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Education and Inspections Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, referred to the excellent work of the Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline chaired by Sir Alan Steer. As he said, the Steer group recommended behaviour audits to schools as good practice, but it did not recommend making them a statutory requirement, which is why they do not appear in the Bill. We agree with that judgment. Every school is now expected to carry out systematic self-evaluation, which is the central focus of the school inspections carried out by Ofsted. Ofsted provides schools with a self-evaluation form that covers all the main aspects of a school's work, including promoting good behaviour. The guidance on completing the self-evaluation form recommends the relevant national strategies behaviour audit tool, which was particularly highlighted by Sir Alan Steer in his report, as a good source of evidence that behaviour requirements are being met. So, without making them a statutory requirement, we have given schools a very strong steer—in both senses of the word—towards conducting regular behaviour audits. We believe that this strikes the right balance between regulation and respecting the professional judgment of head teachers and their governors. My noble friend Lady Thornton raised a set of important questions about special educational needs, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rix. I pay tribute to the work of the Special Educational Consortium and I CAN in this area; we listen to them in great detail and to their recommendations. Amendments Nos. 216 and 219 are about safeguarding pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. Amendment No. 216 concerns the knowledge of special educational needs and disability responsibilities among those undertaking behaviour responsibilities in a school. Clauses 81 and 82 specify two stages for the drawing up of a behaviour policy. The governing body draws up a statement of general principles and the head teacher then determines the detailed measures that form the policy itself. In determining behaviour policies, heads must act in accordance with their statutory responsibilities towards disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs. We will be issuing guidance to schools on making and implementing behaviour policies, which will emphasise the importance of taking proper account of children with disabilities and special educational needs. The Disability Discrimination Act and the duties on schools to make reasonable adjustments in the disability equality plans that they are expected to produce from this December have a good deal to say in this regard. We have just issued a huge guidance document, in large ring binders, on implementing the Disability Discrimination Act in schools and early years settings, which gives many concrete examples of how schools can manage behaviour better and make reasonable adjustments—for example, how children with autism who exhibit serious behavioural difficulties can manage queues at mealtimes and other times of the day when their behaviour is liable to deteriorate. We have also produced a DVD as a training resource to go out to schools. I hope that that will have the impact of significantly raising the awareness of head teachers, teachers and governors of their responsibilities under the DDA. Amendment No. 216A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, would require every school to budget for the appointment of a pupil/parent support worker. We are investing £40 million in a pilot of parent support advisers to trial the most effective way to offer early intervention and support to pupils and parents in schools. The pilot includes 20 local authorities and about 600 primary and secondary schools. The pilot is specifically to take forward the Steer group’s recommendations on pupil/parent support workers. We of course want to see the development of pupil/parent support workers taken further. We also think that this should be for the professional judgment of head teachers, supported of course by best practice, so far as is possible. The Steer group did not recommend that the Government should require schools to appoint such workers. Its recommendation made it clear that other staffing structures that delivered similar functions could be equally effective. So, while we support strongly this recommendation and are providing funding for a substantial national pilot, we do not think that there is a need to go to the next stage and make the appointment of such pupil/parent support workers statutory. We obviously support Amendment No. 218 about "““mutual respect between parents, pupils and staff””." Even in terms of enforceable obligations, we believe that it is already provided for. School staff have a well established duty of care towards pupils. They must act as a reasonably prudent parent would in like circumstances. Staff are also under a contract of employment, so poor behaviour by teachers or other school staff is a disciplinary offence. Amendment No. 218A seeks to make guidance to pupils and parents mandatory aims of a school's behaviour policy. Providing support and guidance for pupils with behaviour problems should be integral to schools’ pastoral systems and we will of course use our guidance on behaviour policies to remind schools of the importance of that. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked a good deal about parents in this respect. We share her concerns. We want to make sure that all parents can take advantage of a wide range of services to help them in their parenting role. The Childcare Act 2006 requires local authorities to give parents the information that they need on the range of services available to them to support them in their parenting role. By 2010, all schools should offer access to parenting support as part of their extended school services. This should include access to information sessions for parents when their child starts school and moves to secondary school; information on the advice and support available to parents through national helplines and websites and from local services; parenting groups; and more specialised support for parents who might need it, such as targeted support for parents whose children have problems with attendance or behaviour at school. Amendment No. 220, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, also spoke, is about procedures for discipline-related concerns and complaints. These already exist. Clause 81 provides a mechanism for parents and pupils to make representations by requiring governing bodies to consult them about the principles underpinning the school's behaviour policy. As for complaints, Section 29(1) of the Education Act 2002 requires all governing bodies to have a general complaints procedure. Any parent who has a discipline-related complaint can use that mechanism to underpin this. We intend to remind schools of their responsibility to make their complaints procedure known in our guidance on school behaviour policies. Finally, Amendment No. 222ZA would require schools to make acceptable behaviour contracts with pupils and parents annually. Clause 82 provides for that, by requiring head teachers to publicise their school’s behaviour policy and to remind pupils, parents and staff of it at least once a year. Furthermore, expectations about behaviour form part of home/school agreements, which all maintained schools are obliged to have under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.