Clause 44 - Categories of schools causing concern
Education Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Mrs Angela Watkinson (Shadow Minister, Education; Upminster, Conservative)
We move now to the clause dealing with categories of schools causing concern. The new regime has reduced the range of categories that define a school as failing or needing to go into special measures. These are simple amendments. On amendment No. 20, we think that it is important to identify a school that is likely to fail and to help it not to do so before it happens. On the principle that prevention is better than cure, identifying a school as likely to fail and dealing with procedures to prevent it from going into crisis would be an important measure and an improvement to the Bill. It would save some schools from being identified as failing before they reached crisis point. That is the reason for inserting those few words—to clarify the term “failing” and to introduce a different category of schools that have not quite reached that stage and could be prevented from doing so.
Amendment No. 21, at page 29, line 29, would, in effect, delete paragraph (b) from that category, which reads:
“the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.”