Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2003
MR DAVID
MILIBAND, MP AND
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG, MP
Q320 Ms Munn: One of the things we
hear a lot from front-line staff is no sooner has something been
introduced than it has been changed, updated withdrawn or whatever.
Do you want to ensure that the strategy is properly embedded before
you do things to it?
Mr Miliband: I think that is a
good point and something we have to work on. It is something I
discussed when I first came to this Committee last June. I said
I was proud that I had not yet launched an initiative while I
had been in the Department, which I carry as a badge of pride.
Certainly the Key Stage 3 strategy has been carefully developed
and it has benefited from an awful lot of teachers' time in its
development. We are not going to be tearing it out by the roots
or tinkering around with it for no reason. There is an annual
evaluation of these programmes. The way in which the benefits
of it are spread through the network of consultants is from teachers'
feedback. It is an open feedback loop rather than a closed one.
There is always a conversation if consultants come together on
a termly basis, as they do, if they discover they could make more
progress if for a particular group of boys' achievement in maths
we did it in a slightly different way, and that message can be
put out. The core Key Stage 3 strategy is clear and set and we
want to see it through.
Q321 Ms Munn: So in terms of the
investment in this strategy which is significant at the start,
both in terms of staff time, school time and also the monetary
value for that, do you see this as a strategy which has a limited
life-span or do you envisage that at the moment it is one that
is going to continue for some considerable time?
Mr Miliband: When Andrew McCully
was here he talked about the principles and driving ideas of the
Key Stage 3 strategy informing whole school improvement, and what
is good about interactive, motivating and inspired learning at
Key Stage 3 needs to apply across the age range so in that sense
this is a strategy with huge potential. Certainly we are not putting
time limits on its life.
Q322 Ms Munn: In terms of investment
in the Key Stage 3 strategy, that money, time, et cetera, could
have been put into doing something else but, as always, it is
an issue about priorities. What are the key issues you are trying
to address with the Key Stage 3 strategy and are you convinced
at this stage that this is the right way to invest that time and
money as opposed to doing something else?
Mr Miliband: The logical answer
to that is that in the first term the Government was focused on
primary achievement. We have got a cohort of primary school pupils
coming into secondary education and what do they find? By reputation
and by tradition you get to big school and you have got a whole
new array of lessons but too often the lower secondary years have
been treated as a fallow period before the serious business of
the GCSEs starts. Too often the feedback has been that the lessons
are dull or boring and too often that is a fast track to disaffection,
disenchantment, disinterest. My argument is that if we are interested
in achievement at 15 or 18 we have got to be interested in how
the young people are turned on in the first three years of secondary
education. So a very important message for heads who are interested
in how their school is performing at GCSE or A-level or vocational
qualifications is if you want to get that right you have got to
get the early years of secondary education right. As a sheer matter
of logic it is really important not to skip out that phase. If
we go back to your original question, Chairman, about the tests
of average performance and the spread of performance at GCSE by
stereotype you might have thought that we have got everyone to
spend two terms before GCSE doing revision classes. Actually that
is not the way in which you raise achievement. You raise achievement
by building aptitude and skill right from the early years of secondary
education. I think this is a long term investment but I think
it is the right thing to do. We would be cutting off our nose
to spite our face if we had not done it.
Q323 Ms Munn: Finally you said in
response to the Chairman's question earlier on that the Key Stage
3 strategy has not been as prescriptive in ways that the literacy
and numeracy strategy were. We have been advised this morning
by one of our advisers that there is within the Key Stage 3 strategy
prescription about how to teach on certain subjects, which has
the danger of stifling innovation, undermining teachers' professionalism.
Could you comment on that?
Mr Miliband: Let me make two points.
