Clause 43
Education and Inspections Bill
10:45 am
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I want to speak briefly to amendments Nos. 450, 451, 217 and 452—I am conscious of the time pressure, but the clause is an important one. Amendments Nos. 450 and 452 are essentially technical amendments that would clarify the operation of banding arrangements in England and Wales. They are so technical that I am not sure I can explain precisely how they would clarify the arrangements, but my assistant assures me that they will, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say whether and how he envisages arrangements will vary between England and Wales.
Amendment No. 451 calls for specific reference to the importance of balanced intakes as a definition of the purpose of banding, and amendment No. 217 would require the local authority to agree any new banding arrangements. The advantage of clause 43 is that it builds on the current banding arrangements in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which permit schools to band from within the group of pupils making applications to the school. It has generally been agreed that that is a very restrictive form of banding, because the group is self-selecting. Certain schools have an intake or applicant group of exceptionally high ability, and therefore banding within that high-ability level does not necessarily give a broad distribution of pupils, because of the self-selective nature of the intake.
In clause 43 we have three new forms of banding, two of which will be generally welcome. I have some queries about one of them. First, schools will now be able to band in accordance with the national average distribution of ability. Secondly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability within the local authority in which they are situated. Thirdly, they will be able to band in accordance with the distribution of ability of the applicants to their own school and one other school. It remains to be seen why it is only one other school and what the implications will be for the nature of the intake of the school that chooses to band.