Clause47
Education and Inspections Bill
12:15 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 453, in clause 47,page 34, line 34, leave out ‘fifteenth' and insert‘twentieth'.
Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to discuss thefollowing amendments: No. 454, in clause 47, page 36, line 13, leaveout ‘fifteenth' and insert‘twentieth'.
No.455, in clause 47, page 36, line 15, leave out from ‘means' toend of line 17 and insert
‘any day of the total number of days uponwhich teachers are required to be available for work at the school inaccordance with an order made under section 122 of the Education Act2002'.
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
The amendments deal with the compliance period within which schools have to respond to the issuing of a warning notice. The amendments are to do with the practical consequences of the compliance period. Amendments Nos. 453 and 454 would simply change the Bill’s proposal for a compliance period of 15 days to one of 20 days. Although I fully accept that a school that is likely to receive a warning notice from a local authority will not be surprised by it—there will have been a period of many months, and sometimes years, during which the school’s difficulties have been discussed—15 days still seems an extremely short period for a school to decide whether it wishes to challenge the warning notice by appealing to the chief inspector of schools, hence the suggestion for 20 working days rather than 15.
Amendment No. 455 would simply ensure that the ending of the compliance period does not fall within the school holidays. Regardless of the arguments about whether teachers have too long a period of holiday in summer, it serves no practical purpose for the period of notice to fall within that holiday period, or any other school holiday period, if the school is to be in the strongest possible position to respond intelligently to the warning notice issued—either to accept it, or to decide to appeal against it. These three short amendments are intended simply to improve the practicalities of the workings of the warning notice system.
Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)
We are sympathetic to the amendments; they seem to us to be extremely sensible. Fifteen days is indeed a very short period in which to call what would undoubtedly be an emergency meeting of the governing body to consider all the evidence and to draft any response, and to expect a school to do that during the school holidays would be entirely unreasonable. We encourage the Government to accept this Labour amendment—they might be more willing to agree to a Labour amendment than a Liberal Democrat amendment.
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
I fear that the hon. Lady feels victimised. I will not disappoint her by dealing unevenly with her and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North.
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
At such an early stage, before I have even started developing my argument, it would be a pleasure to do so.
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
Will the Minister remind me how many amendments he or his predecessor has accepted in this Committee—apart from the Government’s, of course?
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
We listen carefully to the arguments that are made, and we have made it clear that there are some issues on which we want to reflect. As ever, we are informed by the wise words of all Committee members, even if sometimes we disagree with them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North seeks to amend clause 47, which is about the need for some schools to address issues on standards more seriously and urgently than they have done in the past. Under the current system, there are some opportunities for delay and procrastination, and I am concerned that the amendments might enable a few contumacious governing bodies to do that.
In the first place, my hon. Friend has argued that20 days for a response to a warning is more reasonable than 15, but 15 days—three working weeks—is not unreasonable since we are not necessarily expecting a full remedy from the school. I emphasise a point made in the draft guidance on the issue from my hon. Friend. The school has 15 working days to comply with the warning notice to the authority’s satisfaction. That may not involve a full rectification of the specific problem since it may not be practicable to do so in that time scale, but it will undoubtedly involve the positive steps towards the solution.
Secondly, in relation to amendment No. 455 my hon. Friend has argued, in effect, that all those actions need to be carried out in term time. I beg to differ given that, in an extreme case, a situation could arise in July that would then have to be shelved until September and then occupy or possibly distract the school for the crucial first four weeks of the autumn term. I am sure that the vast majority of head teachers and education professionals would regard that this issue should have an absolute priority and may need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. The legal onus is in any event on the governing body and not directly on classroom teachers.
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
Will the Minister clarify whether in circumstances of extreme urgency—where children were considered to be at risk for health and safety reasons—the local authority would still be empowered to intervene immediately and not have to wait for the end of the 15-day compliance period?
