Clause 62 - Academies
Education Bill
10:30 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I apologise to hon. Members, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), for arriving in the middle of those remarks. I was able to hear that he had not progressed so far as the detail of new clause 7, and I want to add a little flesh to its bones. As he said, it would put more power into the hands of the consumers of the education service, and in certain circumstances would require the Secretary of State or the local education authority to take note of the desires of parents, as surrogates for the pupils, for the provision of additional school places.
There may be two different reasons for that desire. First, many local authorities are seeing a rapid increase in their school populations. Traditionally, most local authorities have coped with that not by creating new schools, but by adding a few forms of entry to individual schools. My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) told me this morning in conversation that that is the position in his constituency, and he asked me to draw it to the Committee's attention. The consequence is that some comprehensive schools become extremely large. He foresees the time when three or four of the comprehensive schools that serve his area will have 1,750 pupils.
I taught in a comprehensive school with a similar number of pupils. Such a school presents different challenges from a school of 700 or 1,000 pupils, although those challenges vary depending on the area and the quality of the management and internal organisation of the school. The challenges to organisation are one thing, but the challenges to the pupils are entirely different. In many cases, pupils find it difficult to adapt, especially when they have been in small, rural primary schools. It is hard to move rapidly from a primary school of, say, 60 pupils to a
comprehensive school of 1,750 pupils, however good its internal organisation.
With 12 forms of 30 or so pupils each, there would be more than 240 pupils in a year group. Such a group would be far bigger than a child aged 11 would be used to coping with. Not unreasonably, parents believe that they should have a choice when such a choice can be realistically provided, and that there should not simply be a constant bolting-on of more permanent classes, let alone temporary ones, to existing schools. That is one reason why it would be right to enable parents to express a view about the need for new schools or academies to be provided, which is why we have tabled the new clause.
The second reason is the quality of the schools available. I have detained the Committee for far too long with stories from my experience to want to go over them all again, but the quality of education is not what it ought to be in some areas. Parents in those areas have to hope to be lucky enough to get their children into faith schools, because they do not have sufficient confidence in the community schools available to express first preference for any of them. In parts of London and, for all I know, other parts of the country, there are simply not sufficient places available that parents are prepared to put as their first preference. As a consequence, we have seen an efflux of pupils from inner London to the outer London boroughs. There is congestion in the schools of outer London boroughs, as well as serious traffic problems and severe dissatisfaction with the education available.
Some local authorities seem prepared to respond to the problem, but others do not. I welcome the fact that some seem able to respond, but we cannot simply leave the problem to local authorities if they are unwilling to respond to the demand of parents for adequate education. Nor, realistically, can we leave schools that are not satisfactory, and in which parents do not have confidence, in the hope that they will improve. Of course they should do so, but we cannot leave the problem until they do. A school that takes three years to improve takes three years out of the education of even those pupils who join it once the need for improvement has been recognised, let alone those who attended it beforehand.
Think how difficult it must be for parents in inner London boroughs who know that they are not of the Catholic faith and cannot apply to Catholic schools, know that they do not live near to perhaps the single community school that is not failing, does not have serious weaknesses or does not lack the confidence of the local community, and are not fortunate enough to gain admission for their children to city academies. I welcome the Government's creation of such academies in inner London boroughs and elsewhere, in the model of our city technology colleges. Think how difficult it must be if one is forced to send one's child to a school in which one does not have confidence, and if the only hope on the horizon is that three or four years down the line, the school will go through Ofsted inspections and special measures and drag itself up.
There is a serious weakness in the supply of good quality schools. It is a supply issue, so the demands of parents have to be realistically taken into account. I
genuinely welcome the Government's proposals for city academies, and their work to provide new schools in some areas with the support of sensible local education authorities, but not enough has yet been done. The new clause is designed to set out a procedure whereby parents can draw the need for additional schools to the attention of the local education authority in respect of schools, or of the Secretary of State in respect of academies. We suggest that when a small group of parents puts together an initial proposal, which must not be too detailed or onerous a task, when several parents have shown support for that proposal and when the proposal has been delivered to one or other of the prescribed persons—the Secretary of State or the local education authority—those authorities should be required to consider whether the proposal is realistic.
People should be able to say when they are not satisfied with what the council is providing and that they want a school of their own, as parents did in Bermondsey at the beginning of the last academic year, supported by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). I am glad that the council in that area was prepared to work with the hon. Gentleman, and helped to provide a school to tide over those parents until the Government's proposal for a city academy came on stream. In some areas, however, people will not be so fortunate. They may not be represented by a Member of Parliament who believes that they are right to take up such a cause. They might not have such a responsible local authority or a Secretary of State with her ear as close to the ground; one reason why her ear was so close to the ground in this case is that Southwark is only five miles from this place. People in other parts of the country do not have such an intimate communication with the Secretary of State, either through their councillors or through other means, but they should be able to bring to the Secretary of State's attention the need for an additional school. The Secretary of State or local authority should consider the proposal and, as we suggest in subsection (e) of the new clause, either reject it in writing, giving reasons so that those who made the proposal understand its rejection, or use their
''best endeavours to establish a new school or academy broadly conforming to the initial proposal.''
As we have said, we are not referring to the kind of proposal found under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998; it is not a formal proposal on which consultation is carried out. That is a job for the authorities, but the authorities would then have to use their best endeavours to create a new school or academy in line with the rest of this part of the Bill.
We set out the reasons why the Secretary of State might, rightly, consider rejecting the proposal. He does not have to reject the proposal in those circumstances, but he can do so. As always, we have allowed the Secretary of State latitude to introduce additional reasons for the rejection of proposals, given that we may not have been quick enough to include them in the amendment. Subsection (f)(iv) says that
''the Secretary of State may add''
other reasons
''by regulations to be approved by both Houses.''
Our proposal is an imaginative attempt to enable parents, when they are seriously dissatisfied with education provision, to ask the Secretary of State or local authority to take their concerns seriously and think about establishing one of the new schools of the kind that the Government are proposing. They should be able to ask the Secretary of State or local authority to do for them what was done for the constituency of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey with the support of Southwark council. That is how to satisfy parents.
I am convinced that it contributes greatly to the success of a school if the pupils want to be there, if the school has the confidence of the parents and is a community effort. The school should not have to act in isolation with a group of pupils who are there reluctantly, however good the school is, because they could not get into the school of their choice.