for young people and adults we give dance and drama awards to those who are exceptionally talented, like the noble Baroness, so that they can go on to study at specialist institutions.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab) [V]]

I remind noble Lords of my interests in the register. The initial focus for school leaders in September must be the well-being of children. Studying music is known to improve health and well-being as well as attainment. Given the restrictions currently in place on choirs and instrument lessons, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked, when will the Government renew the national plan for music education and show how we can resume the music education to which all pupils are entitled?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, unfortunately I do not have a timeframe for when the national plan will be refreshed. Although the noble Lord is correct that there is mention in the guidance about not singing or playing wind or brass in larger groups, there is a hierarchy of controls to enable those activities to take place in smaller groups, such as doing it outside, making sure that shared instruments are disinfected, et cetera. When the £1.57 billion to support the arts sector was announced, scientific research was also commissioned from Imperial College London and other institutions so that we could understand more about the risks of these activities.

Schools: Online Support for Pupils

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

My Lords, we expect teachers and schools to use their professional judgment and to make available the best possible education, bearing in mind the home-learning circumstances of pupils. We have made guidance—case studies—available to assist schools with this, as well as, of course, making more devices available to vulnerable children.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab) [V]]

I remind your Lordships of my entry in the register. Grandparents are losing their lives, parents their livelihoods, and now children are losing their life chances. The absence of a credible plan for schools opening in September is a disgrace. By then, we need to end the digital divide in education, deliver training and teaching using technology through an additional inset day, map a coherent set of teaching content, and know how we will flexibly use people and vacant premises to offer a full-time universal schooling service. We urgently need a plan. Ministers must publish a plan for September that we can all stick to—more urgently than before the end of term. When will we get it?

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

My Lords, as I have outlined, there will be a plan before the end of term in relation to curriculum expectations going forward. The Government have made available free expert help and have had over 2,000 applications offering free expert help to make Google Classroom or Microsoft Education available to schools. The department has brokered deals with internet providers and has a specific arrangement with BT such that 10,000 children can have access to BT wi-fi hotspots. The department is incredibly concerned and we are working as best as we can within the scientific advice. We want to see all children back in school in September, subject to that scientific advice.

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, since schools reopened for the priority year groups, testing has been available for staff, pupils and anyone in a household who displays symptoms. On summer schools, I have outlined that holiday activity clubs are being funded. We are working closely with Magic Breakfast and Family Action in relation to breakfast provision over the summer holidays. Moreover, imaginative consideration is being given to the kind of targeted support which can be offered over the summer. But it is not anticipated that schools will be open throughout the summer holidays.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. Last week, the Minister said in Oral Questions that the Secretary of State has made it clear that schools will not be expected to open throughout the summer holidays, and she has just said something similar. Given that, what exactly are the Government planning? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there will be a

“huge amount of catch-up over the summer months.”

Is that the £9 million for holiday clubs which the Minister has just mentioned, which is the equivalent of just £360 per school in England? Where will this huge amount of catch-up take place? Who will attend and who will lead it?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, noble Lords are tempting me, but I am not permitted to—nor will I—steal the Secretary of State’s thunder. But I am aware, and can tell noble Lords, that, working on an evidence base, there will be a programme of targeted support over the summer holidays and beyond. We are acutely aware of the loss of learning, as Ministers and as people who have been through the education system. The effort and energy are there, and will continue to be, to have the appropriate support and programmes for these young people to catch up. As I said, we have purchased, and are about to deliver by the end of the month, more than 200,000 devices to enable some of the most disadvantaged children to catch up on their learning.

Covid-19: Schools

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has made clear that schools will not be expected to be open throughout the summer holidays. That is not to say that there will not be specific, targeted interventions to help young people who have lost out due to the interruption of their education.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I refer your Lordships to my interests in the register. We certainly need action to tackle the widening of the attainment gap during the crisis, and summer schools can work if the targeted pupils attend, but those same children also need well-qualified teachers. How is the department planning to ensure that newly qualified teachers, who have been denied classroom practice this year due to lockdown, have a successful induction in September?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their comparator group has narrowed at every level since 2011, and we are keen to ensure that that is maintained. Of course, the role of teachers is vital to that. We are aware that initial teacher training has been interrupted and that there will be certain challenges for newly qualified teachers teaching for the first time in classrooms in the autumn. We are developing the early career framework and are looking to that to support these newly qualified teachers and deal with the challenges that they face.

Educational Opportunities: Working Classes

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I praise my noble friend Lady Morris for her inspiring speech and for the debate, and I remind the House of my interests as the chief officer at TES Global and as chair of Whole Education.

I believe that education is failing working-class communities in this country. Many of those places were formed to serve an industrial economy that has since moved on. Our education system emerged as those places became established and has yet to move on with the economy, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has told your Lordships on a number of occasions.

Our current system is a sift, and academic exams are the sifting mechanism. You go to school, work hard and get good grades. If your grades are good enough, you go to university and get a great career; if not, get some skills and get a job. Policy-makers have been delegating more to schools in exchange for more accountability, in the hope that it will generate more improvement so that more young people from more backgrounds can access the higher aspiration university route. Yet, the Sutton Trust tells us that the eight top schools in this country send as many pupils to Oxbridge as three-quarters of all schools. Working-class children are being failed. Teach First research in 2018 revealed that poorer pupils are more likely to be excluded than to pass the English Baccalaureate.

The most the current model can do is work for two-thirds of young people. For working-class kids, we would be lucky to get to half, however hard we drive the current system. There simply are not enough teachers and leaders to make the system work, and academic learning is not for everyone. For working-class communities, it is not just about learning and exams. On Saturday, I met the job-sharing head teachers from an all-through school in Portland, Dorset, where I used to be the Member of Parliament. They asked me to tell you this:

“We have felt that things have become even harder over the last few years. Students starting school with us have vast gaps in their education, not just academically. We support that well, and are proud to say we’re in the top 10% of schools in the country for progress, both at secondary and primary. However, the social and emotional needs of our students are challenging. The support Sure Start centres used to offer families had a vast impact on parenting skills and abilities. Now, there is very little early intervention for families who struggle or need assistance. The threshold for children who are at risk appears to be unknown. We leave students to go home on occasion unsafe to homes that are not suitable for them, and hope to see them the next day. Social care simply cannot support the needs of families like ours.”


We need a national debate about a new system. There can be no change in working-class communities without regeneration through education. That system must be designed for a long life of continuous reskilling—one that prepares people for a working life of 60 years, multiple careers, being great at interacting with machines as well as humans, but also out-competing machines at being human. It must be one that accepts that analytics will replace qualifications and that universities will have to innovate to deliver lifelong learning rather than a debt-loaded rite of passage, as at present. It will have more grow your own: across a lifetime, someone with a higher apprenticeship has higher average earnings than a graduate from a non-Russell Group university. Employers are increasingly growing their own talent rather than relying on graduate entry schemes. Schools should be growing and qualifying their own teachers from their own working-class communities, with less high-stakes testing and more trust in those teachers. We need a curriculum, not unlike that of some of the UTCs, that balances knowledge and skills, and is designed to nurture a love of learning, curiosity and skills for self-directed learning. This needs cross-party consensus, and what better place to start than in your Lordships’ House?