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
Yes. In circumstances of extreme emergency we would expect it to do so. Local authorities should be realistic, however. I have listened to my hon. Friend and I suspect that there will be relatively few times when the need for warning emerges just before school holidays. I will consider whether we need to add a sentence or so to the guidance to make that point, particularly in respect of the timing of issuing notices, to ensure that the urgent work that must be carried out is done while the school is sitting. I hope on that basis the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I am grateful for those reassurances and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Frank Cook (Stockton North, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 162, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert
‘or
(d) that the school fails to deliver improved well-being for all pupils in that school.'.
No. 173, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert
‘or
(d) that OFSTED has graded the school as no better than satisfactory or poor.'.
No. 174, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert
‘or
(d) the value added measure of the school's performance lies within the fourth quartile compared to the value added measures of all schools nationally.'.
No. 175, in clause 47, page 35, line 17, at end insert
‘or
(d) that for the years 2006 and 2007 fewer than 25 per cent. of pupils achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including both English and mathematics, or
(e) that from 2008 onwards fewer than 30 per cent. or more of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including both English and mathematics.'.
No. 163, in clause 47, page 36, line 17, at end add—
‘ “well-being”, in relation to a pupil, means his well-being so far as it relates to—
(a) physical and mental health and emotional well-being;
(b) protection from harm and neglect;
(c) education, training and recreation;
(d) the contribution made by him to society; and
(e) social and economic well-being.'.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
Clause 47 and the subsequent clauses in part 4 of the Bill are important. Many of the provisions are re-enactments of previous legislation but there are new powers designed to tackle failure, underperformance and complacency wherever they exist in our school system. The Conservative party fully supports that objective.
Paragraph 13.7 of the regulatory impact assessment at page 137 says,
“It is unacceptable for any school to provide a low standard of education for its pupils irrespective of location or background of the pupils”.
We agree with that statement 100 per cent., as we do the statement in paragraph 5 of the draft guidance on schools causing concern circulated to members of the Committee on 19 April, which says,
“we know that there are still pupils who are let down by attending poorly performing or failing schools for too long...Our ambition is that every school should be a good school”.
According to the National Audit Office, 980,000 pupils are attending poorly performing schools. Twenty-three per cent of secondary schools are regarded as poorly performing. As of January 2006 there were 232 schools in special measures; of those, 47 primary schools and 43 secondary schools have been in special measures for over 12 months. Of those 232 schools in special measures, only six primary schools and four secondary schools are regarded as making sufficient progress to leave special measures in the near future.
I will come to the measures proposed to deal with those schools when we come to clause 49, but I noticed that in paragraph 4 of the draft guidance the Government highlight the fact that the number of schools that Ofsted has put into special measures has dropped from 515 in 1998 to 242 by the summer of 2005. I think that it is a mistake to turn special measures into a target or a measure of progress in improving schools. There is a huge degree of professional subjectivity in determining when a school should be put into special measures. Turning that into a target will inevitably result in pressure on Ofsted to ease up on schools that ought to be in special measures, to demonstrate that the Government—or the next Government—and Ofsted are delivering better schools.
Clause 47 is about early intervention in schools before they reach the crisis point at which an Ofsted inspection concludes that they require significant improvement or need to be put into special measures. Paragraph 7 of the draft guidance states that the aim is
“to enable earlier action where there is evidence that this is required to ensure underperformance does not become entrenched”.
The Bill re-enacts swathes of previous legislation on local authority powers over schools, but adds a few more provisions. In relation to clause 47, the regulatory impact assessment reads:
“Currently, the existing power for local authorities to warn a school is too complex and limited in scope.”
Paragraph 27 of the draft guidance states:
“There is a strong justification, therefore, for updating LAs’ powers to give formal warnings and use their powers of intervention. Currently the system is somewhat cumbersome, and depends on a restricted definition of performance.”
That is the performance that would trigger the powers under clause 47 to which the amendments are related.
