Schools: Exams

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure exams which were originally scheduled to take place in January can take place safely; and when they plan to publish alternative arrangements for exams which were scheduled to take place in the summer.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, schools and colleges can continue with vocational and technical exams that are scheduled in January where they judge that it is right to do so. Students will not sit GCSE and A-level exams this summer. We are working closely with Ofqual to provide clarity on VTQ exams and assessments that are scheduled for later in the academic year. We and Ofqual will consult on how to award all pupils a grade to ensure that they can progress.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Government could not quite complete yet another 180-degree turn of the sort we have become all too familiar with in education policy, stopping short by leaving it to individual colleges to decide whether BTEC exams should go ahead this week. That inevitably means a patchwork system for BTEC students, who once again seem to be an afterthought for this Government, and is a further example of their lack of leadership. There should have been a plan B for the always-likely scenario now facing school and college exams. How will the Department for Education reassure students who were expecting to sit BTECs that they will not now lose out on university applications or other career opportunities, and how can a repeat of the uncertainty and stress caused to pupils and parents by the changes to last year’s GCSE and A-level exams be avoided?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, colleges have been given the discretion this month, because most of the content will have been learned. Seven awarding organisations had assessments planned for this month, and many of those assessments are required occupationally for people to progress, even into work, so it was important that colleges were given that discretion. We have encouraged this where career progression is dependent on the assessment. From February, the Ofqual consultation will consider all qualifications so that those who take qualifications other than A-levels and enter higher education will get a fair assessment of their grades. The noble Lord will be aware that UCAS has extended the window for applications this year by two weeks.

Exams and Accountability in 2021

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Well, my Lords, we have had to wait quite some time for the Secretary of State to respond to the concerns of pupils, parents, school leaders and trade unions, all of whom have been seeking clarity on how next summer’s exams can be conducted fairly. We welcome many of the measures announced in the Statement, which will mitigate the impact of the pandemic, including those on SATs and the delay in Ofsted resuming its inspections, but we believe that the measures announced on GCSEs and A-levels do not go far enough and leave a number of issues to be resolved.

The first concern is the Government’s apparent belief that a one-size-fits-all approach is appropriate. Why should that be the case? The changes being proposed will apply to all students, so everyone will know about the topics to be covered, everyone will be able to bring in certain aids, everyone will be graded more generously and so on. Significant numbers of pupils have been and will continue to be absent from school due to Covid, causing disruption to their education. The pattern across the country is uneven, and students’ experiences have been different, so how can making changes that apply to everyone specifically help those who have had the most challenging experiences and therefore need more support?

One size fits all will lead to fundamental inequities between students who have suffered different levels of disruption to their learning, and makes it inevitable that some young people will be examined on what they have not been taught rather than what they have been taught. This is an issue that the interim chief regulator of Ofqual has red-flagged, highlighting the gap in learning loss across different regions, describing it as

“one of the most intractable issues”,

with any potential solutions

“fraught with difficulty”.

The Minister may point to this as being within the remit of the expert group, but with someone as experienced as the head of Ofqual saying it is close to being unmanageable, does the Minister believe there is a solution to be found? If there is not, the question of whether the exams can ever be fair for pupils in the hardest-hit Covid areas must be addressed.

I mentioned the expert group, but we have had relatively little information on it. Why has it been established so late? Who will comprise the group and will it include representatives of school leaders and teachers? Most importantly, when is it expected to report? Additionally, will minutes of its meetings be published, as now happens with SAGE? Will its members, like those who comprise the DfE’s Covid-19 recovery advisory group, be required to sign non-disclosure agreements? That would be completely unacceptable at a time when concerned parents and pupils surely deserve transparency on discussions about their future. How will the Secretary of State ensure that the distribution of grades is spread evenly across schools and postcodes this year, so that the most disadvantaged pupils are treated fairly? We still do not know which parts of the syllabus will be in the exam papers and which will not, leaving schools less and less time to adjust their teaching programmes.

A further concern is why it has now been revealed that funding for catch-up tutoring will be spread across two years. Apparently, around £140 million of the £350 million allocated to the national tutoring programme remains unspent. That might not have been the case had the programme not taken so long to begin its work but, given the widely accepted disparity in the amount of education that school pupils have been able to access since the start of the pandemic, surely every available resource should be used to ensure that every pupil is prepared for this year’s exams, rather than rolling over that part of the funding into next year, because for some that will be too late.

The Minister may point to the separate catch-up fund, but that does not justify holding back resources already allocated for spending in this financial year, particularly when it is so critical that they reach those young people most in need. Students should have the opportunity to show what they have achieved in unprecedented circumstances. Despite the delay, these proposals fall short of what is required to facilitate the fair exams that the Secretary of State promised.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I first join the Minister in congratulating Dr Frost but also pay tribute to teachers and school leaders up and down the country who have pulled out all the stops to make sure that schooling for their pupils is happening. We welcome the Statement. Clearly, on this occasion, it has been very thoughtfully worked through and every aspect has been covered, unlike last year’s fiasco.

