Clause 6
Education and Inspections Bill
12:45 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I do not have a feeling of that, but the hon. Gentleman asks an important question. It is something that we should seek to flush out from the Minister. It is important to get an accurate assessment, not just a feeling, of how many schools are fulfilling that requirement and how many are falling short. Let us bear in mind that it is a bare minimum requirement. If we are to transform attitudes among our young people, two hours a week is not really enough. Of course, the two hours a week in school needs to be supplemented by a number of hours outside school. That is where the clause comes in.
My second point is that within the national curriculum, to my recollection, there is an intention that all young people will have learned to swim by the age of 11. I am not sure that we have yet achieved that. My feeling is that we are some way short of it, but it is again important to identify precisely the levels of achievement of young people. It is not just an issue of recreation and pleasurable physical activity; it can be an issue of life or death in certain extreme circumstances. The Olympics give us an excellent opportunity to strengthen the role of swimming in our schools.
Thirdly, I wish to draw attention to the report of the Select Committee on Education and Skills published last year entitled “Education Outside the Classroom”. It contains a number of positive recommendations to strengthen the extra-curricular work done by schools, and I hope that it has contributed to turning the tide in favour of a much more positive attitude towards taking children outside the school, not only on longer-term expeditions but using the immediate environment as the content of educational experience. One or two of the amendments in this group refer to that matter. We need to open a much bigger debate on the way in which the immediate environment outside the school, school visits to places of interest, outward bound centres and, in certain circumstances, overseas visits, can enrich the curriculum and young people’s experience.