Clause 47(2) gives three broad categories of poor school performance that could trigger a warning notice from a local authority: standards of performance that are unacceptably low and likely to remain so, a breakdown in management, and the safety of pupils being under threat. Taking the first of those categories—the performance of the school—amendment No. 173 would define unacceptably low performance as that for which
“OFSTED has graded the school as no better than satisfactory or poor.”
As members of the Committee know, Ofsted awards four grades to schools under the new inspection arrangements: excellent, good, satisfactory or poor. Satisfactory grades are currently given to about 30 per cent. of schools inspected. As paragraph 13.8 of the regulatory impact assessment says:
“The new Ofsted inspection framework challenges all schools to be “good” or “excellent”. “Satisfactory” is no longer good enough — as that may mean that some children will not achieve their full potential.”
In amendment No. 173, therefore, we seek to include in clause 47(2) the standard that the Government and the Opposition agree is unacceptably low: schools providing no more than a satisfactory standard of education.
Amendment No. 174 would include in clause 47(2) another definition of poor performance: that a school’s value-added measure lies within the fourth quartile of the national league table. The amendment is remarkably similar to the measure of poor performance set out in paragraph 33 of the draft guidance, and I hasten to add that our amendments were tabled some weeks before the guidance was issued. I mention that not to demonstrate prescience but to highlight how much in tune the Opposition are with the Government’s thinking on tackling underperformance in our state schools. When it comes to driving up the quality of education and challenging poor performance, the Government will find full support from those on the Opposition Benches for measures that we believe will raise standards.
Paragraph 33 of the draft guidance gives examples of circumstances that should trigger a warning notice to the governing body of a school. One such example says:
“The school is in the bottom quartile, and probably in the bottom decile, nationally, on one or more key performance indicators. These would focus on contextual value added data which takes into account prior performance, deprivation etc., but could also include, for example, low attainment rates, aggregate point scores and exclusion and truancy data.”
That is not a million miles from our amendment, except that we use the word “fourth” instead of “bottom” and suggest the use of the value-added measure rather than contextual value-added data, which is being piloted and will, I suspect, receive mixed reviews. I recently visited a school in the north of England that is regarded as “excellent” by Ofsted and has a very high value-added score, but would have a score some way lower than 1,000 under the contextual value-added measure. The view of the head teacher is that the basis on which points are added or subtracted for the contextual purpose bears no resemblance to the reality of the advantages and challenges. We need to take great care in plunging headlong into this subjective measure for assessing schools, which will, under the new two-day Ofsted inspection regime, provide the bulk of the data and information informing the inspectors’ view of the school.
The paragraph from which I have just quoted also talks about using exclusion data, which would also be a mistake and would provide a perverse incentive to head teachers not to exclude a pupil, even where he or she should be excluded. That is another example of the care that needs to be taken in using measures to assess schools that can easily be manipulated by those who benefit from the data.
Amendment No. 175 would provide two more definitions of poor performance to the current criteria in clause 47(2), relating to what the Government have termed a “floor target” of performance. Paragraph 13.8 of the regulatory impact assessment says that this is an absolute measure and sets out the targets as follows:
“in all schools at least 25% of pupils will achieve five or more A*-C GCSEs by 2006 and 30% by 2008”.
Compare that with schools like Thomas Telford, where 100 per cent. of the pupils achieve 12 GCSEs at A* to C, including English and Maths, although it takes a banded intake based on national data and 11 per cent. of pupils qualify for free school meals. It is unacceptable that there are so many schools where 75 per cent. or more of pupils do not achieve five good GCSEs. Amendment No. 175 would incorporate in subsection (2) the definition of unacceptably low performance contained in the Government’s “floor target” definition.
