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Children’s Plan

My Lords, we all welcome the opening words of this Children’s Plan: "““The Children’s Plan aims to make England””—" extending that to the whole of the United Kingdom— "““the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up””." That is a great objective, but it is a long-term objective—a 10-year objective for progress. Our most valuable service to education will be to reach a consensus on the way forward. An election is not far off. Schools will value us more if we can reach a consensus on these issues. As for the general thrust, I have not had time to study the plan in detail, but I very much welcome the emphasis placed on helping those who need the most help in education. Without that help, we are heading for the most serious social problems, which are bad enough already. We will reap the whirlwind unless we implement the kind of measures that we see here. I want to make three points in detail; I will be brief about it. First, I notice with pleasure, echoing the Prime Minister’s words in his speech to the merchants and bankers of the City of London in the summer, that a foreign language is placed alongside English and maths as a basic. That is a major statement. I look forward to seeing the work that Jim Rose will do on how to implement this. I hope very much that the Government can implement it in September 2010, as recommended in the report to which I was party. Secondly, taking the test when one is ready would mean that some key stage 2 children would take it after progression to secondary school. That will make sense only if they get real help to advance well and real support to reach the standard that is expected of them. The whole point is to identify and to give help. I hope that the Government will commit to that. Thirdly, in paragraph 3.129, which deals with helping summer-born children, one sentence puzzles me: "““Research evidence suggests that allowing all children in the year group to begin at the same time (the September of the year they turn 5) has the most positive impact as it allows summer-born children to receive the same amount of full-time schooling as their peers””." I cannot see why, if these children defer a year, they should not nevertheless get the same schooling as other children. They do not have to leave school early; they can have their full ration. I am not trying to argue with the policy. I particularly welcome the proposal that Sir Jim Rose should look into this, but that one sentence puzzles me. Generally speaking, I wish this well. I hope that we will get into the detail at a later stage and make it something that will command respect and support across the House.