Clause 6
Education and Inspections Bill
4:00 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I shall continue from the point at which we were interrupted.
I was referring to a report last year by the Select Committee on Education and Skills that I hoped would be a turning pointing in the debate on the importance of education outside of the classroom. Certain things must be in place if we are going to strengthen and diversify the extra-curricular activities that I think were much stronger in years past. The functions of local authorities and their capacities to provide the facilities listed under proposed new sections 507A and 507B make an important contribution.
There is a link between the importance of physical activity—sport, physical education, Outward Bound expeditions such as hill climbing, and the great range of physical activities in which young people can get involved—and the wider concerns about children’s health. There is an important section in the Bill on health and diet, but it seems to me that that and the matter before us must be considered together as part of a coherent approach to raising standards of health and physical well-being among young people.
Finally, I have a slight reservation about clause 6 that it is important to flag up. The clause focuses on recreation and physical activity, but does not refer specifically to cultural activities and the role of dance, drama and music as important aspects of the wider out-of-school curriculum. I shall draw attention to the success of the creative partnership scheme that the Government initiated in recent years, and from which 36 local authorities—I think—can now benefit. The scheme is directed particularly at parts of the country and schools in which there is not a strong tradition of cultural activity; it enables schools to embark on a range of artistic, cultural and musical activities and to open up areas of experience that children might have not enjoyed previously—visits to theatres and concerts and from theatre groups, poets, writers and artists in residence. That is an excellent activities programme, and I hope that in due course it might extend the principles that underlie the creative partnership scheme to all local authorities and schools in the country. With that I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to the issues that I have raised.