Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-08
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, in moving my first amendment in this group, I must say that I agreed with the analysis of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, of some of the problems we are having in laying amendments to the Bill because of the lack of coherence. In a sense, we could sometimes be accused of being inconsistent, because we are concerned about the Secretary of State having these overweening powers but none the less there are areas in which we think there should be central direction. If only we had a structure that enabled us to put down proper amendments, we would know what the standards were and be able to see whether our ideas would be better in guidance or in a standard My series of amendments is about parental involvement; I argue that it ought to be one of the foundations on which all schools operate. I see it as part of a governance structure; you need requirements on all schools to operate in a certain way. I do not think this can just be left to multi-academy trusts to decide. I have no doubt whatever that the more parents who are involved in a school’s life, the better it is for the school and the outcomes for the children taught there The great organisation Parentkind, which is very much involved in encouraging parental involvement, feels that too often parents are left at the school gate and really not invited by schools to meaningfully participate in their children’s education. It has produced a wonderful blueprint for how parents can be more involved in their child’s school—attending consultation evenings, responding to surveys, volunteering their time and talents, including on the PTA, and helping in the classroom or becoming a governor or trustee. My amendments seek to introduce some of these elements to see whether I can get a positive response from the Government The first, Amendment 23, would ensure that in each academy trust and multi-academy trust there is a minimum of two parent trustees. They clearly play a vital role, and the governing body of every maintained school must be constituted with at least two parent governors. For academies—except those designated as religious—the position is more fluid. The department’s model articles of association give academy trusts almost complete flexibility to design the constitution of their board of trustees as they see fit. It has specified that the board must include at least two elected parent trustees. However, a MAT may alternatively include two elected parents on each local governing body. I fail to see why MATs should have that choice. Surely it should be a minimum requirement for parent trustees to be on the board of both the MAT and the local governing body, where there is one My Amendment 24 is more strategic. It aims to ensure that "each Academy Trust, Multi Academy Trust, and each Academy within a Multi Academy Trust, prepares and revises a strategic policy on parental and community engagement at least once every three years." The importance of effective communication with parents and staff cannot be overestimated. Asking each trust and each academy within a MAT to prepare and revise "a strategic policy on parental and community engagement at least once every three years" would be very useful. As a starting point, Parentkind’s blueprint would be a very effective template. My Amendment 25 puts forward the important principle that there should be a local governing body for every school within a MAT, on which at least two elected parents must sit, and with a clear scheme of delegation to ensure the local governing body is in the driving seat. At the moment, the MAT board can choose to delegate governance functions to LGBs or other committees that may relate to one or more than one academy Work published by the National Governance Association last September showed that only 87% of MAT trustees overall report having a local tier of governance for schools within the MAT. An LSE research paper points out that academies within MATs have no legal identity of their own. It is interesting to reflect on the situation that we now have with those academies within a MAT, when, in the original concept of academies, the stress was all on the freedom of that individual academy. It is almost as if we have moved the whole philosophy without there being any real parliamentary debate or scrutiny, and certainly no legislation.