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Children, Schools and Families

My Lords, with leave, I will repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. ““The new Department for Children, Schools and Families brings together for the first time ever in one place the responsibility for all policy across Government to promote the well-being of children and young people. With your permission I start this Statement with a proposition on which I believe every Member of this House and every parent and grandparent in our country can agree: every child matters, and we all have a responsibility to ensure that every child has the chance to develop their talents to the full. ““After decades of underperformance, we have turned the tide. Standards have risen—over 58 per cent of 15 year-olds achieved five or more good GCSEs in 2006 compared to only 45 per cent in 1997. There has been new investment—35,000 more teachers, 172, 000 new classroom assistants, over 1,100 new schools and over 1,200 Sure Start children’s centres. Teenage pregnancy rates are at a 20-year low, reoffending rates among young people are down, and 600,000 children have been lifted out of poverty. ““But there remain significant challenges that require us to change and renew. Parents want a greater focus on standards, we have far more to do to close the attainment gap between poorer children and their better-off peers, there are still too many young people not staying on in education and training after 16, and 2.8 million children still live in poverty, with many falling behind in learning before they even start school and more likely to end up in trouble as they grow up. ““In this Statement today I can announce immediate steps we can take to reinforce our focus on standards in the classroom and personalised learning, to back teachers and improve discipline in and out of school, and to strengthen school leadership. We can take these steps as we also begin a national consultation on how we can put the needs of children at the centre of our policy-making and build a stronger, fairer Britain, breaking the barriers to opportunity so that every child and young person has the chance to make the most of their talents, not just a privileged few. ““First, standards and personalised learning. A child who cannot read, write or master basic maths will never succeed in education. Our priority must be standards, not structures. We will renew our focus on the things that really matter to parents and meet their rising aspirations. That means getting the basics right. Since 1997 we have raised standards in literacy and numeracy in primary schools. We are implementing the recommendations of the Rose report into early reading to ensure that all schools and nurseries teach phonics properly. The Every Child a Reader pilot is now helping 5,000 six year-olds with significant literacy problems to learn to read. ““The next step is to raise our game in maths, building on the successful numeracy strategy we launched nearly 10 years ago. I can tell the House that Sir Peter Williams, Chancellor of Leicester University and chair of the Advisory Committee on Maths Education, has agreed to lead a review of the teaching of maths. His review will look at effective methods of teaching and learning in primary schools and nurseries, and advise us on how to develop pupils’ deeper understanding of maths and on the development of our Every Child Counts pilots to help pupils falling behind in primary schools. ““Effective teaching is increasingly geared to the distinct needs and progress of individual children, so I want to see a greater focus on personalised learning, with appropriate support and schooling for gifted and talented children, those with special educational needs and those falling behind. Regular testing is essential for monitoring the progress of individual pupils, but there should be scope for schools to make well informed judgments on when pupils should be tested. While we do not support streaming, which makes a blanket and often arbitrary judgment on children’s intelligence and can ignore their individual talents, I strongly support setting for individual subjects, with judgments made by heads and teachers according to the needs of their school. ““Today I can tell the House that, building on the £1 billion we have already allocated to personalised learning in 2007-08 and following the recommendations of the Gilbert review, I am allocating £150 million over the next three years to expand the highly successful Assessment for Learning programme to further help teachers build expertise in tracking individual pupil progress and monitoring and mentoring achievement. Greater personalisation, Assessment for Learning and our successful Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme will benefit all children, including high achievers. They will also help us to tackle underachievement and raise standards among disadvantaged children. ““As we expand our extended school programme of out-of-hours provision in sport, music and drama to every school by 2010, we need to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their parents do not miss out but have a chance to benefit from extra out-of-hours tuition and after-school clubs. So I can tell the House that over the next three years we will provide an additional £265 million to enable extended schools to do more to support disadvantaged children and young people. By year three, the funding will enable all schools to offer these children two hours a week of group activities in term time, plus 30 hours of additional activities over the holidays. ““To secure our economic future and promote opportunity for all, we must also do more to improve the post-16 staying-on rate. We will legislate over the coming year to raise the education leaving age to 18. But we also need a 14-to-19 curriculum that is relevant and engages young people in learning, offering them the skills that they need for future study and to succeed in the workplace. Details of the first five new 14-to-19 diplomas will be available within the month, ready to be introduced into schools and colleges in September 2008. ““Secondly, as we drive up standards, we must also do more to back teachers, freeing them from unnecessary bureaucracy, promoting discipline and letting our professionals get on with the job in the classroom. We are committed to the current workforce reform programme, developed with our social partners, to free up teachers’ time to teach, and I have asked my department to examine what more we can do to reduce unnecessary burdens for teachers and heads. ““Later this week, when we report on our review of the secondary curriculum for 11 to 16 year-olds, we will ensure a more focused curriculum that teaches the basics but reduces prescription and puts more power in the hands of individual schools and teachers. That will enable schools to personalise their teaching to meet the needs of different pupils, enabling us to place trust in the professional judgment of heads and teachers. To give teachers the time to prepare for the new curriculum, I can announce that we will allow an extra inset day for all secondary schools in the school year 2007-08. ““Our Teach First scheme is attracting and keeping high-performing graduates working as teachers in some of our most challenging inner-city schools. From September, it will be extended from London and Manchester to the West Midlands and, by 2009, to Liverpool and Yorkshire and the Humber. Building on the Transition to Teaching programme, we will now consult on a new Teach Next programme to promote mid-career routes into teaching, especially for people from industry and the sciences. ““Teachers cannot teach effectively unless they also have powers to maintain discipline. Teachers now have, for the first time, new statutory powers to tackle disruptive behaviour, including legal rights to restrain violent pupils and