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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, Mr. Speaker, I start this statement with a proposition on which I believe every Member of the 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. We have rising standards—more than 58 per cent. of 15-year-olds achieved five or more good GCSEs in 2006, compared to only 45 per cent. in 1997. There is new investment, with 35,000 more teachers, 172,000 new classroom assistants, more than 1,100 new schools and more than 1,300 Sure Start children’s centres. Teenage pregnancy rates are at a 20-year low. Re-offending rates among young people are down, and 600,000 children have been lifted out of poverty. Significant challenges remain, however, which require us to change and to renew. We know that 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 that 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 take those steps as we begin today 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 down 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, on standards and personalised learning, a child who cannot read, cannot write or cannot master basic maths will never succeed in education. Our priority must be standards, not structures. So we will renew our focus on the things that really matter to parents and meet their rising aspirations, and that means getting the basics right. Since 1997, we have raised standards in literacy and numeracy in primary schools. We are now implementing the recommendations of the Rose report into early reading to ensure that all schools and nurseries teach phonics properly. And 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 and build on the successful numeracy strategy that we launched nearly 10 years ago. I can tell the House that Sir Peter Williams, the 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. He will 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. Because effective teaching is increasingly geared to the distinct needs and progress of individual children, 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. We know that 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. I can tell the House that, building on the £1 billion that we have already allocated to personalised learning in 2007-08 and following the recommendation of the Gilbert review, I am allocating £150 million over the next three years to expand the highly successful assessment for learning programme, to help further teachers build expertise in tracking individual pupil progress and in 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, but they will also help us to tackle underachievement and raise standards among disadvantaged children. As we expand our extended schools 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-school tuition and after-school clubs. I can therefore tell the House that, over the next three years, we will now 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 those children two hours per 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 and be ready to be introduced into schools and colleges in September 2008. As we drive up standards, we must also do more to back teachers, to free them from unnecessary bureaucracy and promote discipline and let our professionals get on with the job in the classroom. We are committed to the current work force 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 individuals 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 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 Humber. Building on the ““transition to teaching”” programme, we will 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 the power 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. Ofsted has therefore agreed that it will shortly issue strong new guidance to inspectors, which will make it 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 that clear, Ofsted will, in effect, raise the bar for 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 that it improves. 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 all 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. 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; so, 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. I now want every university actively to engage with academies. 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 that, as with most existing academies, all new academies will follow in English, maths, science, and information and communications technology. Academies have told me that they make the greatest impact on standards when they are a central part of the local community. They already have a duty to collaborate with all other schools in their area and are inspected by Ofsted against that. 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 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, Lord Adonis, who is making a statement in the other place, is announcing that funding agreements are being signed off for the following new academies: the Brunel academy in Bristol, the John Cabot academy in Gloucestershire, the Shireland collegiate academy in Sandwell, the George Salter collegiate academy in Sandwell, and St. Michael and All Angels Church of England Academy in Southwark. I can also tell the House that on the basis of today’s announcement abolishing the £2 million entry fee, the following nine universities have expressed an 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... My hon. Friend will have to encourage it. By backing strong leadership and teachers, we can focus our efforts not on structures, but on standards in the classroom, and on giving every child the best possible education. So that we can build a national consensus, engage universities, the wider public and the private sector, and drive forward our ambitions for children and young people’s education, the Prime Minister and I will chair a new National Council for Educational Excellence. The council and its members will act as advocates and champions, so that we can transform expectations and aspirations for the education system, and mobilise every section of the community to get behind our national mission to become a world leader in education, and particularly our aspiration for every secondary school to 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, family income, a supportive family environment, 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 targeted support for children with special educational needs and disabled children. The new Department and the Ministry of Justice will have joint responsibility for youth justice, and it is vital that we spot problems in that area quickly, before they escalate into crises. We have a complex agenda. We will shortly publish our 10-year youth strategy, our national strategy on safeguarding, and our strategy on teenage parents, but I intend to use the opportunity offered by 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 detailed goals and the direction for the 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 us to draw up the plan, over the next four months we will consult with teachers, children’s professionals, universities, colleges, the voluntary sector, parents, and children and young people. To enable us to do so, Ministers in my Department will co-chair three working groups alongside a leading practitioner. The three groups will consider the range of education and wider services affecting children and young people. There will be one group for nought to seven-year-olds, one on eight to 13-year-olds and another on those aged 14 to 19. The groups will involve experts from schools, colleges, children’s services, health partners, the criminal justice system, the wider public, and the voluntary and private sectors. I plan to be able to report the results of that consultation and set out the emerging children’s plan in the autumn. That is a challenging agenda, but getting it right is critical to the future of our country. Every child has talent, and through the measures that I have set out today and the consultation that we will now begin, we will ensure that every child gets the best start in life and the support they need to make the most of their talents. I commend the statement to the House.