Education (Merseyside)

John Pugh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on having started this crucial debate. I do not know about you, Sir Roger, but I think that we hon. Members often find ourselves talking in this place about things we do not know a great deal about. Happily, I do not think I am in that position today, because I spent 30 years teaching in a variety of schools on Merseyside. I was married to a supply teacher who taught all over Merseyside. I have been a member of a local education authority and a school governor. I have had four children educated on Merseyside, and I even started my education in, I believe, the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, at Corinthian Avenue Primary School, if it is still there. The hon. Gentleman is nodding his head, so it must be.

I want to make just a couple of observations. Liverpool and Merseyside are seen as problematic in educational terms, but as Michael Wilshaw said in drawing attention to some of the problems:

“Are you really telling me that they lack swagger and dynamism? That they cannot succeed in the way London has succeeded? These are the cities that built Britain. They pioneered a modern, civic education”.

When I think of the history of Liverpool and Merseyside education, I think of a number of cracking schools, or schools that have been very good quality. Some of the names are now historical; some of the names have been changed, and sometimes the structures of the schools have been changed, but I am thinking of St Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool Collegiate School, Quarry Bank and even Ruffwood in its pomp. I also think of Blue Coat, Alsop, Holly Lodge, the Liverpool Institute, which I know has gone but which my dad went to, as did two members of the Beatles, Prescot Grammar School, which I attended, De La Salle, St Margaret’s, St Julie’s and so on. There are a lot of good schools in that mix, and a lot of very eminent people were pupils at those schools. Incidentally, many of the schools that are now wholly private, such as Blue Coat, started off as schools with a particular impetus to address the needs of the most deprived children in Liverpool. There is a great academic tradition there, and we ought not to be in any way shy about declaring that.

Unfortunately, there has also been quite a mediocre tradition, in terms of technical education, and there is another less commendable tradition in the area: many families and many generations across Merseyside have seen education as a necessary evil—as a time-consuming interlude before the real world of work. In the past, that meant the docks, car factories, wholesale distribution or whatever. We can call that low aspiration, but at one time it was a perfectly realistic aspiration, because there were those jobs. Sadly, there are not those jobs now. The world has moved on, but attitudes have not shifted across Merseyside quite as quickly, so there is a problem that we need to face up to. The problem is that it is a low-skill economy. Despite all efforts in the past to do a great deal about that, not a lot has changed over the last few decades. There is low educational attainment in certain areas. What worries all of us, including, I know, the Minister, is the tale of girls and boys who simply do not achieve what they should, and who face a problematic employment future.

I know that the solution is pretty complex. It is multifactorial; schools are only part of the solution. We have to address such issues as housing, employment and family structure. However, it strikes me that the educational fix is pretty clear; it was well laid out by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. Good early-years education is crucial, as is family support alongside that for those people who are unable to support their children in the way that we might hope. Strong school leadership is pivotal, and explains the destiny of some of the schools that I mentioned. Morale, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is also crucial, because it is no good having a great leader if he is not followed by troops who are persuaded that he is doing the right thing and are supportive of the task. Capital and revenue resource clearly makes a difference, and underpins the success of programmes such as the London Challenge. Also necessary is an intolerance of failure, which the Minister has voiced on several occasions.

The interesting thing about that solution, which I think we would all recognise and buy into, is that it is, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) said, very little to do with most of the Government’s initiatives at the moment, which are all to do with structure. How changing schools to grammar schools or academisation actually delivers these things eludes me. What seems deficient—the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby mentioned the Liverpool city region—is a vehicle for local delivery, something that could make a London Challenge in Liverpool, because ensuring that there are good schools across the area cannot be done piecemeal. It is easy to get some good schools here, some indifferent schools there, and some sink schools elsewhere.

We need a powerful strategic player, and traditionally that has been the local authority’s role. As the Minister will not be slow to point out, some local authorities have failed. To be fair to the right hon. Member for Knowsley, over the years Knowsley has struggled badly. Equally, mayors can fail; for whatever reason, Mayor Anderson has not delivered on the 2012 ambition he set himself. Local authorities are a key player and need to be burdened with that task. Too often, historically, local authorities have been slightly obsessed with what we might call their premium brand; the mayor always showed up to the grammar school for speech day, but was not necessarily there when other schools had similar events. We need local authorities in this because we have to ensure equity of outcome, proper prioritisation across the piece, and that what is delivered in education is economically and socially relevant.

Wholesale educational improvement, which the debate is about, is a community task—it is a community treasure when delivered—but it is definitely in the whole community’s interest. I fail to see how we can do that without reinventing the LEA in some form or other, to give proper strategic leadership to the task presenting itself to us.