We feel that, had teacher-managed assessments been used, the Government could have given teachers far greater certainty about how to work, what to teach, how to assess and which subjects to prioritise for the rest of the academic year. It is interesting that research carried out by Exeter University shows huge variances across the country in the amount of schooling and learning that children have been afforded. There are huge regional variations, with more teaching and learning in the south compared to the north. There have also been huge discrepancies between types of schools, according to Exeter University’s research, which is why continuing with exams will be deeply unfair given the opportunities that this academic year gives students in different parts of the country and the different effects on remote education. Having school assessment grades would have given schools far greater certainty about how to work, what to teach and how to assess.

But we are now going to operate in the way that the Government propose, and I welcome many of the proposals in the Statement. I have a number of concerns to raise, which I hope the Minister will deal with in her reply. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I would like the Minister to give more details about the statement:

“We will … commission an expert group to assess any local variations and the impact the virus is having on students’ education.”


What does this mean in practice and how will it work, et cetera?

Secondly, we welcome the decision on school accountability for assessments taken, publication of results and how Ofsted will operate. Perhaps the Minister could expand a little more, because this is an opportunity for Ofsted, in a “non-threatening way”—in inverted commas—to support those schools that were judged inadequate and requiring improvement. Perhaps that could happen during this period.

We have concerns also about those children and students who are home educated. This could happen in two ways. Some have chosen to be home educated, but others have had to home educate and deregister from the school, perhaps because a close member of their family has a life-threatening condition and has to be supported and protected, so the child or student cannot go into school. What support is being given in terms of exams and learning for those children and students?

Finally, when we say that our young people will be sitting exams, but that places additional burdens on schools in terms of organising them. Will additional advice and support be given to schools on how to operate and socially distance students, because it is not an easy thing to do? I do not know whether the Government have considered this, but some of the exams might have to be phased so that all pupils can take them in a very safe environment.

Covid-19: GCSE and A-level Exams

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I always welcome the opportunity for meetings and I hope that in the new year our meetings can be face to face rather than on Zoom. We are convinced that this set of adaptations and the fact that the exams have been delayed by three weeks will help those students who have been out of school the most. We cannot create a perfect situation, but we are confident that these adaptations will help those children the most.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Government have finally listened to calls from Labour, school leaders, trade unions and parents by setting out a plan for next year’s exams, but this really should have been in place months ago to give pupils, parents and schools the clarity they need. Significant numbers of pupils have been and will continue to be absent from school due to Covid-19, causing disruption to their education. Of course, the pattern across the country is uneven. This raises the spectre of these young people being examined on what they have not been taught rather than what they have been. What makes the Minister confident that the expert group announced today can ensure that such a damaging outcome is avoided?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, since schools have returned, they have known about and had to adapt to the guidance for public health restrictions on the curriculum, such as not running geography field trips. But at the end of January, they will know the topic areas on which most examinations will be set. That means that—although many schools are doing a sterling job of catching up for these young people—if that part of the curriculum has not been covered yet, they will know at the end of January to cover it. As the exams are three weeks later than normal, that should give adequate time. We expect the majority of the curriculum to have been taught to the majority of students but, to make sure, they will know these topic areas. That should address the noble Lord’s point.

Children in Care: Unregulated Accommodation

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, all these placements are for children looked after by local authorities, which, when they commission any placement, also have a duty to look at the safeguarding and at the provision in general. We have been clear that for under-16s this is not appropriate, because they need care and not only support. We will act to ban that practice so that it will no longer be able to take place. However, we need to recognise that we have more older children coming into the care system with complex needs. For certain children and young people over the age of 16, that is the appropriate placement to meet their needs, which should be paramount in any decision to place them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the report by the Children’s Commissioner—a government appointee, it should be remembered—is a shocking indictment of the neglect found in the unregulated sector. Last year, the Office for National Statistics reported that 88% of 18 year-olds live with their parents, yet in February the Government issued a consultation on reforms to unregulated provision for children in care and care leavers, which, astonishingly, proposed that only children aged 15 and under should be offered placements that provide them with care. Why do the Government alone assume that 16 to 18 year-olds without parents are better able to look after themselves than their peers who have parents?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the Government do not make such an assumption, and the placement of looked-after children is primarily and statutorily the responsibility of the local authority. The Government recognise that children should be placed where their needs are met, and some young people after the age of 18 want to stay with their former foster parents. That is why we have the Staying Put scheme, with £33 million available to local authorities, enabling young people who want to stay with their foster carers to stay until they are 21 years old. However, there are young people who wish to transition at age 16—that is the point when you can choose to become a care leaver. We are trying to have a system that puts the needs of children first and has placements that suit them.

