My Lords, I will speak to the group containing Amendments 1, 2, 5, 7 and 9, which concern coasting schools, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson, Lord Hunt and Lord Addington, and by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Bakewell. Before doing so, I will say that at the recent Third Reading of the Childcare Bill I wished the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, who has been the Front Bench spokesman on education throughout my time in this job, well with her new brief. I did not realise at the time that the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, was also leaving the education Front Bench and going back to his old brief of defence, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish him all the best with his new brief. It has been a pleasure working with him.
It has also been a pleasure discussing the Education and Adoption Bill with noble Lords both on and off the Floor of the Chamber. I hope that all noble Lords who attended the meetings with regional schools commissioners, head teacher board members and multi-academy trust chief executives on Monday found it useful. It is refreshing that on the 410th anniversary of the gunpowder plot we can take comfort from the fact
that we are no longer a society divided, as our country was 410 years ago, and that there is cross-party support for the central thrust and purpose of this Bill.
As this is the first group of amendments, I hope that noble Lords will permit me to remind everybody of the purpose of this legislation, which is to ensure that every child, regardless of background, has the opportunity to go to a good school. That means dealing with failure swiftly, as a day spent in a failing school for a child is a day of their education lost forever. We made this absolutely clear in our manifesto, on the basis of which we were elected to government.
So where a school is failing, the legislation proposes that it will become an academy forthwith. Also, for the first time, and as we also stated in our manifesto, we are bringing coasting schools into scope. This is about putting children first. But we must do this in a way which is clear to all and is practicable, and I must say, as I will elaborate, I have some real concerns about practicality of the amendments proposed to the coasting definition.
Clause 1 of the Bill gives a power to the Secretary of State to make regulations defining which schools will be deemed to be coasting, and therefore eligible for intervention. To assist noble Lords’ scrutiny of this clause, we published draft regulations in June setting out our proposed definition and have also launched a public consultation on the proposed definition. The definition provides a clear and transparent data-based approach. The policy is about identifying schools which are failing to fulfil the potential of their pupils over time. We have therefore consciously chosen to base the definition on three years’ performance data, rather than a single Ofsted judgment or a snapshot of a single year’s results. As noble Lords have said, Ofsted judgments can often be rather backward-looking, excellent though they generally are.
From 2016, primary and secondary schools will be held to account against new headline accountability measures. Given that our proposed definition looks at data over three years, under this definition it would be 2018 before schools have three years of data reflecting these new metrics. It is important that we do not wait until then to tackle coasting schools. So our draft regulations contain an interim measure for 2014 and 2015 which is based on the current headline accountability measures familiar to schools, as well as the measure that will apply from 2016 onwards. A school must be below the coasting bar across three years in order to be deemed to be coasting and to become eligible for intervention.
From 2016, the proposed coasting definition for secondary schools will be based on Progress 8. Progress 8 is a measure which has been well received by schools and head teachers. It is a robust metric, based on the progress a pupil makes in eight GCSEs when compared to pupils with the same starting point. At least five of those GCSEs have to be in English baccalaureate subjects. As the measure compares the results of pupils against those with a similar starting point in other schools, it clearly focuses on whether schools are fulfilling the potential of all their pupils and makes it an ideal metric on which to assess whether a school is coasting—and it moves away from what Tristram Hunt so accurately described as the great crime of the C/D borderline.
For primary schools, we think it is right that the coasting definition includes both an attainment and a progress element. For a primary school to be identified as coasting, it must fall below the bar on both attainment and progress in all three years. Attainment is critical for primary schools as there is an absolute standard which pupils need to reach to be able to make a successful start in secondary school. In 2016, the attainment bar for the coasting measure will be 85% of pupils meeting the new expected standard in reading, writing and maths.
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Progress is also a critical part of the proposed coasting definition for primary schools. The progress element is again calculated by comparing the results of pupils with similar starting points. If a school has fewer than 85% of pupils meeting the new expected attainment standard, but the new primary progress measure shows that pupils are making good progress from their starting point, that school will not be regarded as coasting.