If the Government do not accept that the three different, but not mutually exclusive, definitions of performance to be regarded as unacceptably low should not be included in the Bill, will the Minister explain why those definitions have not been included in the draft guidance on schools causing concern? The three definitions that I have provided fall short of schools requiring special measures and significant improvement, which are dealt with in clauses 48 and 49, but not that far short. Given that the purpose of clause 47 is to provide early intervention, before schools reach the point of being put into special measures or requiring significant improvement, it is odd that such indicators, as set out in the amendments, are not included in paragraph 33 of the draft guidance.
I should like to touch on one further point in relation to the clause and the amendments. Paragraph 9.18 of the White Paper says:
“Local authorities have been under a duty since 1998 to help to drive up standards in schools, but we will build on recent reforms to strengthen this role. Ensuring quality does not mean trespassing on school autonomy”.
There is a concern, which I do not share, that the combined effect of the clauses, together with the draft guidance on schools causing concern, would reduce the autonomy that other parts of the Bill are designed to create. My view is that the clauses about which I am talking, for the most part, replicate legislation that is already on the statute book and, where local authority power is increased, that is solely to do with tackling unacceptably low performance. None of us should be prepared to allow schools to languish year after year, providing poor education to our children. Autonomy is about liberating the management and leadership of the school from cloying interference in the day-to-day running of the school. However, that does not mean that the school is unaccountable for its performance; when it fails to provide the quality of education that we expect, it should, in extremis, lose that autonomy until the problem is fixed.
I am concerned about paragraph 30 of the draft guidance, which says:
“Any failure to implement the school workforce agreement, or poor management of the workforce, may contribute to falling standards of performance at a school.”
It is wrong to insert input measures into definitions of unacceptable outcomes. That would lead to a loss of autonomy in the day-to-day running of the school. It is important to keep the definitions of unacceptably low performance tight and focused on the outcomes, and not to use these fairly draconian provisions as a mechanism for implementing and enforcing other priorities.
I turn briefly and finally to amendments Nos. 162 and 163, which incorporate into the definition of unacceptably low performance a situation where the school fails to deliver improved well-being for all pupils. Well-being is defined in amendment No. 163 as the five outcomes in the “Every Child Matters” White Paper and the Children Act 2004: physical and mental health and well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made to society; and social and economic well-being. The two amendments have the support of the Local Government Association, which states:
“During our lobbying on the Children Act, we stressed the importance that schools are part of the duty to co-operate in the delivery of the Act. Schools are organisationally independent of the local authority and as such there could be room for ambiguity about their statutory responsibilities and duties unless they are specified as having that statutory duty. This amendment seeks to rectify this, leaving no room for ambiguity as a result of their independent status.”
On that note, I await the Minister’s response to these six supportive but important amendments.
Greg Mulholland (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education & Skills; Leeds North West, Liberal Democrat)
In my attempt to be extremely brief last time I spoke, I omitted to welcome the new Minister for Schools. I apologise for that, welcome him and look forward to working with him in the course of proceedings on the Bill and in the future. It is the first time that I have had the opportunity to welcome an opposite number on any side.
I also wish to add to the comments made earlier about the previous Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Redditch. I think that we all agree that she has dealt with the Committee in an impressive way using a lot of diplomacy and her powers of persuasion, which are skills that she certainly will need in her new job in these interesting times.
Although we can see what the Conservative Front Benchers are trying to do with amendments No. 174 and 175, we feel strongly that they are too rigid as regards the triggers for the process taking place. We feel that it is unfair to create automatic triggers based on league tables, whether value added or results tables.
If we consider any schools tables, we see that some schools have low value-added scores and high results, and conversely some have high value-added scores and low results, so it becomes a little arbitrary. There is a danger that the amendments would penalise schools that through no fault of their own end up with low value-added scores but not results. They could lead to a school with a middle-class intake, high results and potentially low value-added scores reaching the trigger level. I am sure that that is not what was intended.
The other problem with league tables is the question of what happens if all the schools in the area are performing adequately. That is quite possible, and we have to acknowledge that league tables can be quite arbitrary.
