Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, this is a long and complex Bill, and all I wish to do today is flag up some areas which I think merit further exploration. It is good to see in the first sentences of the Bill the duties of local education authorities to promote high standards and the fulfilment of potential. No one here would disagree that this is the right of every young person. It is how we go about it that may cause some differences of opinion. I very much welcome the reference to the desired outcomes of Every Child Matters in Clause 6. Those outcomes are, of course, physical and mental health and emotional well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made by the child to society; and social and economic well-being. I wish that that reference to Every Child Matters permeated the Bill more, and I shall want to come back to this. I also very much welcome the fact that a national association for personal, social and health education has been established and I thank the Minister for informing me about it. However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that PSHE should be a statutory entitlement for all pupils in all schools because it underpins the development of confident, healthy children—a prerequisite for achievement. As other noble Lords have said, there are many good things in the Bill. Among others are improving nutrition in schools, providing adequate recreational facilities at the local level, collaboration with FE, and educating teenage parents and looked-after children. All these are positive developments, and I shall want to discuss further the position with regard to young carers who also frequently find themselves in difficulty at school because of their role in looking after a parent or sibling. I have said on many occasions that this Government have done more than any other to improve children’s lives. As we know, academic success, high standards and potential are often associated with issues of welfare and good parenting, and there has been a real attempt by the Government to lift children and families out of poverty and improve their welfare. Child welfare is not the domain of just one government department, so it is good to see in the Bill, in line with the Children Act, an emphasis on partnerships between agencies at both local and national level. I now want to discuss some concerns I have about the Bill. First, I refer to concerns shared by numerous children’s organisations, including the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, around issues about the rights and welfare of pupils, the importance of listening to and consulting children, and the extension of parenting orders. All this really must be balanced against the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have fundamental concerns about foundation schools and the potential expansion of faith schools, and for a change I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker. I have no political axes to grind here; I am simply passionate about education and how it is a means of offering opportunities for all children to achieve. Education works. I came from a working-class background and became a teacher who saw many children achieving when life chances could have been thought slender. I speak from these Benches with concerns about parts of the Bill because I am passionate about education. I was a Labour school governor and a teacher when comprehensivisation was taking place—with many bitter battles—and I did not think I would ever doubt Labour policy on education. But if I had a good friend who was about to make a mistake, I hope that I would have the courage to tell them, while still valuing them as a person. I value and applaud what the Government have done for children, but I believe that parts of the Bill could detract from their excellent record. We all know what makes a good school. It is about good leadership, good management and good teaching; it is about valuing children. I talk to many parents and teachers. The consensus is that what is needed is a good school as a part of every community. Communities need a good school at their heart. Diversity can be reflected in a well balanced curriculum in both statutory and non-statutory subjects. I have real fears that foundation schools may divide rather than unite communities. I have a real fear that when such schools are faith schools, this, too, may reinforce divisions. We have seen this in Northern Ireland and in many of our cities. As I said earlier, we all want to improve standards and achievement. I ask the Minister: does he not think, given the improvements in standards at primary level, that those improvements will continue as pupils move up the age range? If all pupils have good numeracy and literacy skills at 11, secondary schools will have fewer discipline problems and better achievement levels. We have also set out in the Bill a number of additional systems to improve standards—school improvement partnerships and inspections, for example. Will not all this improve achievement more than yet further restructuring? I cannot understand why a trust can set up a school putting in £2 million, with the Government putting in more than £20 million, yet the trust has much control of the school. Sponsorship in the arts, for example, is much more flexible. A sponsor would not tell the National Theatre how to run its business. Would the £20 million not be better spent in improving existing schools and paying teachers more? I spoke recently to a schools inspector of long experience who said that her experience of academies was that they either changed nothing—in other words, a failing school remained a failing school despite a name change—or they creamed off pupils due to their being new and perceived as exciting, leaving sink schools in their wake. Is this the way we want education to go? Perhaps I may now return to faith schools. As a humanist, the potential increase in the number of faith schools worries me. I am alarmed by the notion of an expansion of state-funded schools controlled by religious interests. I would like to see schools that are open to all; that are inclusive and welcoming of children of all beliefs and backgrounds. Some are, some are not; some will be, some will not. People speak of the excellent ethos of faith schools. An excellent ethos is not the property of faith schools alone. The school where I am a governor could not have a more positive ethos, with its many faiths and cultures in a difficult part of London. I, too, have concerns about the notion of parent councils. How do they tie in with school governing bodies, for example? I hope that the Minister can explain more precisely how, under these proposals, parents will be genuinely involved in school systems. I shall return to these issues at later stages of the Bill. Every Child Matters means that every family matters, every school matters, every community matters. We have come a long way in improving outcomes for every child. What I fear is that some aspects of the Bill may result in some families and some children mattering more than others—something I find contradictory to my hopes for education.