Clause 86 - development work and experiments
Education Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 263, in page 56, line 30, at end insert:
''(1A) For the purpose of enabling development work to be carried out, a school outside the maintained sector may be fully admitted to the maintained sector during which the National Curriculum shall not apply. If the experiment was considered successful, the school would continue as part of the maintained sector.''
This afternoon's sitting started well. The Minister accepted good, common-sense amendments and offered to bring them back in the form that he preferred later in the proceedings. I hope that we may continue in a similar vein, and that Ministers will accept that amendment No. 263 does not seek to undermine the Government's intentions, but pushes in the same direction as ministerial rhetoric and the overall thrust of the Bill. Clause 86 sets out certain special cases in which the curriculum may be suspended to enable
''development work and experiments to be carried out''.
The clause appears to limit those circumstances. The disapplication can take place only in a maintained school or maintained nursery school, and only for a specified period that is set out in guidance. Through the inclusion of new subsection (1A), amendment No. 263 would widen the circumstances in which it was possible for Ministers to disapply the curriculum in order to encourage experiments and development work. The amendment would extend beyond existing maintained or nursery schools to allow
''a school outside the maintained sector''
to be
''fully admitted to the maintained sector''
for the purpose of development work. For an experimental period, the national curriculum would not apply. The amendment states:
''If the experiment was considered successful, the school would continue as part of the maintained sector.''
If Ministers are genuine in their desire to promote development and experiment, and if they really welcome the innovation that might occur through
disapplying the curriculum for a time and in particular respects, they should be open to the possibility that the maintained sector will improve if we accept various types of schools. The Steiner-Waldorf schools are an example, although many alternative approaches to education are, or may in the future, be practised in this country.
If Ministers were to accept the amendment, they would leave the door open for the maintained sector to accept schools with teaching methods or curriculums that prohibited them from entering that sector, although the amendment is permissive and does not oblige schools to do so. In order to facilitate that, such schools will be allowed the same disapplication of curriculum requirements as that which the Bill will allow maintained schools. That is a simple point, against which it is difficult to argue.
I hope that Ministers will consider the amendment as an opportunity to underline their commitment to innovation and exciting experiment. I am hopeful that they will give it a fair wind.