The good thing for Conservative Front Benchers is that we strongly support amendment No. 162, which would be a worthwhile addition to the Bill. It is important to emphasise well-being as a criteria for judging schools, and it is certainly a concern if schools are failing children on that basis.
Although we are sympathetic to the intentions behind amendment No. 163, we feel that the definitions have gone a little too far in terms of what should be included. Schools cannot reasonably be expected to take over the role of the parent for the child’s economic well-being, for example. From that point of view, we feel that amendment No. 162 is helpful but amendment No. 163 is not. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what would be helpful in defining what well-being could be.
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for tabling the amendments, because reading up on them and listening to him and the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) has been helpful. I shall say at the outset, because we are short of time, that that will make me take another look at the guidance and reflect on the comments, but I shall resist the amendments all the same. The Government have made substantial progress in dealing with failing schools and very low attaining schools. I say to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that we have never set a national target for the number of schools in special measures, but clearly we want there to be as few as possible.
To date, less emphasis has been placed on underperformance, but even in that respect the Government have a good story to tell. The majority of poorly performing schools in the NAO survey are not failing—that is, in Ofsted categories—or very low attaining; they are identified as underperforming or coasting. In essence, those schools are not using their full capacity. Large numbers of pupils will not be reaching their full potential, but many pupils in the schools will be doing well and we must not underestimate their achievements or those of the teachers who are leading them well. That is why quoting the figure of 1 million pupils in poor schools is potentially misleading.
John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
What the report certainly reveals—there is little debate about this—is that that type of underperformance is identified too slowly and that once it is identified schools stay in those circumstances too long. What does the Minister say specifically about those two criticisms?
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
That is precisely why we are introducing these measures. Clause 47 has been carefully constructed to give local authorities a power to ensure that schools can be tackled early, so that the current generation of pupils does not have to fail in order for the next generation to be helped. It ensures that we can intervene now for today’s pupils so that they receive the education that they need and deserve. The legislation will link closely to the draft guidance. As I said, I shall have another look at the guidance, given the points that have been made.
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
Will the Minister accept that, with 20,000 schools, there are severe constraints on his ability to impose his will, however beneficial that might be, on failing schools and that the key pressure on failing schools in a system in which the money follows the pupil is that parents take their children away from those schools?
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
Clearly, we believe that the exercise of choice is an element, but it is not the only element. I cannot keep a close eye on every school in the country, but the hon. Gentleman will be relieved to know that there are others who assist me and my colleagues. I believe that the architecture that we have, as amended by this legislation, is the right architecture to allow us properly to deliver an improved education for all our children in all their individual circumstances.
On amendment No. 163, schools do have to have regard to the five outcomes in “Every Child Matters”, but they cannot deliver them on their own. They will need to work in partnership with a number of others, including voluntary and community groups and local authorities, so it will be difficult to assess an individual school’s contribution to an outcome. I ask the Committee to resist the amendment on that basis. There is plenty more that I could say on it, but I shall stop there.
On amendments Nos. 173 to 175, we set out in the draft guidance when warning notices should and should not be issued, and I believe that the framework is sufficiently well defined that the amendments are unnecessary. To use the lowest quartile is difficult because by definition that is a relative measure; there will always be a lowest quartile. That is why we talk in the guidance about schools that are “persistently” in the lowest quartile.
On the basis of what I have said, I hope that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will withdraw the amendment.
Division number 26 - 7 yes, 11 no
Voting yes: James Clappison, Nadine Dorries, David Evennett, Nick Gibb, John Hayes, Edward Leigh, Robert Wilson
Voting no: Roberta Blackman-Woods, Ian Cawsey, David Chaytor, Mary Creagh, Andrew Gwynne, Phil Hope, Jim Knight, Laura Moffatt, Jonathan R Shaw, Angela Smith, Anne Snelgrove