Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-27
Topic: Education
Diana Barran (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for highlighting the importance of spoken language and communication in his Amendments 171J and 171K. I pay tribute to him for his work in advocating for the importance of oracy, and I thank the APPG for its work. I mentioned to the noble Lord the other day that, certainly in the schools I visit, oracy is often mentioned as an absolutely key skill and tool in a child’s development and the way in which they approach and understand the world. However, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that it is about not anecdotes but a systematic approach Children’s spoken language levels are assessed during their time at school, including as part of the early years foundation stage profile, which happens as children leave reception year and again in GCSE English language. Last year, the Government published non-statutory guidance aimed at improving the teaching of the foundations of reading in primary schools, including guidance on developing spoken language. As the noble Lord mentioned, Ofsted recently published its English research review, which contains guidance on the importance of high-quality spoken language. However, it is hard to envisage how the Government would report on the overall level of pupils’ spoken language and communication without a new statutory national assessment. After a period of disruption in education due to the pandemic, new assessments monitored by the Government would place pressure on teachers and school leaders On the specific matter of Ofsted inspection, raised in Amendment 171K, Ofsted’s methodology is designed to ensure a holistic assessment of the quality of education provided. Inspectors undertake deep-dive explorations of a sample of curriculum subjects in each inspection to help build an understanding of the school’s curriculum. When English language is included, inspectors will expect to see pupils developing effective spoken language and communication skills as part of a strong English curriculum. All inspectors are trained in how to evaluate children’s language development, which includes their spoken English skills. The Government do not wish to limit a school’s inspection outcome based on one specific factor—although we absolutely understand the spirit of the noble Lord’s amendment—but, of course, the job of an inspector is to weigh up a range of evidence to reach a balanced assessment Finally, Ofsted is planning a subject report on English, which will include specific consideration of the quality of spoken language education in English schools. I hope that that addresses some of the concerns behind the noble Lord’s amendments. This will report next year I move to Amendment 171L, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. Getting students back in face-to-face education has obviously been one of the Government’s top priorities. Since June 2020, we have committed nearly £5 billion to fund a recovery package prioritising the most disadvantaged and those with the least time left in education. I note the noble Baroness’s emphasis on early years but I know that she will also acknowledge the pressures on children who have little time left at school and have missed a big chunk of their education. Our investment will provide 500,000 training opportunities for early years practitioners and teachers and up to 100 million tutoring hours for five to 19 year-olds by 2024 We are great believers in the added value that undergraduates and graduates can offer to schools. We have spoken to universities about how their undergraduates may become National Tutoring Programme tutors, and we welcome other programmes that enable undergraduates and graduates to work in schools. The Government are providing an additional £1 billion to extend the recovery premium over the next two academic years to support the most disadvantaged pupils. If I followed her correctly, the noble Baroness focused particularly on the importance of the recovery premium and the pupil premium more broadly Primary schools will continue to benefit from an additional £145 per eligible pupil, and secondary schools will receive £276 per eligible pupil. For special schools and alternative provision, there will be an additional £290 at primary level and £552 at secondary. The noble Baroness makes very sound points regarding the importance of early years; the Government understand those points and have focused, particularly through our family hubs, to ensure that support is there for the youngest children and their families. We also stress the point that older children have little time left, hence the choices we have made, as we have almost doubled the secondary rate—also to reflect the greater learning loss that has been seen in secondary pupils. We are always reviewing and assessing our approach to targeting funding towards deprivation. That includes not only the pupil premium funding but the national funding formula. We are allocating £6.7 billion this financial year through the national funding formula towards additional needs, which includes deprivation. This is one-sixth of all our available funding Many of our recovery programmes can be used to tackle problems with attendance and behaviour, deliver social and emotional support and provide enrichment elements, in relation to both physical and mental health and well-being. The Committee will be aware that we published the national plan for music education on 25 June, together with the Department for Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which sets out our vision to enable all children and young people to learn to sing, play an instrument, create music together and have the opportunity to progress their musical interests and talents We are also supporting free breakfast provision by investing up to £24 million for 2021 to 2023, supporting up to 2,500 schools in the most disadvantaged areas. We are also considering ways to collect further data on the provision of breakfasts in schools; we are aware of a number of organisations that do great work in this area I now turn to Amendments 171N, 171O, 171P and 171Q in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. Of course, all types of bullying are unacceptable and schools play a vital role in preventing and tackling bullying. We believe that the basis for addressing bullying starts with a strong culture regarding behaviour in schools to support pupils, prevent all forms of bullying and ensure that there is a calm environment in each school to do well. All schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy that aims not only to encourage good behaviour but to prevent bullying among pupils. Schools are also required to have regard to the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, which will be relevant where there is a safeguarding risk to a child The Government are providing over £2 million of funding between 2021 and 2023 to anti-bullying organisations targeting the bullying of children and young people with protected characteristics. Part of our funding has gone to resources specifically on the bullying of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, such as an e-learning course on that subject that is now available to all schools in England Our Preventing and Tackling Bullying guidance sets out that schools should develop a consistent approach to monitoring bullying and evaluating their approaches. Schools are accountable to Ofsted, which will look at how effectively they prevent or deal with bullying incidents, including whether they have recorded incidents of bullying. We know, anecdotally, that formal reporting of incidents can act as a disincentive to record, which is why we worked with Ofsted to make its position on recording bullying very clear in guidance. The Government will continue to support the current school-level approach to recording, supporting schools to meet their duties to take action to tackle bullying.