Clause 32

Education Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 6:00 pm on 29 March 2011.

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Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Photo of Kevin Brennan Kevin Brennan Shadow Minister (Education)

We do not dispute the need to do something about the duty on school governing bodies to publish a school profile. A significant proportion of schools do not publish a profile and parents are denied detailed comparative online information about schools. When we were in Government, we were about to repeal the school profile provision, but that proposal was removed at the behest of the then Opposition in the wash-up last year. The difference between us is that we wanted to replace the school profile with a nationally provided school record card. Alternatively, the Government’s proposal will deny parents useful information, a point to which I shall return in a moment.

In case members of the Committee have forgotten, the school report card would have mainly contained information already held nationally, including school performance data matched with information about the characteristics of pupils, with a small amount of additional information produced by schools on the perceptions of pupils and parents. A two-year pilot of the report card started in September 2009 and to quote the then Minister for Schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker),

“it will be a fundamental and radical reform that will answer the demand of schools up and down the country, which is, ‘Do not let  our school be judged on just the raw attainment scores’”.––[Official Report, Children, School and Families Public Bill Committee, 4 February 2010; c. 464.]

The view of the present Minister for Schools at that time, which is the view of the Government now, is that all the data currently held in schools should be published, whether it is the proportion gaining five or more GCSEs, the proportion gaining eight or more GCSEs at grades A to C or the proportion gaining an A or B in physics GCSE. He said then:

“Different parents have different priorities about what they want from a school for their children, and we do not believe that it is possible to provide an overall score, which will inevitably involve a very subjective judgement.”––[Official Report, Children, Schools and Families Public Bill Committee, 4 February 2010; c. 463.]

Will the Minister explain what the Government intend to do if and when they publish proposals, rather than bringing changes through the back door as they did with the ex-post publishing of information in accordance with the strictures of the invented English baccalaureate?

One thing that the Government have found in office is that they can—this is true—publish school-level information in any way they like. I do not recall any formal proposal to show the proportion gaining an A or B in physics GCSE, but, as I have just mentioned, we now have information on each secondary school published in accordance with the Secretary of State’s rather antique view of what secondary education is about—the so-called English baccalaureate.

In the space of a few weeks, the Government have done more to interfere with the key stage 4 curriculum than any number of initiatives. The Minister knows that, for better or worse, people tend to value what is measured—in this case what the Government are measuring—rather than the things that ought to be valued.

Secondary schools, as ever, need to demonstrate their position in the league table of what the Government decide is worth measuring—the officially approved table, we might say—and are changing their curriculum to meet that publication requirement, whether or not it is right for their individual pupils. We are not talking about the

“soft bigotry of low expectations”.

The Secretary of State borrowed that quote from George W. Bush, although I doubt that George W. Bush thought of it himself—I may be being unfair to him, but I doubt it. It is about having a broad and relevant curriculum with real choice for students that is fit for the 21st century.

Could the Minister tell the Committee a bit more about the information the Government intend to publish? In what form will it be published, and how will it fit in with the Minister’s previous utterances?

Photo of Nick Gibb Nick Gibb Minister of State (Education) 6:15, 29 March 2011

Clause 32 removes the duty for every maintained school in England to prepare and publish a school profile.

At the moment, schools are required to produce a profile by completing an online template that allows for the provision of quantitative and qualitative information about the school. The aim of the profile was to allow  parents to compare the information on different schools in a consistent way. Since its introduction, however, only 30% of schools have completed a school profile; 70% of schools have failed to publish a profile, preferring instead to use other means, such as their own websites and newsletters, to communicate information to parents.

In a public consultation carried out by the previous Administration alongside their 2008 White Paper, 84% of respondents agreed that the requirement to complete a school profile should be ended. Respondents, who included head teachers, teachers, governors and other stakeholders, commented that parents rarely used the school profile, which was evidenced by the lack of hits on the site.

One person, for example, said:

“Please get rid of the School Profile. It is difficult to complete, parents don’t look at it and it is a real burden to head teachers and governing bodies”.

Another commenter said:

“Parents don’t value it; most heads do not bother to complete it.”

In a nice comment, someone else said:

“Nice idea but a waste of time. Parents don’t look at it.”

It is estimated that it takes schools a minimum of half a day, and a maximum of two days, to complete and upload a profile.

We believe that parents, governors and the public should have access to information about their children’s school and schools in the local area. Currently, parents are able to access information about a school’s performance in a variety of places. That includes the school and college performance tables, school and local authority websites, as well as the online school profile. We will make available much more information and data about schools in local areas and bring together in one place data about school performance, finance and work force, and school and pupil characteristics. That will make it easy for parents and others to access and compare school performance in local areas and so use that information to hold schools to account and make better informed choices.

Already this year, and for the first time, parents have been able to use the Department’s website to create their own performance tables to rank schools and compare them with others. We will continue our policy to release in reusable form as much as possible of the statistical information the Department holds. We want to free schools from unnecessary bureaucracy and legislative burdens. Replicating information that is widely available elsewhere is a waste of school resource time. Schools should be free to focus on their core business of teaching children.

To respond to the comments of the hon. Member for Cardiff West about what we want to publish, we said in the White Paper that we want to require schools to publish comprehensive information online. That should include, for example, admission information and oversubscription criteria, the school’s curriculum, the school’s phonics and reading schemes, arrangements for setting pupils, the behaviour policy and home school agreements, the special needs policy, information about how the school uses the pupil premium and clear signposting for parents who would like more detailed information. We also expect key performance tables to focus on a range of measures, including the English baccalaureate,  the percentage of A to C in English and maths and so on, along the lines that the hon. Gentleman discussed when he quoted a comment from me in a previous Bill Committee.

I hope that with that full response to the hon. Gentleman’s comments, we can press on and agree that clause 32 should stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 32 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.