Firstly, what I said to the Chairman was that the literacy and
numeracy strategy is not a single transferable policy that can
then be applied en bloc to the secondary sector because the secondary
sector poses a different set of problems. The Key Stage 3 strategy
tries to learn the lessons of Key Stage 2. This is the second
point I want to make. In 1998-99 all the talk about the literacy
and numeracy strategies was that they stifled creativity and they
deprofessionalised. Now the vast bulk of the teaching profession
will tell you that they were founded on best professional practice
and they represent a good standard of what should be done. My
view is that there has been less reaction to Key Stage 3 than
we might have expected, there has been more embrace of it and
because it is founded on best professional practice it will command
confidence. I thought it was striking that Professor Fitz-Gibbon,
who had rather a large number of negative things to say about
the Government, did commend the work of Anita Straker and others
who had developed the Key Stage 2 strategy as generally founded
on professional insight. I think the same effort and skill has
gone into the development of Key Stage 3 as well.
Q324 Ms Munn: Are you saying it is
prescriptive but that is okay because it is founded on good professional
practice or it is not as prescriptive as we are being led to believe?
Mr Miliband: It is definitely
founded on good professional practice. I do not want to give you
a percentage of prescription compared to the Key Stage 2 strategy
because I will get myself into hot water.
Q325 Chairman: Let me push you a
little more on that. When you said in passing that for youngsters
coming into big school, the 11s-14s, the first couple of years
was a fallow period and they get bored and turned off from learning,
we know there is real evidence of that. If you had been at the
launch of National Science Week at the National Science Museum
there was a head teacher who said the science department in her
school had a great deal of achievement in science but she was
absolutely appalled that the curriculum in science is such a turn
off to so many students. It is repetitive, it is boring and it
turns off children, so in a sense is it not the curriculum that
is the thing that traps people into a cycle of under-achievement?
Can we not do something about the curriculum?
Mr Miliband: I think that is a
really profound and important question. I do not know if the lady
you are talking about was talking about GCSE science, where I
have had a torrid time at the Science and Technology Committee
about the curriculum of GCSE science. Was she talking about that
or the early years specifically?
Q326 Chairman: She was talking about
the GCSE curriculum.
Mr Miliband: There has been particular
controversy about the GCSE science curriculum and it is being
revised in all sorts of ways.
Q327 Chairman: To change when, Minister?
Mr Miliband: It is already being
changed. There is a new kind of GCSE science already in the system
and I think the first students take the exam not this year but
next year. Your other point though is an important one because
if, in fact, the curriculum is "too boring" then however
much you develop pedagogy and teaching technique you have got
a problem. We have done some work on this but I think it does
raise an important question. The feedback we get from the experts,
both in-house and outside, is actually that the curriculum gives
plenty of scope for professional teachers to make something of
it for their students and to make it genuinely engaging and exciting.
It is something we have always got to be wary of. I was struck
by the unanimity of the group of experts I brought in last year
when I came into the Department. They were very insistent that
the curriculum did provide a foundation for engaged and interesting
teaching and learning. It is something we have always got to watch
out for. It is interesting in the specific case of GCSE science
that there has been a specific problem. That does not seem to
be a generalised problem. That is separate from the issue of the
curriculum structure, and what we mandate and what we do not because,
as you know, post-14 we are making big changes.
Q328 Mr Simmonds: I think one of
the Government's big achievements since it came to power has been
the literacy and numeracy strategy at primary school level and
Key Stage 3 as a principle builds on that success that has come
through. However, there are one or two key problems with it. Certainly
one of them was alluded to by Mr Shaw in that it takes out very
senior teachers from secondary school level. How is that going
to assist the development of Key Stage 3, particularly bearing
in mind schools at the moment are making teachers redundant because
of the funding problems?.
Mr Miliband: I am told that we
may have the particular pleasure of an elongated discussion on
funding at a later date so I do not want to get drawn too far
into that.
Q329 Mr Simmonds: In the context
of delivering Key Stage 3, which is what we are talking about.
Mr Miliband: In the context of
Key Stage 3, as Jonathan Shaw raised, there is a clear issue if
you have got teachers who are succeeding in a serious way at Key
Stage 3 do you just say, that is great and let them carry on,
or do you ask whether there are ways in which we can spread their
excellence wider across the system, notwithstanding the fact they
are out of the school for a year. Our judgment has been that the
gain from doing that outweigh the losses. That is what we have
tried to do. If that is not the right thing to do then we need
to find an alternative way of spreading the principles (which
you say you agree with in Key Stage 3) around the system, but
I do not know what they are. I do not know a method that is as
effective because, as I say, teachers talking to teachers is the
most successful way of changing and improving teaching practice.
