Education Bill

My Lords, when we talked in a previous debate about the Bill’s approach of removing what the Government see as burdens from schools, I said that I and my colleagues had approached this issue not simply by arguing, as we go through these detailed debates, that everything that the Government want to take out should be put back. I hope that the Minister can see that we have been selective and judicious with our amendments in this regard. Like the duty to co-operate, Clause 6 would repeal a duty on secondary schools to co-operate with other schools to promote good behaviour, discipline and attendance, and also to make an annual report to the Children’s Trust on how they have done so. I move the amendment only because, like the duty to co-operate, we think that the repeal of this particular duty on behaviour and attendance partnerships will have such a negative effect on some of the things that the Government actually say that they want to achieve. The amendment would reinstate the duty to enter into behaviour and attendance partnerships but remove the duty to produce an annual report. We have no difficulty supporting that part, but the duty to co-operate with other schools in partnerships to tackle behaviour, discipline and attendance are very important, not least because of the debate we had not long ago on exclusions and that entire discussion about behaviour and discipline. Everybody in that debate, including the Minister, said that we want exclusions to be a last resort. We want schools to work to prevent exclusions by having a strong, robust but comprehensive approach to inculcating good behaviour and dealing with discipline problems in a creative way so that they do not have to exclude pupils. That is what behaviour and attendance partnerships are all about. They came into being following Sir Alan Steer’s review of behaviour, in which he said: "““It remains my firm view that all secondary schools—including new and existing Academies, Foundation schools and Pupil Referral units—should participate in behaviour partnerships””." I know that the Minister may well come back and say, ““Look, we think partnerships are a good idea but we want schools to participate in them voluntarily. We don’t think this duty is a good idea because, to be meaningful, a partnership is best when everybody is committed and enters into partnership voluntarily””. What Alan Steer’s review pointed to was the fact that good collaboration between schools over these issues is often prevented by what are perceived, by other schools in the area, to be unfair practices by a minority of schools over such things as admissions and exclusions. The resentment that that engenders because of some schools behaving unfairly and not collaborating with others means that the whole approach to partnership is damaged and fragmented, and that it becomes very difficult to get partnerships going. He also said that such partnerships sometimes need a helping hand to become established. They need the kind of momentum that a duty on all schools equally to participate can create. This clause, among others, is in real danger of fragmenting that approach among schools in an area. If the duty to participate in partnerships is repealed, a lot of good work that has been done under the umbrella of those partnerships will be jeopardised. What partnerships enable schools to do, as well as to get support from each other on particular approaches, is often very practical. For instance, they can pool resources to employ specialist staff—maybe a psychiatric social worker or a parent support worker—that individual schools, particularly small ones, could not afford on their own. Similarly, on exclusions, that kind of collaboration will allow schools to discuss individual pupils with each other and perhaps set in train some managed moves when it is clear that, for a variety of reasons, a child cannot stay in one school but can, through the co-operation that has taken place in the partnership, be accepted by another school in that partnership. That school would have full knowledge of what the difficulties are because they would have been discussed openly and transparently. There could also be some reciprocity between those two schools in that shift from one school to the other, to help the receiving school take that child. Given the issues that we discussed earlier and the ideal that we all share of exclusions being a last resort, that is surely a good thing. I am also concerned that the removal of the duty could reduce parents’ ability to get access to support for a child with behavioural problems. Those resources just will not be available to individual schools in the same way. There is a danger of cutting parents out of that system. I shall not detain the Committee for very long on this, but not because it is not important—it is very important. The issues are very clear, particularly when we put this in the context of some of the other measures proposed in the Bill. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response. This is not a negative duty on schools; it is a positive duty that promotes collaboration and partnership over some of the most difficult behavioural and disciplinary issues that schools must deal with. It means that they are not on their own in dealing with them and that they can develop local responses in an area across a group of schools, which is very positive.