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Government have spent more than £340 million on food vouchers for those who needed free school meals while schools were closed. There has also been the recent announcement of £170 million for the Covid winter grant scheme, and 80% of that fund is reserved for food and bills for the most disadvantaged families. The money is to be distributed by local councils, not schools.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I have to say that the Conservatives’ commitment to children’s rights is very much open to question, not least since 2018, when the post of Minister for Children and Families was downgraded from Minister of State to Under-Secretary level. The Government have refused to introduce a statutory obligation to conduct children’s rights impact assessments on all new legislation, despite being called on to do so by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2016 and the Government-appointed Children’s Commissioner in 2019. This Friday is UNICEF’s World Children’s Day. Would that not be a suitable occasion for the Government to announce a change of heart?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I outlined, the UK Government take seriously the input from the United Nations. Children’s rights impact assessments have been devised in accordance with the recommendation in 2016 and are valuable in enabling civil servants—who have also undergone training—to consider children’s rights in policy and legislation. So the recommendation has been enacted, but it will not be put on a statutory basis. We have taken other measures that were advised, such as updating in 2018 the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children.

Carbon Emissions

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, with the USA now poised to rejoin the world, there exists the real possibility of global leadership towards net-zero carbon emissions. The Prime Minister’s announcement at the Conservative Party conference last month was welcome in its ambition, but what is needed now is real action from the Government to begin creating a low-carbon skilled workforce to enable the UK to meet net-zero targets as soon as possible. Notwithstanding what the Minister said in response to my noble friend Lady Blackstone, will she accept that a low-carbon national skills strategy is now required, and can she say what proportion of the National Skills Fund’s £3 billion will be targeted specifically towards skills in low-carbon sectors?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I can confirm to the noble Lord that obviously the low-carbon and net-zero commitments we have made are an essential part of the National Skills Fund. We will be having consultations on certain elements of that fund going forward. The fund does now give level 3 entitlements to every adult in the UK who does not have one, including courses such as sustainable resource management and, within the T-levels we have introduced for 16-year-olds, sustainability is part of one of the first three T-levels: construction. So this is being embedded in the strategy. This has the potential to create up to 2 million jobs—currently there are 460,000 jobs in low carbon—so the Government are going to take every opportunity they can to build this for our economy.

Qualifications

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I have outlined, schools are promoting this. If students at the transition point at age 14 want to go to a university technical college, the local authority and schools are now under a duty to promote that route to students. The consultation is about those City & Guild qualifications that do not overlap with level 3 T-levels and/or A-levels. We recognise their role, but all these qualifications must give the student the appropriate skills and the employer the confidence that that person is equipped for the job.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the Question from my noble friend Lord Haskel rightly calls for qualifications that are of value to both individuals and employers. The Minister may be aware of a report published yesterday by the University Partnerships Programme foundation, which shows that the Government’s commitment to a lifetime skills guarantee will not cover 75% to 80% of non-graduate workers who lose their jobs in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. That is because many non-graduates want higher-level training, rather than just a new level 3 qualification. Will the Government therefore consider a more flexible higher education loan system, which would reflect the clear desire of learners to access training at a higher level, with a view to responding to skills shortages in the economy?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct that many in employment want to take a level 4 or 5 qualification. The Prime Minister announced that there will be a flexible lifetime loan entitlement, and that it should be as easy to get a loan to study a higher technical qualification as it is to get higher education funding. That is why the entitlement will be four years. We also recognise that those who have an undergraduate degree may want to do one year, and that levels 4 and 5 need be modular, so that they are flexible for people to train, if they have lost their jobs, or upskill, if they are in employment.

Education (Exemption from School and Further Education Institutions Inspections) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, Labour supports these regulations, as they reverse the legislation that was incorporated into the Education Act 2011 that we opposed at the time. That we are considering them at all today is down to the persistence of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who then spoke for the Opposition on education. In Committee on the then Bill he said:

“I would have thought that something as important as the exemption of categories of school from Ofsted inspections would, at the least, deserve to be treated as an affirmative order”.


He convinced the Government, who introduced their own amendment to that effect.

My noble friend also said then, in respect of the amendment that was being made to the provisions of the Education Act 2005:

“I have considerable concerns about this. The fact is that not all outstanding schools remain outstanding”.—[Official Report, 20/7/11; col. GC 472-73.]


That point has been echoed by many noble Lords today. Again, my noble friend was right. The National Audit Office found that, as of August 2017, 1,720 schools had not been inspected for six years or more, with 296 not having been inspected for more than a decade. My son’s school proudly proclaims that it is Ofsted-rated outstanding. In my experience it remains outstanding, but that is something of which Ofsted is unaware, because it last inspected it in 2008—three years before my son was born.