Q330 Mr Simmonds: I do not want to
get bogged down in the funding issue but it is relevant. Do you
think there is an issue with the local authorities which you claim
are holding back some of the funding? Do you therefore think the
way to get over that problem, if that is indeed where the problem
exists, is to circumvent the local authorities and send the money
in totality direct to the schools.
Mr Miliband: With respect, I have
never said that the local authorities are withholding money. What
I have said, and what the Secretary of State has said very clearly,
is that there is money still to be allocated of about £533
million to schools. It is very important when schools are thinking
about their 2003-04 budget that they know the full extent of that
budget and make decisions on that budget on the basis of all the
money that is coming to them. Our fear is that in some of the
cases that have been played out publicly schools are worried about
staffing issues but have not yet got the full 2003-04 budget to
the tune of half a million which obviously pays for a lot of staff.
That is what we are spending this week and next week working very
carefully with local authorities and schools about. It is not
that they are withholding, there is no conspiracy to squirrel
the money away somewhere else, it is a matter of when is the money
allocated and that is money that schools do not yet know they
are receiving.
Q331 Mr Simmonds: From you or the
local authority?
Mr Miliband: From the local authority.
Chairman: Can we press on to raising
minority ethnic achievement and ask Kerry Pollard to lead on that.
Q332 Mr Pollard: Minister, there
is an exceedingly long tail of under-achievement and the ethnic
minorities are over-represented in that tail. There has been a
little juggling at the bottom of the tail with the Bangladeshis
now overtaking the Pakistanis, which is good for them, but the
tail is still long. How do we raise the tail and do we need different
strategies perhaps for different ethnic groups?
Mr Twigg: I think the key point
about this, Chairman, is that it is hugely complex. I think, Kerry,
in your question you demonstrate that. Very often the discussions
in this area will talk about ethnic minority under-achievement
and ethnic minority children failing and all those sorts of things.
In fact, as the latest data indicates, it is far more complicated
than that. There is a basic issue which is why we are having the
consultation at the moment which I very much hope members of the
Committee will respond to, the Aiming High consultation,
on raising the achievement of minority ethnic pupils. The answer
to the question is, yes, the situation will vary greatly, not
just from one ethnic group to another but from one local community
to another. I am a great believer that what we have to do is look
at what works, going back to the Chairman's original questions
to David, to see where communities have really made a difference.
Kerry referred to a very good example which is in the Bangladeshi
community where we have seen a very significant improvement in
GCSE performance. So on the latest figures, although the Bangladeshi
community is still below average, it is far closer to average
than it was. I am very interested in some of the specific schemes
run in boroughs like Camden and Tower Hamlets in London that have
contributed to that national picture, working together with schools
and, crucially, working together with people. Part of what has
been achieved in Tower Hamlets, for example, is a real engagement
with Bengali parents on a whole range of issues, including the
attendance of pupils in schools.
Q333 Mr Pollard: Do the aspirations
of parents themselves have a bearing on the achievement of their
children?
Mr Twigg: It is of critical importance.
I think that is widely accepted. We have to tread very carefully
in that area and reading the evidence session from when officials
from the Department came in March, it is clear there is no single
explanation for the different patterns of achievement. The home
influence is clearly very powerful as well as the difference that
schools can make. I would say from my own experience, particularly
over the last year working in the Department and visiting schools
in ethically diverse communities, that it does strike me that
some of the schools that are achieving best for all of their pupils,
including some of those from groups that have traditionally not
done so well, are those that are engaging very well indeed with
parents and indeed the wider community. Another school in South
Tottenham, Gladesmoor, serving a very deprived and hugely multi-cultural
community there, opens up on a Saturday as part of their standard
school work, not for hire, they do it themselves, and something
like 600 pupils come but perhaps more interestingly a lot of parents
come in from communities like the Kurdish community and Somali
community where the indications are that the general performance
of pupils lags behind the population as a whole. Those are the
kinds of examples that we are seeking through our discussion on
the Aiming High document to promote and encourage to be
taken up more widely.
