Clause 17
Education and Inspections Bill
5:15 pm
Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)
The amendments are paving amendments for new clause 6, which we have tabled to explore further the model that the Government have in mind for trust schools, and to offer a particular model based on collaboration. Elements of our concerns and our reasons for tabling the amendments have been picked up in the guidance and the helpful document that was circulated at the end of this morning’s sitting. However, there are other elements that we want to probe further, and we would like to place on record why we favour a more collaborative model.
Let me first place the issue in context. As we have said in Committee and on the Floor of the House, we are not opposed in principle to external partners being involved in education provision. However, we have sought to put on record, both here and elsewhere, details of the safeguards governing the types of organisation that would be involved. We have also said that we would not want an external partner to usurp the direct accountability that parents currently enjoy through the governing body. We will discuss some of those issues shortly when we come to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Bury, North. We are also unhappy about giving schools greater freedom on admissions, although we are happy to give them greater financial freedom and would like all schools to have greater freedom in dealing with the curriculum, as academies currently do.
Critically, any model should include collaboration, and that is why we tabled the amendments. On page 4 of the document that was circulated at the end of our morning sitting, the Government make provision for a group of local schools to work with a trust, and that touches on many of the issues that we are raising, but we would like to broaden that provision. It is important that a trust involves collaboration between schools or between schools and colleges or other providers. In that way, the trust will be embedded in the local community, rather than just being part of a national chain, in which case its concerns and objectives might relate more to the national brand and the national profile than to what was good for the local community.
The model that we propose would have the benefit of preventing cherry-picking. It would prevent trusts from coming into an area and picking off the good schools, rather than working to benefit all the schools in the area.