According to Ofsted’s most recent annual report, 17% of outstanding schools have not had a full inspection in the last 10 academic years—which would be the equivalent of 765 schools. Tellingly, of the 305 schools that Ofsted has re-inspected, 80% were subsequently downgraded, with 74 rated “requires improvement” and 14 rated inadequate.

These regulations are overdue and it is no surprise that the consultation found 89% in agreement for both schools and colleges. But there are wider issues regarding schools. The four Ofsted grades are not defined in law. The framework for inspection belongs to HMCI and there is no direct accountability about what it contains. HMCI “decided” to delay inspection of free schools from the second to the third year after its establishment some four or five years ago. HMCI could not exempt academies in perpetuity; that could be done only by regulations. However, our main objection to the original legislation still stands—regulations can exempt schools from inspection.

Last year’s Labour manifesto set out our policy to replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body designed to drive school improvement. This is not the place for detailed analysis, but we believe that the current grading system is flawed and often counterproductive. For instance, it is not appropriate to attempt to summarise everything about such a complex organisation as a school in a single grade and the current system encourages unhealthy competition between schools, one result being those garish banners that some display—no matter how dated—to advertise their status. Of greater concern, getting a poor grade often makes a school’s task in improving that much harder, as recruiting staff and pupils can become more difficult.

More generally, schools with favoured intakes are far more likely to get good or outstanding grades than schools with challenging intakes. That was a finding of the 2016 Education Policy Institute study of school inspections.

The Explanatory Memorandum accompanying these regulations seems unduly optimistic in stating that routine inspections will recommence in January 2021. It also outlines the mixed-model approach for the resumption of inspections of hitherto exempt schools and colleges, which are not due to be completed until August 2026. That represents an inordinate delay in addressing what the DfE itself has identified as an existential defect in the current system. If that is a staffing issue, it needs to be addressed to allow these inspections to be completed much sooner. The memorandum is silent on the question of costs associated with the introduction of these regulations. Indeed, it states:

“The impact on the public sector is minimal”.


That impact should involve employing additional Ofsted staff, in that case, to ensure that the anomaly of the outdated status of some schools is ended as soon as possible. I invite the Minister to comment on that point in her reply.

Free School Meals

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the main way in which the Government fund, outside free school meals and breakfast clubs, is through the universal credit system. It may seem like a big figure—£9 billion—but that has meant an increase in universal credit or working tax credit of over £1,000, which is significant in addition to the increase in local housing allowance that has been given. When we look globally through the Anglican Communion we see that we are fortunate to live in a country that, while it is not perfect, does provide a welfare safety net for its citizens.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, in June, the Minister rebuffed my call for an extension of free school meal vouchers to cover the summer holidays, saying:

“There is support out there for those who need provision.”—[Official Report, 10/6/20; col. 1745.]


Days later, the Government U-turned, and the Minister explained that by saying:

“We have listened, we recognise the pressures that families will be under … due to the Covid crisis, and we have responded to that.”—[Official Report, 17/6/20; col. 2180.]


But lessons were not learned and today, despite the funding mentioned earlier by the Minister, children across the country are going hungry. During a pandemic, how can the most vulnerable children in our society not be a priority for support? Will the Minister now urge her Government to show compassion and agree to fund free school meals for all school holidays until spring 2021?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I do apologise if the noble Lord felt rebuffed. But, as he will be aware, in addition to the support that has been given to disadvantaged children, there are now over 500,000 devices. So the needs of disadvantaged children are a priority for the Government, and £350 million of the catch-up fund is directed to disadvantaged children. In addition to that, although again it sounds like a big figure, we will never know how many children have avoided needing free school meals thanks to the £53 billion of taxpayers’ money that has been used to support businesses during this period, which paid for the furlough scheme and other schemes.

Covid-19: Catch-up Premium

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it spoke volumes about this Government’s attitude to poverty that last week their MPs were ordered to vote against a Labour motion to provide food vouchers for disadvantaged children during school holidays. Even the Secretary of State for Education and the Children’s Minister supported sending them into further hardship. With almost one-fifth of the school year completed, the Covid catch-up premium is barely under way, while the national tutoring programme—as the Minister confirmed a few moments ago—has not yet begun. How can parents and teachers have any confidence in the Government developing a properly funded long-term strategy to support disadvantaged pupils suffering from lockdown, when its short-term strategy is in such disarray?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I have already outlined the considerable support that is given through the pupil premium. Over the course of the pandemic the Government spent £380 million on food vouchers, but most schools are back now—approximately 89% of children are back in school—so the traditional way of delivering free school meals via the kitchens in the schools has been up and running and responding to those pupils who are self-isolating. I assure the noble Lord that 25% of the £650 million has been allocated to schools, and the reason why 100% has not been allocated is because we want to do that on actual pupil numbers, not on pupil-number data that is out of date.