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Oral Answers to Questions
EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT
School Admissions
1. Mr. Rendel: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to issue guidance to grant-maintained schools on the question of admission of children permanently excluded from their previous school. [33195]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire): The Secretary of State has no plans to issue such guidance. However, she has stressed in a White Paper entitled "Self-Government for Schools" and in a new circular on school admissions that grant-maintained schools should have the maximum flexibility to shape their admission arrangements to reflect the wishes of local people.
Mr. Rendel: Does the Minister accept the figures for Berkshire--which I sent to the Secretary of State at the beginning of June--which show that pupils excluded from local education authority schools are not being taken on by grant-maintained schools, but that pupils excluded from grant-maintained schools are being taken on by local education authority schools? Does the Minister accept that, whatever the Government might say about having a level playing field between different types of schools, in practice their policy is that all schools are equal but some are more equal than others?
Mr. Squire: While I have no reason to dispute the figures that the hon. Gentleman has submitted, I dispute the conclusions that he draws from them. Instead of the conspiratorial thesis that the hon. Gentleman puts forward--which reflects the anti-grant-maintained view of the hon. Gentleman and his party--a more prosaic reason is that virtually all grant-maintained schools are over-subscribed and full, and it is logical that more LEA schools accept exclusions than GM schools. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there is power within legislation for an LEA to direct a GM school in specific circumstances to accept a pupil who has no other place.
Mr. Rowe: My hon. Friend is right to be concerned about children who have been excluded from schools that they might otherwise wish to attend. I refer to children who are kept in schools, under the force of law, but who are getting absolutely nothing out of their education. Would my hon. Friend consider the possibility that such children might be able to take the money that the local education authority is wasting on their education and spend it somewhere else?
Mr. Squire: My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion. As he knows, since April the Government have been consulting on the way in which 14 to 16-year-olds are educated and the other opportunities that are being developed. Schools should be able to find the correct way to educate children, whatever their particular talents. I am happy to look at my hon. Friend's suggestion.
Schools (Security Cameras)
2. Mr. Michael Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what contribution is planned from public funds to assist schools in the provision of security cameras. [33197]
Mr. Robin Squire: Last week we announced extra funding for security cameras in 112 schools in England under the Home Office closed circuit television challenge scheme. The Department for Education and Employment contributed £2 million to the scheme. The Government also accept in full the recommendations of the working group on school security, including the provision of new money. That will support a further range of measures in schools, including security cameras where appropriate.
Mr. Brown: I welcome the announcement that the Secretary of State made yesterday to make a larger proportion of budgets directly available to schools. Does my hon. Friend think that there is also a case for making the funds that he announced last week directly available to individual schools? For example, schools in constituencies such as mine face problems of vandalism and security, which have to be paid for directly out of the school budget.
Mr. Squire: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome of last week's announcement. I am sure that all hon. Members welcome it because school security is important. I can confirm to my hon. Friend that all the winning schools in the announcement will receive the money directly, but money for the new security measures, for which we will make provision in the annual grant guidelines, will be paid via local education authorities, not least because they are best placed to judge the relative priorities of conflicting bids in their areas.
Teacher Training
3. Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what recent representations she has received regarding the reform of teacher training. [33198]
The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Gillian Shephard): There has been a warm welcome for my recent announcement of my intention to define a national curriculum for teacher training, beginning with the teaching of primary literacy and numeracy.
Mrs. Lait: May I offer my thanks and those of many of my constituents for the announcements that my right hon. Friend has made? Can she assure me that the national curriculum will include the difference between "its" and "it's", "their", "there" and "they're", and the plural and the apostrophe? Can she further assure me that 12-year-olds will be able to give a better definition of a verb than "a doing word" and that they will understand what a preposition is? Can she assure me that teachers will be instructed, whatever their subject, to correct basic mistakes in grammar, always assuming that they know what it is?
Mrs. Shephard: We have introduced a number of reforms to ensure proper teaching of the basics, but an
Office for Standards in Education survey has shown that 46 per cent. of newly qualified teachers feel ill equipped with the practical skills that they need. They and the children deserve better. I shall announce in September the details of a curriculum for teacher training, which will start with the basic literacy skills about which my hon. Friend is rightly so concerned.
Mr. Bryan Davies: How can the country have confidence in Ministers if, after 17 long years, they are only now waking up to the question of how teachers learn to teach?
Mrs. Shephard: Perhaps I can remind the hon. Gentleman of what his party has done in the past 17 years. It has opposed every measure that we have introduced to improve standards, including the establishment of the Teacher Training Agency, so Opposition Members cannot now claim to be interested in high standards or in measures to improve them. If the Opposition are so concerned about higher standards, why do not they start putting matters right in the nine local education authorities that they control out of the 10 with the worst GCSE results?
Mr. Evennett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that teacher training must be effective and relevant when it is taught in the colleges? My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) highlighted literacy skills, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is also important to teach classroom skills, including discipline and how to manage a class? If teachers do not have those skills, they will not be effective however good their training is in their subjects.
Mrs. Shephard: Clearly, every teacher must be trained, through initial teacher training and through in-service training, in whole-class teaching; to use phonics to help early reading; to engage in active instruction rather than passive supervision; and, of course and most importantly, to keep discipline.
Deeside School
4. Mr. Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to make provision for severely disabled children following the closure of Deeside school. [33199]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. James Paice): In considering Cheshire's proposal to close Deeside school, one of the factors that my right hon. Friend took into account was the availability of places at suitable alternative schools.
Mr. Miller: Does the Minister agree that a civilised society is one that looks after those in greatest need? As he was a party to the barmy decision to close Deeside school, will he now condemn Cheshire county council, which is continuing to break the law by failing to provide full and up-to-date statements for children from that school?
Mr. Paice: If the hon. Gentleman believes that any local education authority is breaking the law, he should draw his allegations properly to the attention of my right hon. Friend. There are a whole range of reasons why
Cheshire LEA proposed the school's closure and my right hon. Friend took them all into account--not least the fact that the cost per pupil place at the school is almost double the cost per pupil place at the average special needs school in the same LEA area.Standard Assessment Tasks
5. Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what representations she has received on her policy of requiring key stage 2 SAT results to be submitted to her for publication; and if she will make a statement. [33200]
Mrs. Gillian Shephard: The key stage 2 tests have been a great success this year. The overwhelming majority of schools have taken the tests and sent them for marking.
Mr. Hughes: What would the Secretary of State say to the governors, the head and the teachers of the Church of England primary school in Bermondsey, where I am the chair of governors, who met last week to consider the extremely good inspector's report that has been produced on the school, which has now been publicised, and who decided--I vacated the chair so I did not influence the decision--that sending SAT results for publication is a completely irresponsible and inaccurate method of comparing schools' performances? Will the Secretary of State consider the school's request that it not be obliged to provide that information and that it rest its case on the basis of the Office for Standards in Education report, which says it is a perfectly good school that has obtained good results in all subjects?
Mrs. Shephard: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the quality of the Ofsted report on the school where he is the chairman of governors. However, I regret the decision by any governing body to break the law and to withhold from parents and the wider community information about a school's performance to which they are entitled. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will exercise his influence in a benign way in that regard.
Performance tables contain hard facts. Obviously, value added is also important and the hon. Gentleman will know that we have asked the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority to take forward work in that area.
Mr. Thomason:
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the publication of the figures has proved extremely popular with parents? Is it not surprising that Opposition Members should seek to ensure that that information is not freely available?
Mrs. Shephard:
I do find that surprising. I think that parents greatly value information about schools and their performance at both primary and secondary levels. It seems curious that any hon. Member would wish to deny them that information.
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