Education Settings: Autumn Opening — House of Lords, 2020-07-08
Topic: Education
Michael Goodall Watson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we want to see every child safely back in school when the new term begins in September, but simply willing it, or even making it compulsory, does not mean it will happen. Parents must have confidence that it is safe for their children to return, and this Statement does not in itself provide that because it contains many unanswered questions By September, almost six months will have elapsed since any child has experienced a normal education. A number, although disappointingly small, have been attending school throughout as the children of key workers, and more recently selected years have been able to return, but despite teachers working flat out, few—if any—of these children, or those being home-schooled, have experienced education in any sense as it would have been had the coronavirus pandemic not happened. The result has been the development of a major gap in their learning for millions of young people, and perhaps the saddest aspect of that is that the narrowing of the gap between children from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds, painstakingly achieved over recent years, has been reversed. The impact of lost time in education on children’s life chances is incalculable, but we know for sure that for some, ground lost this year may never be regained The Statement talks of schools continuing to minimise contact between children through grouping children together in bubbles, with whole year groups in schools kept separate, but how practical is that? The proposals for managing schools are complicated, confusing and unlikely to work in many situations, not least in terms of the proposed whole-year bubbles. How will they work? How will wraparound care work? How will transport to and from school be addressed? For example, siblings will be probably be in different bubbles but will mix on transport as well as at home. Another practical point concerns supply teachers. Will they be able to move between schools? What seems to be being suggested for secondary schools requires a huge re-organisation of space, timetable and staff deployment, all to be accomplished in a few weeks. The cost of all this will be considerable—the additional cleaning alone will be very significant—yet schools are being told they have to manage on the resources they have. Is that fair or practical On the subject of funding to deal with the crisis, I want to press the Minister on the resources announced by the Secretary of State two weeks ago: the so-called Covid catch-up funding. Last week, when this Statement was presented in the other place, the Secretary of State told the shadow Secretary of State, Kate Green MP, "there is new money for the covid catch-up fund."—[Official Report, Commons, 2/7/20; col. 542.] That is ambiguous. Is there some new money or is it all new money? Given that on the same day as the £1 billion was announced, a further announcement scrapped the year 7 catch-up premium, I think we are entitled to be just a little suspicious. I hope that the Minister will today allay any fears about whether the fund represents new rather than recycled resources Exams in 2021 are a real concern. Pupils are already anxious that missing so much time in school will adversely affect their results and hence, potentially, their future. The Ofqual consultation seems to be doing little more than tinkering around the edges of the issues. There needs to be a fall-back position in place, widely known and understood, in case the 2021 exams are also disrupted. There should be a commitment that Ofqual will use the techniques established when exams are changed: of following the principle of comparable outcomes. Can the Minister confirm whether that will be the case? Announcing this by the time that schools return in September would go some way to reassuring students that they will not be penalised because of the impact of the virus this year, and possibly next year Even that would not solve all problems and there will remain a huge risk that disadvantaged pupils, whose learning was more disrupted, will lose out disproportionately again. Crucially, I ask the Minister: will track and trace be working properly, with information properly shared? The Government’s record thus far—in terms much wider than the educational—does not exactly inspire confidence I return to the issue of a lack of confidence among parents, which has prevented more of them allowing their children to return to school since June. What can the Minister say to parents that will enable their confidence to build in the short time between now and September?