Education

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Cunningham

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I do understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. We worked very hard during and after the consultation process to ensure that we could assemble the widest possible consensus on the new draft guidance. We accept that it contains some very sensitive issues and I understand that some parents have legitimate concerns about their involvement in their child’s education, particularly in primary schools. We have considered that very carefully.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I think he knows what I am going to ask him, because he has been very helpful prior to this debate. What can he say to reassure, for example, the Muslim community in relation to these proposals? Can he provide some reassurance to them?

[Nick Gibb]

I can give the hon. Gentleman, the Muslim community and other communities who share those concerns outside this House the assurance that schools will be required, for example, to consult with parents on their relationships education, and on relationships and sex education policies. One key purpose is to help to minimise any misconception about the subjects and what might be taught, and to enable parents to decide whether to request, for example, that their child is withdrawn from sex education. We encourage schools to engage proactively with parents to set out how and when they plan to cover topics included in relationships education and RSE, so that parents can understand what is going to be taught. This means ensuring that parents know what they can and cannot withdraw their children from, that they can have an input into policies, and have sufficient time and notice to make an informed decision about whether to withdraw their children from sex education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Cunningham

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

T7. Does the Minister realise that more than 300 pupils were denied their first-choice school as a result of the Government cuts to local government education budgets in Coventry? What is he going to do about it?

[Nick Gibb]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the national figures, he will find that, at primary, something like 97% of families received an offer of a place in one of their top-three schools, with 91% offered their first choice. At secondary, 94% of families received an offer of a place at their first-choice school. We have created 825,000 school places since 2010, following on from a Labour Government who actually cut 100,000 school places from the system.

Leaving the EU: Student Exchanges

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Cunningham

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) on securing this debate. I join her in thanking the language teachers up and down the country who teach our young people to speak, write and read in a foreign language. As I will mention later, I was at school this morning with a commendable group of language teachers, who do wonderful work in that school.

This debate gives me the opportunity to emphasise again the Government’s commitment to remaining open to the world after we leave the EU and to becoming even more global and internationalist in our outlook. Improving the take-up and teaching of modern foreign languages in our schools and ensuring that there continues to be international opportunities for students, young people and teachers to participate in exchanges is an important part of achieving that goal. I also agree with my hon. Friend that there are business, cultural and educational benefits to learning a language

The level of take-up and proficiency in foreign languages in England is not yet what it should be—my hon. Friend was right to point that out—and we have taken steps to address that. In 2010, we introduced the English baccalaureate. To meet this measure of performance for state-funded secondary schools, pupils have to be entered for GCSEs in English, maths, science, history or geography and an ancient or modern foreign language. In July, we announced our ambition for 75% of year 10 pupils to be taking the EBacc by 2022 and for that to reach 90% by 2025. It was 37% this year. That represents a significant step-change for schools, particularly in relation to the uptake of languages GCSEs, which is often the area that has prevented schools from achieving higher EBacc entry rates. Our expectation is that the uptake of these GCSEs will increase over the coming years, widening the potential pool of students with the ability to continue studying languages to a higher level.

In September 2014, schools began to teach the new national curriculum that we introduced. It requires local authority-maintained primary schools to teach a modern or ancient foreign language to pupils at key stage 2. Schools can choose which language to teach, and must ensure that pupils make substantial progress in one language by the end of primary school. It is also mandatory for maintained secondary schools to teach a foreign language to pupils at key stage 3. Although there is no requirement for every pupil in such schools to then take a language at GCSE, there is a statutory entitlement for every pupil to take a course leading to a recognised qualification, if they wish to do so.

The fact that pupils often have the choice of whether to continue to study a language to GCSE makes it especially important for their earlier experiences of being taught the subject to be positive.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The Minister may or may not be able to answer this question. How popular is Chinese—how interested are people in this country in taking up the language? The Chinese have lots of markets and we should not forget that we trade with China.

[Nick Gibb]

If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall come to that. One of the purposes of my visit this morning was to see the Mandarin excellence programme that is happening in a number of schools throughout the country.

In a 2015 report, “Key stage 3: the wasted years?”, Ofsted reported that many pupils chose to discontinue studying languages at the end of key stage 3 because of a lack of enjoyment in their lessons or a feeling of not making enough progress. That was despite many of the same pupils recognising the value of languages. Prompted by that, the Teaching Schools Council carried out a review of modern foreign languages pedagogy in key stages 3 and 4. The review was carried out by the experienced headteacher Ian Bauckham and reported in November last year. It set out key principles for delivering effective language teaching and produced a number of sensible recommendations for teachers and headteachers in schools.

We have improved the standard and quality of qualifications. We worked with Ofqual, subject experts, universities and teachers to design new GCSEs and A-levels, which were introduced for French, German and Spanish in 2016. The level of demand of these qualifications matches those of the highest-performing countries, and they will better prepare pupils for the demands of further education and employment. They are robust qualifications in which students, employers, colleges and universities can have confidence. French, German and Spanish remain the top three most popular foreign languages taught in our schools, although Mandarin is coming up fast. As the British Council “Languages for the Future” report highlights, Mandarin is one of the top five languages of crucial importance for the UK’s future prosperity, security and influence in the world.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) might be interested to know that the Department has established and funded the Mandarin excellence programme since 2016. The programme offers intense study in the language, which is not only personally enriching for students but will give them a significant advantage when they enter the world of work. We want 5,000 young people, ab initio, to study the language and become fluent by 2020.

Pupils on the programme study Mandarin—listen to this—for eight hours a week, at least four hours of which are teacher-led in classrooms, with the remaining four hours in their own time. Over the next four years, I hope that we will see a significant increase in the numbers of pupils on the programme. The programme started with 14 secondary schools in September 2016, and 23 additional secondary schools joined in September this year.

I was delighted earlier today to see the programme in action and meet some of the pupils during my visit to Alexandra Park School in Haringey. At Alexandra Park, 27 pupils started in the year 7 cohort in September last year. They scored a very impressive 95% average mark in progress tests across reading, writing, listening and speaking last summer, and they have all progressed to the second year of the programme. A new year 7 cohort of 30 pupils started Mandarin lessons at Alexandra Park in September 2017, and I am sure they will do equally well. Incidentally, all year 7 pupils at that school study Mandarin and a European language.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Once again, I am not sure whether the Minister can answer this question now. Perhaps he can write to me on it. Are any schools in Coventry teaching Mandarin?

[Nick Gibb]

I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman about that. We want to have a spread of Mandarin excellence programmes across the country, but the initial schools were chosen because they already had a track record of teaching Mandarin very well. The project is led and driven by the excellent Katharine Carruthers of the UCL Institute of Education. The pupils I met this morning were hugely impressive, very ambitious and had high expectations. They want not only to take a GCSE and an A-level in Mandarin, but to go on to HSK 4 and HSK 5, which is essentially fluency in the language. Interestingly, I asked them all what they wanted to do when they left school and none of them wanted to go on to study Mandarin at university. They wanted to be lawyers, doctors and business people, but they also wanted to be fluent in Mandarin.