Q334 Mr Pollard: I visited a Training
Establishment in your borough about six months ago and I was struck
by the fact that pupils who had been excluded from schools, and
many of those were from the ethnic minority groups, had suddenly
started achieving because they were given a challenge they could
aim at and then achieve and with zeal and élan they started
to engage in this trend. Should we look at more examples of this
sort of initiative?
Mr Twigg: I think that is absolutely
right and when we look at statistics for exclusions, and in particular
the level of exclusions of black boys, it is of continued concern.
There has been a small fall in the gap between the numbers of
black boys who are excluded and other pupils but it is still enormous.
I think we need to look at solutions within the school, we need
to look at engagement with parents from the wider community, but
we also need to be far more radical and innovative than that,
and I think there are solutions particularly in secondary that
involve business and other local employers and indeed involve
the further education sector. Some of the best schemes that I
have seen are ones that take pupils that are disaffected at school
and disruptive at school out of school for part of the week to
go to college or into the workplace. The effect that appears to
have, and it is early days in terms of evaluation, on the motivation
of those pupils is really very remarkable.
Chairman: We move to policy issues and
I will ask Paul to led on this.
Q335 Paul Holmes: We talked at the
start about evidence-based policy and initiatives and to return
partly to some of that, when you look, for example, at schools
and/or LEAs which have the largest number of children leaving
school with no qualifications, what are the most obvious common
characteristics between those schools or LEAs?
Mr Miliband: The strongest correlation
is with socio-economic disadvantage.
Q336 Paul Holmes: So when you introduce
policies such as the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grants or Excellence
in Cities or Education Action Zones and there is a lot of emphasis
on innovative ideas and style, how do you evaluate whether schemes
like that have most impact because of innovative ideas or because
they are putting more money and resources into tackling problems?
Mr Twigg: We have to evaluate
them according to the outcomes and certainly talking about the
ethnic minority achievement programme, one of the issues that
we are consulting on in Aiming High is the Ethnic Minority
Achievement Grant which is a grant based on the old section 11.
It is in desperate need of a proper look to see whether it is
meeting the needs at the moment in determining how that grant
can most effectively be spent. I think the most important thing
is we are looking at examples of good practice that can deliver
a narrowing of the achievement gap between those groups who were
under-achieving and those that are achieving better.
Q337 Paul Holmes: But how are you
distinguishing whether it is good practice or extra money spent
on resources and the smaller class sizes, et cetera, that that
money brings? Is it practice or money that makes the real difference?
Mr Twigg: The likelihood is it
is going to be both and on the specific issue of minority ethnic
achievement we say in the document that whilst the grant is a
very important lever, it is only one lever and the evidence from
Ofsted and the Runnymede Trust and others is that there are key
characteristics of a good school that deliver better results for
all pupils within that school which are the key characteristics
for improvement for minority ethnic pupils. It is hardly surprising
that that on its own is not enough which is why we need the other
levers, including the grant.
Q338 Paul Holmes: When you are comparing
the success of schools, this is where league tables and professional
performance pay assessments and pay rises and so forth come into
it, how far can you make equal comparisons between schools in
the same area or schools in different areas if, going back to
your start point, the real factor that decides whether a school
is doing well or badly is the socio-economic background of its
pupils rather than other factors such as management style?
Mr Miliband: You have got to be
very careful there. You have taken a correlation, which is what
you asked me, and turned it into a direct causation. You have
got to be very careful in making that leap. While the stronger
correlation is between social class, broadly speaking, and educational
achievement, it is also the case that for every social class mix
within the schools there are wide ranges of achievement so do
not confuse a correlation between social class and achievement
and the universal under-performance of either poor kids or schools
with a lot of poor kids. You must not fall into that trap.
Q339 Paul Holmes: I am not quite
sure what you are saying. Are you saying that there are wide ranges
within a school within a certain area?
Mr Miliband: Within every free
school meal band for example there are wide ranges of performance.
So schools with very similar intakes are achieving very different
outcomes. The fact that over the country as a whole, 6.5 million
kids, social class is correlated with educational achievement
should not blind us to the fact that there are significant numbers
of schools and children who are bucking this trend.
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