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Schools: Statutory Instruments (Merits Committee Report)

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, for introducing the debate and also, more importantly, for the report itself. It is clear, succinct and incisive; the same cannot always be said about the instruments which are being discussed. Indeed, Oxford council and the diocese of Oxford run a website to help schools know what they need to know, and it brings in quite an income. If only the Department for Children, Schools and Families could be similarly discerning and similarly profitable. Head teachers especially suffer from instrument overload. There have been 1,596 of them since 1997 and head teachers are expected to know them all. I am told anecdotally that they take up more than twice the amount of print needed to cover the entire work of Shakespeare. The National Association of Head Teachers believes that the plethora of instruments is a powerful disincentive to the recruitment of head teachers. A national professional qualification for head teachers has now been introduced to raise standards, but I wonder whether it puts people off. I am told that 50 per cent of those who successfully complete the course fail to apply for headships. I should be grateful if the Minister could enlighten us and give us more detailed information on that matter. I was speaking to a stand-in head a few weeks ago—she was one of those inspiring people who you think is the right person in the right place—and I asked her whether she was applying for the vacant headship. She said, "No. I have done the NPQH but I would not enjoy being a head teacher. I would much rather stay where I am". Rural schools have particular difficulties in finding heads. A 50 per cent teaching load is common for heads in rural schools but they still have to know the same regulations as the heads of larger schools. They still have to cope with all the administrative detail. This has led in north Yorkshire and Lancashire and three areas in my diocese to schools exploring the idea of appointing head teachers who will cover not one but two or even three schools which are perhaps five miles apart. The local communities are desperate that there should be a head in such schools because when the school closes, it is the death knell for that community. The present system of acceptance on to the training course for would-be heads means that few teachers who are committed to rural schools can get on to the scheme. The few who complete the NPQH are therefore not seeking small-school experience and are not then offering themselves. It is a desperate situation. The instruments are also a disincentive for would-be governors, who regard them as overbearing bureaucracy. Those with professional backgrounds can cope; they can help the head teacher implement the various regulations. In our inner cities and outer estates, however, the situation is different: there is an added burden on the head to get it right. Church schools are in a relatively advantageous position. Often, but not always, there is a parish priest active on the governing body, and we are able to look around our dioceses to find governors from elsewhere—people with relevant experience, expertise and interests. However, that reduces the critical local input that governors need to provide. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has referred to the need for two-way communication; indeed, we had a dinner debate earlier this week on the subject of two-way communication between Parliament and the people. The department sends out pilot initiatives, but I am told by teachers that the regulations that then follow are run out unchanged before the pilot schemes have even been evaluated. At the moment, 11 consultations are taking place on education and school matters, and each has a two-month to three-month response time. There are 60 such initiatives in a year. The department says that schools rarely respond but teachers say that there are too may initiatives, they are poorly advertised, they are not a priority, schools want to get on with the business of teaching and the consultations make very little difference anyway. Some years ago I heard the late Roger Perks, head teacher of Baverstock school in Birmingham, give one of those talks that you hear every 10 years or so which you remember, and which shape you, for ever. In a private conversation afterwards about how he had turned the school around, he said, "We have only one school rule". If only! My experience as a school governor and, in the 1990s, a higher education college governor, was that we were encouraged to pursue vision and values first of all—to work towards creating an ethos that would shape the whole life of our educational institution. That is what we have sought to do in setting up an academy, as we heard from a previous speaker. It is important to get the values and the vision right first. Then, all the instruments that we need should be an expression of that vision and value. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned the admissions policies. Even if we need lots of regulations to govern admissions, these, more than anything, should be an expression of the vision, the values and the ethos of the school. The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, spoke of motivating people. I believe that most teachers, as they enter the profession, are already highly motivated. I am sure that all of us, as we look back on our own education, can remember at least one teacher who opened a window on a new world for us, who valued us and who entered imaginatively into our minds. We could even be here today because of that teacher. Those teachers, and others like them, did not teach by numbers.