confiscate property. ““Every child has the right to feel safe in school. We should expect good behaviour in all our schools and see it in all our schools, so Ofsted will shortly issue strong new guidance to inspectors which will make clear that behaviour by pupils that has a negative impact on learning is unacceptable. Repeated low-level disruption, as well as more serious isolated incidents of bad behaviour, should not be tolerated. By making this clear, Ofsted will, in effect, raise the bar on what is satisfactory behaviour and what is not. Ofsted’s inspectors will focus on behaviour during inspections and, where they find behaviour to be inadequate, they will conduct monitoring visits to make sure it improves. ““Thirdly, as well as driving up standards and promoting discipline, I want us to do more to back strong and innovative school leadership. Specialist schools are driving up standards across the country. Trust schools will cement partnerships between schools, businesses and other local organisations and bring new dynamism and innovation to support strong school leadership. ““Our academies programme is driving radical transformation in weak and failing schools in disadvantaged communities. All academies now actively collaborate with schools and colleges in their area, just as schools should co-operate with academies. Currently, all academies replacing local authority schools proceed with local authority endorsement at the feasibility stage, and at the funding agreement stage we already have a duty to consult local authorities and we take their concerns fully into account. ““Results in academies are improving faster than they are in other schools. Truancy rates are down. Increasingly, inner-city local authorities such as Hackney, Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield are putting new academies at the centre of their local school strategies. But the test of whether an organisation can be a potential sponsor should not be its bank balance but whether it can demonstrate leadership, innovation and commitment to act in the public interest. ““From today, I am abolishing the current requirement for universities and high performing schools and colleges to provide £2 million before they can sponsor an academy. Many universities are already engaged with academies, and I now want every university to actively engage with them. ““At the heart of the innovation in the curriculum that academies make possible is flexibility, which we will maintain for all new academies, built on the platform of the core national curriculum, which all new academies will now follow in English, maths, science and ICT. Academies have told me that they make the greatest impact on standards when they are a central part of their local community. They already have a duty to collaborate with all other schools in their area and are inspected by Ofsted against this. In addition, we have now removed their VAT costs on their buildings when their facilities are used by the wider community. ““It is my belief that, as we move towards our target of 200 academies by 2010, rising thereafter to 400, we should now accelerate the pace of the academies programme over the next few years, with a much greater role for universities. This afternoon, the Minister with responsibility for schools and academies is announcing that funding agreements are being signed off for the following five new academies: Brunel Academy, Bristol; John Cabot Academy, Gloucestershire; Shireland Collegiate Academy, Sandwell; George Salter Collegiate Academy, Sandwell; and St Michael and All Angels Church of England Academy, Southwark. ““On the basis of today’s announcement to abolish the £2 million entry fee, the following nine universities have already expressed their interest in sponsoring new academies: University College London, Imperial College, the University of Nottingham, the University of Manchester, Queen Mary University of London, Aston University, the University of Central England, the University of Wolverhampton and the University of the West of England. ““In this way, by backing strong leadership and backing teachers, we can now focus our efforts not on structures but on standards in the classroom and on giving every child the best possible education. To build a national consensus, to engage universities and the wider public and private sectors, and to drive forward our ambitions for children and young people’s education, the Prime Minister and I will now chair a new National Council for Educational Excellence. ““This council and its members will act as advocates and champions to transform expectations and aspirations for the education system, to mobilise every section of the community behind our national mission to become a world leader in education and, in particular, our aspiration that every secondary school should have a business and university partner. ““Sir Michael Barber has agreed to act as senior adviser to the council, which will meet for the first time later this month. My department’s focus is on raising standards in schools, backing teachers and promoting strong school leadership, but schools cannot bear the whole burden. All the evidence shows that a child’s life chances—and their chance of having a safe and happy childhood—are decisively shaped by their experiences in the first 22 months of life, by early years education, by family income, a supportive family environment and by diet and the opportunity to play and do sport. We need excellent universal services for all children and families, but there will always be some children and families who face additional challenges. ““We must tackle the causes of child poverty, youth crime, family breakdown and wasted potential so that we can strengthen our society and deliver security and opportunity for all. We recognise the importance of early intervention and of targeted support for children with special educational needs and disabled children. As the new department takes over joint responsibility for youth justice with the Ministry of Justice, it is vital that here, too, we spot problems quickly, before they escalate into crises. ““This is a complex agenda. We will shortly publish our 10-year youth strategy, our national strategy on safeguarding and our strategy on teenage parents. I intend to use the opportunity of the new department and the remaining months of the spending review to consult widely on how we can use all the levers at our disposal to promote strong communities and strengthen family life before we set the goals and direction for this department and children’s policy for the next 10 years. ““In the coming weeks, we will launch a nationwide consultation to draw up a children’s plan for our country. To help draw up this plan, over the next four months, we will consult teachers, children’s professionals, universities, colleges, the voluntary sector, parents, children and young people themselves. To do so, Ministers in my department will co-chair three working groups alongside a leading practitioner. The three groups will look across the range of education and wider services affecting children and young people—with one group for nought to seven year-olds, one on eight to 13 year-olds and another on 14 to 19 year-olds—and involve experts from schools, colleges, children’s services, health partners, the criminal justice system and the wider public, voluntary and private sectors. I plan to be able to report the results of this consultation and set out the emerging children’s plan in the autumn. ““This is a challenging agenda, but getting it right is critical to the future of our country. Every child has talent; and, with the measures I have set out today and the consultation we now begin, we will now ensure that every child gets the best start in life and the support they need to make the most of their talents. I commend this Statement to the House””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.