Education and Adoption Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in particular on what she says about the importance of supporting our newly qualified teachers, valuing them and ensuring that they become the experienced expert practitioners who, many years later, become superb teachers because they had a good start and they want to stick with it.

I was speaking last night with a father of 18 month-old twins. He was exhausted. I asked him, “Do they require much attention?” and he said, “All the time”. I say that is key. I was so pleased to hear what the Prime Minister said at the Conservative Party conference about the importance of doing better for children and young people in care and generally about improving social justice and social mobility; for young children and vulnerable children—all children—thrive on attention. We have to be crazy about these children if they are to do well. We have to be single-mindedly dedicated in our attention to them. So I was very pleased to hear what the Prime Minister said about his attention and intentions for them.

Jonathan Stanley, chief executive of the Independent Children’s Homes Association, wrote an article in the Huffington Post following the Prime Minister’s declaration, in which he said that, as a long-time expert in residential care for children, we have to be crazy about our children if we want them to do well and recover from their trauma. My sense was that the former Secretary of State, Michael Gove, was crazy about adopted children and children in the adopted system, and we have seen a lot of progress as a result. I pay tribute to his single-mindedness. In Scotland, a senior Minister decided that children’s homes was the most important issue that he was going to push forward, and we saw a great change there and an improvement in the setting up of the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care. These vulnerable children need a champion at the very top.

I pay tribute, too, to Edward Timpson MP, the Minister for Children. When he was chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, he produced an excellent report on improving the educational outcomes for looked-after children, which called for the introduction of a virtual school head. As a Minister putting through the last education Bill, he put that on a statutory footing. All practitioners interested and concerned about these young people said what an important step forward that was.

I finish by expressing my gratitude for the work of the previous Labour Government in their recognition of this important issue of young people being neglected and looked-after children, and their investing the money and forming policy and legislation to make a difference. I particularly remember the Children (Leaving Care) Act. A little while ago, I spoke to a young man who, at the age of 21, re-engaged with the care system after being lost to it and found a good personal adviser to help him to settle accommodation and turn his life around. We needed to give those young people better support past 18, and that Bill achieved that to some extent. So I pay tribute to the Labour Government for that.

On the discussion about academies, I was very moved by what the Minister said about his experience, and by what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, had to say. I am somewhat mystified when listening to the exchange across the Chamber, because it is difficult to judge what is working best and what is not. I live close to the Westminster Academy and I know that before it was a very unsatisfactory building, and it was troubling to hear that head teachers were in fear of their safety—so it must have been very difficult for children in that setting. It was an inappropriate building; the central corridors were too large; it was unsafe at break time, too hot in the summer time and too cold in winter because of how it was designed. We now have an excellent building, and I benefit from the use of the library, which is far better than the one that was there before. So my experience is that I see some positive things. Certainly, in terms of leadership, head teachers have complained to me that it is difficult to remove poor teachers, which is one thing that the academy process allows one to do more easily. I hope to visit an academy soon—one that has recently transformed—to hear from the heads and pupils what the difference has been in the process. I think that that will help me.

I hope that the Minister will not mind me challenging him on this, but I am concerned about the Government possibly losing sight of their White Paper of 2010, on The Importance of Teaching, which said:

“The first, and most important, lesson is that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers. The most successful countries, from the Far East to Scandinavia, are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession; South Korea recruits from their top 5 per cent of graduates and Finland from the top 10 per cent”.

That must always be a top priority. I met over the weekend an 18 year-old woman whom I know well, the daughter of a friend, who has just started at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is so enthusiastic that she is studying Chinese and will study in China next year—just like her mother, who is a primary school teacher. When I asked how her mother was, she said that she was still working 10 or 11 hours each day, but she loves it; she is prepared to make that sacrifice. I emailed a teaching professional over the weekend, on Saturday night; he turned it around for me on Sunday, at about one in the morning. I know him—he has two young children and is always exhausted when I see him, but he is so passionate about what he does. There are so many passionate, committed people in the education system, and we need to be better at supporting them.

I met the man responsible for supporting Teach First professionals in London some time ago, a graduate of Teach First. I welcome that policy and its further development very much indeed. He said that, although it was a wonderful opportunity, they could not always give teachers the support that they needed—that they needed to give newly qualified teachers, and Teach First teachers, the support that they needed to work in the most challenging schools. Many of them wanted to work in the most challenging schools, but if they are not given the support to work there they cannot.

I am grateful to the chair of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology for writing to me about teacher numbers and distribution. The note says:

“The number of people entering initial teacher training is declining at secondary level in England, Scotland and Wales since 2005/06 … Teacher retention is also a concern in England (at primary and secondary level) … The distribution of teachers is a concern across the UK: the most highly qualified teachers tend to go to high performing schools in more affluent areas”.

We know that we need to put our best teachers with our most disadvantaged children, because they get the best advantage from that teaching.

I was at a meeting on teaching supply a month ago, looking particularly at maths teachers. It appalled me that we are training physical education teachers to become maths teachers. They may be very good, but we should be giving students maths graduates. It is vital—as a science nation, one cannot go ahead with physics and chemistry if one does not have a good, firm foundation in maths. So that was very troubling to see.

I hope that we can better equip our teachers to manage the pupil-teacher relationship. I was speaking to a Finnish man just before I entered here about the fact that in Finland they start at seven and go to 15 in the same school with the same classroom teacher, who is a master’s graduate. So that classroom teacher has a relationship with that child for seven years, although they may have different language teachers. With behaviour management, the relationship between the young person and the teacher is crucial. When we lose teachers, it is often because there is a poor relationship with the children; teachers get driven away—it is the main cause of teachers stopping teaching. So teachers need to understand the pupil-teacher relationship; they need a good understanding of child development and behaviour management. That has been a historical problem, and I am glad that the Minister is beginning to address it. I would appreciate a letter from him answering some of these questions and concerns about teaching supply and giving reassurance that there is a strategy for the future to address those questions. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said about teacher training schools, and that seems very positive.

I have little or no time, but I should like briefly to talk about the adoption part of this Bill. I welcome very much what is being introduced. I have a concern about the assessment of the mental health of children entering the care system. With adoption, it is important that when a child is taken into care they immediately have an assessment from a mental health professional to look at any issues, which then leads to action that addresses the mental health needs of that person. That does not happen currently. They may be assessed by a doctor or even by a nurse, but there is no concentration on mental health. The NSPCC is very concerned about this. I would appreciate it if the Minister and the relevant Health Minister would consider meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, the chair of CAFCASS, and the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers to discuss better meeting the mental health needs of young people entering care. This would benefit placement stability and adoption.

I have taken far too long. I apologise. I warmly welcome the Bill, particularly its aspects concerning improving the adoption process. I look forward to working with noble Lords on the Bill.