Education Return and Awarding Qualifications in 2021

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, yes, the summer school programme is focused on those in secondary schools for the reason that they have less time left in education. As I say, we are encouraging year 7 because of that transition year. There will be enrichment activities as well as education. There will be further information on this for schools and I reiterate that this is in addition to the holiday and activities fund that is running those activities in disadvantaged communities—so it is summer schools plus that.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the risk here is not grade inflation. It is the exact opposite. It is that pupils from poor or overcrowded homes, with special needs, or from schools that provided fewer online lessons, will not get the grades that they would have if they had not missed a year’s education, and their prospects for the future will never recover. I know that the Government have provided laptops, but lots of pupils are still missing out. There is a huge difference between the amount of online teaching provided by different schools. Will the Government agree that schools and exam boards should err on the generous side and take into account a pupil’s ability and the grades they would have got had they not been robbed of a year’s proper teaching, so that they can go on to the apprenticeship or the college or the university that they would otherwise have been able to.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, this method of assessment for grades means that teachers can take into account how much content has actually been taught. We have not mandated a minimum level, but they should be assessed using these materials only on what they have been taught—obviously not on what they have not been taught—so the teachers can know what content the child can be assessed upon. This should help with the differential learning loss. In relation to disadvantaged pupils, the £302 million of Covid premium is actually based on pupil premium—so we are targeting that at the most disadvantaged students.