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Mr. Harry Greenway: Or on Saturday mornings.
Mr. Sproat: Yes. I remember visiting a comprehensive school in Berkshire in which the rowing coach and his crews came in at 7 am and were delighted to do so. I believe that that spirit is being revived among teachers in our schools. That is the answer to the very important point on time, which is one of the specific matters that we are changing from this academic year onwards. The school year starts in September, and that is what we want schools to aspire to.
One of the other provisions that we are introducing is an annual series of awards for schools to be called the sportsmark. Schools will apply to win a sportsmark, which they can display in the school. It will say that that school has achieved a high standard in sporting provision and sporting quality. It might be helpful if I read out one or two of the criteria on which the sportsmark will be awarded. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam will be glad to hear that the first criterion is to
The next criteria are to
The fifth criterion is that
To summarise: the prospectus will set out to parents, pupils, teachers and governors what the school aims to do in sport; the amount of time that is devoted to sport must be increased; and there will be awards--or prizes--for schools that do well, by means of the annual sportsmark awards.
I now come to the issue of teaching sport. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North(Mr. Greenway) was a headmaster, and I am sure that he would like to say something about this issue, Madam Deputy Speaker, should he catch your eye. We are concerned that too many teachers do not have the qualifications for coaching that would most benefit pupils. Therefore, from now on--under the pilot project that will start this autumn--all teachers in teacher training colleges will be encouraged strongly to take coaching qualifications so that they are able to coach to a standard that is not tremendously high but which enables them at least to take a game of netball, tennis or football.
To assist with that goal and to put in some money, I have said that those are specific proposals and that they should be specifically funded. The Sports Council will put aside an extra £1 million for the National Coaching Foundation--to add to the £4.5 million that it already provides--to encourage the development of new modules to enable teachers who are in training to gain new coaching qualifications. That will apply to teachers in teacher training and to INSET--in-service training--teachers, providing them with the opportunity to go out and refurbish their coaching qualifications. Such refurbishment is currently a real problem.
Again, I am very keen that this debate does not appear to be party political. I fully understand that there is a very serious problem if working teachers have to take time out of school, particularly out of primary school, to refurbish their coaching qualifications or to gain such qualifications for the first time. If a teacher leaves a primary school to do a course, who will take his or her place? There are problems, which we are determined to solve.
Lady Olga Maitland:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for giving way on such an important topic. I wonder whether he can clarify one point. In the past couple of years there has been a debate over the fact that teachers who might be willing to give extra help with sporting activities say that they will do so only if they are paid extra money. Will he tell the House exactly what point we have reached in that debate?
Mr. Sproat:
Yes. It is quite true that teachers feel that, if they are to do work outside the curriculum, they should receive extra pay. Some teachers very willingly do the work outside the curriculum without the desire for extra pay. However, there are opportunities for head teachers to give extra pay to teachers in those circumstances. It is up to head teachers to decide the matter. That is an important point, and I shall find out from the Department for Education and Employment to what extent advantage has been taken of the current opportunities to pay teachers more for doing extra work.
Mr. Harry Greenway:
Does my hon. Friend agree that relations are enormously improved between teachers and those taught when teachers take teams and coach sport? It is a very good addition to school discipline, and teachers who teach sport successfully become leaders in schools and are often valuable people for promotion. Does he agree that people who take the trouble to become qualified to coach a sport--they should be qualified to coach such sports as soccer, basketball, hockey or netball if they are to be respected by pupils at secondary level--deserve an addition to their pay? Perhaps those are also the type of people who should at least be considered for promotion.
Mr. Sproat:
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I certainly agree that often teachers who have taken the trouble to earn extra qualifications demonstrate--by the fact that they wanted to do so--their wish to get on, their ability and their general stance, which very often is reflected across all their school activities. Of course they deserve to be properly rewarded. As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, head teachers already have the power to do so. It is of course up to each school to deal with the matter in the manner that it thinks best.
I mentioned the need to encourage strongly generalist teachers to obtain some subsidiary sport qualification. The need for secondary qualifications applies generally, but this is a debate on sport.
On the matter of specialist PE teachers, I remember one head teacher telling me some months ago about a very good PE teacher whose specialist qualifications--in an inner-city school--were in weightlifting and in canoeing. The number of girls--or boys--who wanted to do weightlifting was not substantial, and the only place where they could have a canoe was on the local duck
pond. So although that man was a good PE teacher, in many ways his specialisms were not of the greatest use to the pupils.
Therefore, a change from the next academic year, starting in September, will be that all PE teachers will have to be able to teach one mainstream winter game and one mainstream summer game, so that the majority of pupils will benefit. Of course, teachers will want to maintain their interest in weightlifting and canoeing and should be allowed to do so, but pupils must come first and PE teacher training must be directed specifically to providing what is of greatest help to the pupils.
Thus, the amount of time spent on sport is to increase, teachers' qualifications will improve and we are setting up the sportsmark system so that schools can see how well they have done. In addition, we have to make certain that once we have set schools all these new standards, they are in fact met. The Office for Standards in Education has agreed to change its system of reporting. As of now, for the first time, Ofsted is going to report on sport within the national curriculum and on sport outside the national curriculum. Just as the academic side of a school has been monitored by Ofsted, so the sporting, or extra-curricular, side is to be monitored.
In January this year, Ofsted published an extremely valuable document on best sporting practice in schools. It set out details of what some schools are already doing, which other schools might like to copy to improve their sporting provision. In the forthcoming school year, Ofsted will also report on teacher training colleges to make sure that teachers are being trained correctly in a way that enables them to teach sport in school. There has been more than a suspicion that teacher training colleges have not all applied themselves as they should to ensuring that teachers whom they trained understood the importance of sport and were able to teach it.
"Provide a minimum of two hours a week of timetabled PE lesson".
I know that that will be quite difficult for some schools because they have a timetable in which there is not the latitude and elasticity that they would like--but that is what they should aspire to.
"Provide a minimum of four hours each week of organised sport outside timetabled lessons to all interested pupils.
I must say, that is the type of jargon one must fight one's way through to get to the reality. It means that more pupils will be playing more sensible games, which they actually want to play.
3. Devote at least half the time spent on PE to both inside and outside timetabled lessons to games which should be played in a form judged appropriate for the year group by the relevant sports governing body"--
"Teachers and others involved in extra-curricular sport should continuously gain coaching qualifications or leadership awards".
The sixth criterion covers the point that I mentioned earlier in another context, which is that schools should
"Have established links with local sports clubs"
and
"7. Encourage pupils to take part in sports governing bodies' awards schemes."
Sportsmark invitations will go out this October, and the first awards will be made next April. It is something to show to schools and say, "Here are the standards to which you should aspire." The award is not only for schools that are best at sport but for those that improve themselves from a very low base. It will be a very real encouragement to all schools, because we know that many schools, particularly those in inner cities, do not have the facilities that we should like them to have. We are not saying, "Just because you do not have all those sports facilities you cannot apply for a sportsmark." To a large degree, the sportsmark will be awarded for effort, to those schools that improve themselves, given their facilities.
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