Clause 43
Education and Inspections Bill
11:15 am
Jim Knight (Minister of State, Department for Education and Skills; South Dorset, Labour)
As I shall go on to describe, the use of the admission forum is crucial. The admission forum will produce an annual report; there will be a consultation process and there is the right of appeal to the schools adjudicator. That provides the safeguards that the hon. Gentleman wants. I shall try to sketch it out a little further as we go on.
I turn now to the helpful amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North. Amendment No. 217 proposes that governing bodies which are their own admission authority—foundation and voluntary aided schools—should have to ask the local authority’s consent before introducing banding. Of course, they should have to consult; they are already required to when considering any change to admission arrangements. We shall make that clear, but we do not agree that a local authority should have a veto on whether schools introduce banding.
I cannot see why the introduction of something that will ensure a more comprehensive intake into voluntary aided or foundation schools would be considered undesirable by the local authority, so that it would need that local authority’s consent. However, as the introduction of banding will come within the annual admissions consultation process that I have just described, local authorities, other schools and the local admission forum will all have the right to lodge an objection with the adjudicator if they disagree with the adoption of banding or with how the admission authority intends to operate it. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that his amendment is unnecessary.
I turn to amendments Nos. 450 and 452. In response to my hon. Friend’s opening comment, I should say that the provisions would make no change to the position in Wales; they apply only to England. The amendments would result in our having to retain the existing position in England—any admission authority wishing to introduce banding has to do so through the formal statutory proposal process.
Statutory proposals must be published when local authorities and governing bodies propose to open, close or expand a school, but we do not think it appropriate to continue to require them to go through that route to introduce banding. As banding constitutes an integral part of a school’s admission arrangements, approval of its introduction sits better within the existing admissions process, which I have described. That gives all schools and local authorities an opportunity to make comments and go to a schools adjudicator if they disagree. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend that the admissions consultation process, like that for statutory proposals, offers plenty of opportunity to discuss and comment on proposals to introduce banding, as well as the right of objection.
Finally, amendment No. 451 would ensure that all banded intakes were “balanced”. I assume that my hon. Friend’s intention is to ensure that no ability group is over-represented in a school that bands its intake. That is unnecessary because the clause already ensures that the intake of a banding school is balanced in that it represents all levels of ability across applicant children, the local authority area or the ability range nationally.
However, my hon. Friend may intend to ensure that a banding school achieves a balanced intake from among its applicant children. It is important that we should allow schools the flexibility to band across the profiles that I have described, as well as across the ability profiles of applicants. That will, for instance, encourage schools situated in areas of traditionally high academic attainment to send a positive message: that they are there also to serve less able pupils, who might not gain entry if the school simply banded across the ability range of local residents.
However, there is a problem with adding the word “balanced” to that part of the clause. The word would be open to interpretation, which could lead to a conflict of interpretation with other provisions in the clause that require the pupils admitted to be representative of all ability levels.
If it were not disallowed by another part of the clause, a school with five bands could, for instance, achieve a “balanced” intake by admitting a very small minority of its pupils from the highest and lowest ability bands and the bulk of its pupils from the middle range. That would ensure that it did not have to take many pupils of below-average ability, provided that it did not take many pupils from the highest ability group. We want to see an even—I shall not use the word “balanced”—distribution across the ability range. We seek to ensure that schools achieve such an intake by taking abilities across all bands. The amendment could also lead to conflicts of interpretation within the clause, as I have said. I hope that, on that basis, my hon. Friend will not press the amendment.
In response to a couple of other points made, I should say that we will set out in the code that it is good practice for local authorities and admission authorities to choose similar approaches, such as a common test, to banding and testing. The admission forum will consider and facilitate that.