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State Schools (Independence)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland), and I agree that we must not concentrate too much on structures. There is a range of issues that we need to address to raise standards, which we should now focus on in our debates. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) on securing the debate. He made an interesting and thoughtful speech, but we have come to expect that during his first year as a Member of the House. The desire to increase independence for state schools is shared in all parts of the House, or at least on the Government and official Opposition Benches. That commitment was demonstrated by the overwhelming support that the Education and Inspections Bill received on Second and Third Reading. We supported the Bill because it makes it easier for schools to adopt foundation status and become trust schools. That reflects the increasing body of evidence, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) mentioned, from Sweden and the United States, and indeed from this country’s grant-maintained schools programme, that increasing diversity, independence and choice has powerful effects in raising school standards. The Prime Minister is committed to independence. He recently said:"““The logic of changing to the specialist schools, of starting City Academies, of giving greater freedom to schools in who they hire, what they pay, how they run their school day, is very clear. It is to escape the straitjacket of the traditional comprehensive school and embrace the idea of genuinely independent non-fee paying state schools.””" A key part of the Prime Minister’s solution to this problem lies in granting schools additional freedoms. In October, he said:"““By the end of this third term, I want every school that wants to be to be able to be an independent, non fee-paying state school with the freedom to innovate and develop in the way it wants and the way the parents at the school want””." That commitment to giving greater autonomy was a dominant feature of the recent education White Paper, in which the Prime Minister said:"““Our reforms must build on the freedoms that schools have increasingly received, but extend them””" rapidly. Independence and innovation can play a vital role in raising the quality of education. That is why, in 2004-05, only 38 per cent. of pupils at community schools achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths, but in city technology colleges, which have independence, 66 per cent. of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs, including English and maths. A quarter of pupils at community schools leave with no GCSEs at all, but in the CTC sector that figure is only 3.6 per cent. Thomas Telford school, which I mentioned on many occasions during our debates on the Education and Inspections Bill, has a national ability range or intake, and 11 per cent. of pupils take free school meals, but 100 per cent. of pupils achieved not five or more, but 12 or more, good GCSEs or equivalent. Of course, the results for academies seem slightly less promising, although, in an excellent speech, the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) pointed out that her academy is achieving results of about 51 per cent. of pupils getting five or more GCSEs, which is a 19 per cent. increase on last year. Those are promising results. It would be interesting to visit that school at some point. Many academies still achieve quite poor results, but if we compare them to those of their predecessor schools, there are still clear signs of improvement. Results show that by 2005 the proportion of students gaining five or more good GCSEs had risen from 21 per cent. in the predecessor schools to 36.4 per cent. in the academies. There is an interesting comment in the PricewaterhouseCoopers report:"““A very clear and significant finding from the early research is that there does seem to be a significant difference in the learning culture in new Academies, compared to their predecessors. For example, 8 out of 10 pupils in the survey said that ‘the teachers at this Academy really believe that all pupils can achieve’, and similar numbers of staff surveyed said ‘staff at this Academy believe that all pupils can achieve regardless of their social background’.””" Some academies have failed principally because they appointed the wrong head teachers to run them. At Unity City academy in Middlesbrough, only 12 of the 200 pupils taking GCSEs achieved grade C in maths and English compared with 17 pupils at the two predecessor schools. An article in The Sunday Times in March said:"““When Unity opened in 2002 the new head…promised a revolution in learning that would ‘discard the Victorian-style chalk and talk’ and put in place ‘learning sessions’ taken by ‘learning facilitators’.””" That reflects many of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough made about some of the vogue methods of teaching that take place in some schools. The article continued:"““Old-style history and science were to be replaced by ‘concepts’ taught as topics, and teachers were told to adjust their styles to cater for whether children were ‘kinesthetic, visual or auditory’ learners.””" Since then, the Unity academy has been identified as a failing school by Ofsted, with debts of £1.5 million. Of course, the head teacher was got rid of, and the school is showing signs of improvement. In that case and in other examples, the governing bodies and proprietors of schools took decisive and swift action, replacing the heads and ensuring that standards were safeguarded. I want to raise two quick points with the Minister, the first of which concerns the importance of provisions on freedoms, which are already on the statute book. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West made the point that a lot of the freedoms for the new trust schools are illusory and that the real freedoms are in previous legislation, such as, to quote the Secretary of State, the"““tortuous process under the power to innovate””—[Official Report, 24 May 2006; Vol. 446, c. 1590.]" available under chapter 1 of part 1 of the Education Act 2002. Only a tiny number of schools have taken advantage of that freedom because of the tortuous route to acquiring it. In fact, only 178 out of 26,000 have made use of it. It is also disappointing that the Government have not yet implemented chapter 2 of part 1 of the 2002 Act on earned autonomy. That was a major element of the previous education White Paper, which said:"““Where schools are successful, well-led and have a record of school improvement, we want to free them from those conditions and regulatory requirements which they tell us stand in the way of yet higher standards and further innovation.””" It went on:"““We will allow schools flexibility over some elements of teachers’ pay and conditions, for example to provide even greater recruitment and retention incentives””." Those reforms were central to the 2002 Act. The then Secretary of State, now Lady Morris, said:"““We want to give the best schools even greater freedoms.””—[Official Report, 4 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 196.]" Despite her words, those provisions have not yet been implemented. The Department for Education and Skills website said that a consultation document on earned autonomy was due to be published on 30 September 2002, but that that did not take place due to ““operational pressures””. The issue has become a saga that has run for over four years. I recently asked the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), what was happening with the new provisions and when they were going to be brought into force, to which she replied: ““We are keeping the provisions of Chapter 2 of the Education Act 2002, conferring exemptions related to school performance, under review.””—[Official Report, 28 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. 889W.] As the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West said, giving schools more autonomy and freedom over their day-to-day running is not the whole story when it comes to raising standards. Issues such as the curriculum, discipline in schools and ending mixed ability teaching in comprehensives are all hugely important. However, when the right head teacher is appointed, autonomy has a major effect in raising standards. Conservative Members hope that many schools will use the provisions in the latest education Bill to become trust schools in the years ahead. If the Government are committed to autonomy, it would be helpful if they implemented the earned autonomy provisions in the 2002 Act and made it easier for schools to use the other elements of freedom that are contained in it.