| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Don Foster: Will the Minister supply a little more information about how he envisages local education authorities monitoring schools, so that they can take the action to which he referred? For example, does he envisage LEA officers visiting schools, sitting in on lessons and commenting on them? If so, do the Government intend to provide guidance to LEAs as to the procedures in that regard?
Mr. Byers: If the hon. Gentleman waits just a couple of minutes, I shall address his point about the appropriate role for local education authorities in improving schools.
I was referring to the part that LEAs can play in providing an early warning system. If there are difficulties, the local authority will have the opportunity
to issue a formal warning and request a plan of action from the school concerned. If doubts continue and it becomes clear that effective action is not being taken, the LEA should be able to invite the Office for Standards in Education to conduct a further inspection. It should be able to appoint additional governors and, ultimately, it should have the power to withdraw budget delegation from the school.
On the point raised by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), the role of the LEA is to challenge schools to raise standards and to set ambitious but achievable targets. It is not one of control. Those days are gone and will not return.
Under the White Paper proposals, an effective local education authority will challenge schools to improve themselves, but it will be ready to intervene where there are problems. It will not interfere with schools that are doing well. However, the White Paper raises important questions about what the LEA's role should be in school improvement.
All schools must be monitored regularly. The White Paper proposes that there should be two external checks on the progress of individual schools. First, every school will have an Ofsted inspection at least once every six years. Clearly, that is not enough. Ofsted will continue to play an important role in identifying schools that are underperforming and making recommendations on how they can improve, but other external pressures are required between the six-yearly Ofsted inspections. The second external check will be carried out by the LEA, which will need to monitor regularly the performance of each individual school.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
It seems to me that there is a real problem with the Government's proposals. It is unlikely that schools that are monitored so closely and thoroughly by their local education authorities will want to risk trying anything new, so a normal pattern of teaching will be established, without anyone daring to step out of line because of all the heavy-handed checking. As with all systems that are directed from the centre, we shall end up with a second-rate product.
Mr. Byers:
As a result of 18 years of Conservative government, all too often we have a second-rate product in respect of education.
The White Paper contains some practical proposals for addressing underperformance in our schools. Schools that are performing well and achieving good results will not suffer the interference to which the hon. Gentleman referred; only schools that are underachieving will need effective monitoring. Under this Government, there will be no hiding place for failing or underachieving schools. We make no apology for that. It is not good enough to rely on a six-yearly inspection. Schools have to be monitored sympathetically and with a light touch. That is what we expect local education authorities to do.
Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough):
We sympathise with what the Minister is trying to achieve and we welcome the fact that LEAs will play a more significant role--albeit with a light touch--in monitoring and maintaining standards in schools. However, he must be aware that, particularly in the past 10 years, LEA inspection and advisory services have been run down
Mr. Byers:
The hon. Gentleman knows that there will be additional resources from the next financial year. The Budget makes it clear that there will be additional revenue. I have no doubt that as that money goes into our school system, in the light of the proposals in the White Paper, many LEAs will recognise that they need to re-establish their advisory and inspection services.
The real problem will be finding experienced personnel. As we have given them notice in the White Paper, we hope that local authorities will begin the task of identifying people to carry out that role. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that people who were doing that work five or 10 years ago will have found other occupations and may well have left the service. We recognise that problem and see the need to tackle it. We have already started discussions with the relevant parties, to ensure that there will be personnel to provide advisory and inspection services locally, in order to deliver on the policy outlined in the White Paper.
Between six-yearly Ofsted inspections, there will be LEA monitoring. What do we expect LEAs to do? They should analyse recent test, examination and inspection results and compare them with results from similar schools; they should monitor parental and local concerns and agree annual targets with individual schools. The annual targets will be included in the education development plan of each local authority, to be submitted to the Secretary of State.
There is an issue as to what will happen if there is not agreement between a local education authority and an individual school about the target that should be set. One example was given by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) yesterday in a discussion that we had on television. A local education authority may set targets well below the national average, yet an individual school within that authority may do exceptionally well. However, we shall not tolerate the standards of an individual school being lowered as a result of the targets set by the local education authority. That is why, if there is a disagreement, there has to be a fallback position, and that will be the Secretary of State determining any disagreement between an individual school and its local education authority. We are confident that that approach will ensure that we shall be able to drive up standards for authorities, as well as challenging even schools performing well above the national average to do even better.
The local education authority will also need to check that a school's approach to improvement meets the standards set by the Government. If a school is performing successfully, the local education authority will take no further action.
In the introduction of standards and accountability into our school system, the final building block will be the education development plans that will be prepared by each local education authority. They should be operational by April 1999. Each plan will include the targets set for each school and will be submitted to the Secretary of State for approval. He will then consult Ofsted before making his decision on the education development plan.
The merits or otherwise of the education development plan depend on the LEAs functioning effectively. Where they work well--in partnership, not controlling and supporting, not interfering--LEAs can become part of the solution to the problems of our education system. However, when LEAs fail, they become part of the problem. We shall not run away from that. Without fear or favour and no matter what political control an LEA may be under, we shall intervene to stop an LEA failing the children in its locality. That is why, when it was clearly demonstrated that the east London borough of Hackney was failing its children and not delivering the quality of education that parents in Hackney and the Government expect, we invited Ofsted to carry out an inspection of Hackney. That inspection is now under way and we await its report in the autumn.
We shall not stand to one side and see the life chances of our children denied because of underperformance by an LEA, a school or an individual teacher. The reality is that if schools are to succeed in raising standards, they will need support from the local education authority acting sympathetically and from the Government. We will ensure that they receive such support.
The second area I want to touch on is teaching as a profession, which should be based on high status and high standards. High-quality classroom teaching must be at the heart of our drive to raise standards. I have no doubt that the majority of teachers do a good job, often in difficult circumstances; so the time has come to raise the status of teaching as a profession. That is why we intend to establish a general teaching council--a body which will act as a single voice for the profession. Next week, we shall publish a consultation document on the general teaching council. We have no doubt that it will make an important contribution towards the elevation of teaching as a valued profession.
It is currently a great irony that, as things stand, our best teachers are promoted and consequently spend less time in front of a class.
Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest):
Has the Minister had a chance to evaluate the contribution made to the Scottish teaching profession by the General Teaching Council in Scotland during the 22 years of its existence? If he does so and discovers--as those of us who have examined it have already discovered--that few teachers who are members of that council bother to take part in the votes for its officers or pay any attention to it, will he be surprised by the fact that the General Teaching Council in Scotland has made no contribution whatsoever towards raising standards?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |