Examination of Witness(Questions 40-59)
RT HON
CHARLES CLARKE,
MP
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002
40. That goes contrary to the statement that
you have just made or it makes it easier for some schools to meet
the needs of every child in that school, which is your criterion
for a good comprehensive school.
(Mr Clarke) Do you mean if you select them?
Valerie Davey: Yes.
(Mr Clarke) I know that that can be true. I think
the aptitude involved in specialist schools gives more of a chance
of pupils going to schools where there is something that they
are interested in. At the end of the day, the bottom line is that
selection regimes produce a system that inhibits educational opportunities
for significant numbers of people. I could not go higher than
that. One of the great successes of comprehensive education was
that it eliminated that problem in a major part of the country.
41. I have to say to you, Secretary of State,
what are we going to do about Kent and the situation in my colleague's
constituency?
(Mr Clarke) I went to Kent, as I mentioned, and I
had a brief meeting with the people campaigning against grammar
schools in Kent. I committed myself to continue to talk to them
about the situation. I am also talking to the LEA about trying
to get to a state of affairs where they do not do as they do now.
Obviously, any further change will require legislation. We do
not have any plans for legislation, but in the political process
with which we are all familiar that is an aspect that comes into
consideration as the Government go forward. I still hope and believe
that it will be better if the authorities where there is selection
of that kind, look at their own practices self-critically. I think
education standards have to be tested in this area.
Mr Pollard
42. On diversity, Secretary of State, do Steiner
and Montessori schools feature in this diverse, new agenda? It
seems to me that specialist schools are a variation on a theme.
Montessori and Steiner schools and other schools like that bring
a distinctive different agenda. Were you aware that there is a
pilot scheme going on in Brixton where a failing school has been
handed over to the Steiner organisation for that to take a personal
interest in it.
(Mr Clarke) I will. I have to confess that since I
was appointed I have not looked at the matter of Steiner and Montessori
schools. Beforehand, when I was a Minister before in this department,
as an individual I had an interest in education and I have looked
at the Steiner and Montessori schools and I have been very impressed
with what I have seen. They have a very good achievement. But
I have not looked at them recently so that I am not in a position
to comment on them. I was not aware of the pilot, but there is
a lot to be offered there and it is worthwhile. The questions
that Ms Davey raised about selection are also important issues
to take into account when looking at those schools.
43. Recently, I spent a day at a primary school
in my constituency, St David's, headed by a very able teacher.
I interviewed each teacher, spending about three-quarters of an
hour with each one and we met for coffee later on. I wanted to
find out what was bothering them, why there is unrest in the teaching
profession. They said, invariably, that they love teaching and
they were absolutely dedicated to raising standards, but they
said that the bureaucracy was the matter. They thought that from
9 to 3.30 was excellent, with extra classroom assistance and so
on. That was good. But it is the part afterwards, working until
8 or 9 or 10 o'clock at night doing preparation, planning, marking
and so on and they wanted something done about that. A model that
they have adopted there is that a supernumerary teacher comes
in one day a fortnight in the afternoon to give each classroom
teacher time away from the coalface. They value that very highly.
Perhaps you would think about that as a model that could be put
into practice throughout the system. Teachers also talk about
the cost of housing in the South East. That is a clear determining
factor in teachers returning to the profession. One said that
he could move 20 miles up the M1 away from my constituency where
the cost of housing is about half what it is in my area. That
is not recognised in the value of London weighting. Would you
talk about that point as well?
(Mr Clarke) Firstly, I understand the point about
bureaucracy. I will not say any more about that than what I said
to Mr Ennis. However, the whole reform of the work force discussion
is currently taking place and the allocation of significant money.
Discussions have actually taken place with the teaching unions.
I hope that we shall have a positive conclusion shortly. That
will allow that money to be released and be of significant help
in terms of restructuring the school day to deal with the point
that you have raised. We have had constructive dialogue with the
main teaching unions, but the NUT has not accepted that position.
I hope that we get agreement on this to drive it forward. It will
make a difference to the people to whom you have been talking.
Also in that context, we have more powers since the Education
Act to allow schools to vary their day. Yesterday I approved the
first such application from a primary school in Plymouth which
wants to use Wednesday afternoons for activities so that the teachers
can have that time for preparation. I want to agree a variety
of proposals. Generally I hope that schools will take the opportunity
to ask me to use the powers that I have to do that. The kind of
question that you have raised is important. I also, I have to
say, see no reason why the timing of the school day cannot be
changed, if the schools think it is a good thing to do, and it
would possibly vary in different areas. I do not think there is
anything particularly sacrosanct about 9 to 3.30, or whatever.
That is an issue for local decision and I would positively welcome
that proposal. On the cost of housing in the south east I well
understand the point that you make. Unfortunately, the Government
has been so successful economically that the drive forward has
meant that we have seen house prices going up in London and the
South East in particular, and that has a very serious knock-on.
All I can say is that we have drawn the attention of the School
Teachers' Review Body to that particular aspect and I know it
is one of the things they will be thinking about before they produce
their report in January. I do not know what they will say but
it certainly is an issue.
Mr Turner
44. I think you used the words "judge by
educational standards for all not just the standards of the best
schools" when answering Valerie Davey. Judged by educational
standards for all, results in Northern Ireland, which has a fully
selective system, are substantially better than those in England.
Why is that?
(Mr Clarke) I have not studied the statististics.
This was put to me by the Conservative Party spokesman and I put
the point back "Is the Conservative Party in favour of bringing
back the 11-plus?", which I would be interested in developing.
The honest answer to you, Mr Turner, is that I do not know the
answer to that because I have not studied the situation in Northern
Ireland. I do think the situation in Northern Ireland is better,
generally speaking, but I am ready to study and I am prepared
to study, and without studying it I would not like to necessarily
accept the conclusion that the selective school has better educational
standards for all.
45. In your statement on Monday you suggested
that most of the separate funding streams were going to be consolidated
into funding for local education authorities. Which will and which
will not? Does that statement include pilot and pathfinder funding
streams?
(Mr Clarke) What I announced, in particular, was that
in 2003-04 the following six funding streams would go to SSA:
grants for nursery education for three-year olds; funding for
infant class sizes; the school improvement grant; the school inclusion
and pupil support; performance management, and induction for newly
qualified teachers. So that is six funding streams going into
the SSA. In 2004-05 there are an additional seven which are: special
educational needs; study support, golden hello payments, advanced
skills teachers; school support staff; drugs education and teacher
sabbaticals. We will also focus grants for the national literacy
and numeracy strategy and Key Stage 3 strategy. Then I have said
that in 2005-06 we will be addressing the question of the threshold
payments, so there are quite a significant number of separate
grants which I shall be transferring to local authorities.
46. I am sure—certainly as someone who
has served on the Committee—on behalf of the Committee we
welcome that. However, there are still, I think, 12 pilot and
pathfinder initiatives, selection for which is effectively done
by your civil servants. Of the approximately 150 local education
authorities, 60 enjoy the benefit from none of those initiatives.
Do you think that the criteria which results in that are fairly
drawn?
(Mr Clarke) The purpose of pilots is to try and establish
whether particular approaches will have particular results in
particular areas. So it is, by definition, selective; it will
try to find out where a particular approach might make a difference
and where it does not. I think what is a fair comment for you
to make is that we are getting to the end, as a Government, of
the period of pathfinders and pilots and we need to be mainstreaming
what we are doing and coming up with conclusions about that approach.
I think that would be a fair comment for you to make. I think
we are trying to do that. It will still remain the case that there
are particular areas that we want to look at and see how they
work in a whole variety of different ways. That means it is not
mainstream but we hope it will become mainstream in due course.
47. When you set the criteria—and I assume
the criteria is objective—there does appear to be a fair
amount of discretion lying with your officials in how they apply
the criteria.
(Mr Clarke) Firstly, the criteria are always objective.
They have to be, otherwise it would be improper. It may be that
we may focus on particular areas, be it inner cities or rural
areas or whatever. Nevertheless, they have an objective criteria
within that context. What normally happens is that there is then
a bidding process advertised. So the first thing that happens
is people come in and make their submission. Then, it is true,
my officials will look at the various bids according to how well
they think they might fit with the pilot and then they make recommendations
to ministers. That is the normal process. One of the considerations
that ministers in the past have looked at, and I certainly will
do as well, is the degree of geographical balance in the submissions
that are made, but that does not deal with your point that there
are still significant areas which have not had any of these schemes.
In total they are a relatively small number of initiatives.
48. Do you mean a relatively small number of
initiatives or fairly small LEAs?
(Mr Clarke) No, no, relatively small number of initiatives.
49. There are 69 local education authorities
which benefit from the gifted and talented pupils programme. That
is not a small initiative.
(Mr Clarke) The total amount of money in that is £4
million in all LEA's, which is a lot of money but, in the great
scale of things, is not an enormous amount of money[2].
It is a relatively small number of children in each of those LEAs
who have benefited from that programme. I think, to be blunt,
you have a point in what you are saying. One of our challenges
is how to mainstream the good practice that we have learnt from
pilots into things that need changing, and I think that is a state
of mind which is sometimes damaging; people think they can only
do things if there is a pilot or a particular project that they
are delivering, and our challenge is, where we think that approach
has worked, how to mainstream the approach.
50. On the other hand, there is one LEA, Birmingham,
which benefits from 10 of the 12 pilots. Could you assure the
Committee that if you are introducing any further pilots you will
look at spreading the benefit of taking part in pilot schemes
among as many LEAs as you can?
(Mr Clarke) I can give that assurance and I am happy
to do it, the only qualification being that we, obviously, if
we do do pilots, want schools to be in those pilots which are
keen to do them. So it depends, to some extent, on who comes forward.
Mr Chaytor
51. You said earlier that there were questions
about the admissions system, not least in terms of the performance
of the whole area. Does that apply equally to the partially select
areas as it does to the wholly select areas?
(Mr Clarke) In my opinion, yes. I think it is a question
that has to be asked. The only thing I would counsel against—and
I said this to the group I met in Kent—is I do not think
this needs to be or should be a purely ideological argument. I
think it should be an argument that is founded entirely on standards,
on a real assessment of what is happening to educational standards.
That was one of the big arguments against selection when the comprehensive
systems were established, and it became accepted that not only
was that unjust but it was inhibiting our educational performance.
The criteria which I suggest that anybody has to look at is what
is the impact on the educational standards.
52. Pursuing the standards point, the Schools
White Paper which launched the specialist schools policy based
its evidence for the expansion of the pilot entirely on the research
of one academic, Professor Jensen, whose findings are challenged
by the findings of Ofsted, the NFER and the Office for National
Statistics. In retrospect, would it have been better to use a
broader base of evidence before launching the policy
(Mr Clarke) Well, possibly. We tried, as you will
recall, to develop evidence-based approaches on policy. It was
very difficult in the early years of the Government to do that,
however, for the reason that we were rightly aware of the amount
of time it took to get from a decision in this House to anything
happening on the ground. We needed to get things moving in order
to have any impact whatsoever. I think our experience would lead
us to be less anxious about that now. So some of the issues we
drove forward on the basis of our assessment, but in all of them
we built in an assessment process to try and come to a view about
whether a particular approach had succeeded. I do not apologise,
actually, for going forward with some of these programmes from
the outset because I think if we had not done, it would have taken
a long time to make progress. If I can make a slightly barbed
side-swipe, I do not think the evidence from the educational research
is as unequivocal as we would have liked, in terms of being able
to assess what approaches we should follow.
53. Professor Jensen was famous for another
piece of research, which tended to suggest that selective systems
of education performed, overall, much worse than comprehensive
systems. That evidence was not used in the Schools White Paper,
so how is it that the Government is prepared to select one kind
of evidence and not another kind?
(Mr Clarke) I cannot answer—and I would not
try to—for what the precise balance was in the White Paper
at that time. I will look at it again and have a closer look.
54. On the question of the hierarchy of schools,
you said earlier that you wanted to move away from the hierarchy
and you thought the only real division in our system is that between
private and state sector schools. Surely, the best performing
state schools now compare, essentially, with a typical private
school, largely because they share the same social intake. The
real division, surely, is between the best performing state schools
and the worst performing state schools, because their social intakes
are so different?
(Mr Clarke) I do not really agree with that, you know.
I think it is certainly true that there are very badly performing
private schools as there are badly performing state schools, and
also very highly performing private schools as there are highly
performing state schools. If I was to look in my own city and
look around at the people who send their children to school in
my city, the biggest division is between people who send their
children to secondary private schools and those who use the regular
state system. I would say that is a more significant division
both socially and economically than any division in the maintained
system. Of course, that division is not typical of the world but
it soon might be. I cannot speak, obviously, for your constituency
or for other colleagues, but I do know, talking about private
education in Bristol, it is very substantial indeed—and
in London, where you have got something like 20% of parents choosing
to go private. It is only a relatively small group of that 20%
that is buying into the "snobbery"; many of them are
going private because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the
state system is not what they are looking for for their children.
So our job is to improve the state system.
55. You will accept that university cities are
not typical of the country as a whole?
(Mr Clarke) I would agree.
56. Within the existing system, are you accepting,
therefore, the continued existence of the existing hierarchies
within schools?
(Mr Clarke) Within the maintained system?
Mr Chaytor: Within the state system.
(Mr Clarke) I do not quite share the distinction.
I have heard you speak on this on a number of occasions and read
some of the things you have said and I agree with a lot of what
you say, but I do not really agree that there is now a two-tier
system within the state system. I do not believe that there is
a type of school there and another type of school there.
57. It is a spectrum?
(Mr Clarke) Precisely. There is a wide spectrum of
schools, and schools move quite rapidly in and out of those different
spectrums. If you look in many of our cities, schools that were
very successful ten years ago are not now and schools which were
not very successful ten years ago are, and it varies and it is
not a stable state of affairs. I believe that as a result of our
action as a Government and as a result of teachers behaving in
certain ways you can change the performance of schools either
for the better or for the worse. Obviously, our task is to try
and make it act for the better across the UK.
58. Within the specialist schools policy, do
you not accept there is a hierarchy of different kinds of specialist
schools and the choice of particular kinds of specialisms tends
to reinforce that hierarchy?
(Mr Clarke) I do not, actually, again, either. Where
I would accept you are right is that I think there are particular
aspects of, for example, curricular development and teacher training
in schools where I can imagine particular schools being able to
take on more in those areas. Indeed, some schools have bid for
teacher training in that context. I can see that is the case,
and I can see how that can be described as hierarchical, but I
do not think it really is because a hierarchy implies a certain
degree of rigidity about it—such-and-such a school is going
to behave in that way—I will not say always but is likely
to be in that position forever—and that school is not going
to achieve. I absolutely do not accept that. Even within the system
we have at the moment, people can move much more rapidly than
is widely acknowledged. One of the reasons why we have put up
the spending for specialist schools is because I think that if
more schools were specialist schools any suspicions that what
you are describing is the case would be significantly reduced.
Chairman: A very quick follow-up because
I do not want skills to be squeezed out.
Mr Chaytor
59. Are you open to the idea that there should
be a wider range of specialisms and that schools should be able
to designate their own specialism?
(Mr Clarke) I am certainly open to a wider range.
Indeed, looking at—
2 Note by witness: All Excellence in Cities
partnerships and Excellence Clusters operate a gifted and talented
strand, but these are area-based initiatives rather than pilot
projects. There are several national gifted and talented education
projects, including the national summer schools programme, which
provides for 500 summer schools annually in all English LEAs at
a cost of £4.5 million a year. There is some small-scale
pilot activity within the strategy for gifted and talented education,
designed to further our understanding of effective practice. Current
efforts to establish a complete database of LEA contacts should
make it easier to advertise such opportunities in future. Back
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