Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 399)
WEDNESDAY 7 MAY 2003
MR DAVID
MILIBAND, MP AND
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG, MP
Q380 Ms Munn: Stephen, you have already
referred to the document Aiming High, Raising Minority
Ethnic Achievement and in that it is stated that leadership
and vision are crucial to raising standards and aspirations. Is
there any hard evidence around that schools are systematically
underestimating the potential of pupils from specific ethnic minorities?
Mr Twigg: I have to say, I think
that is actually a very very difficult question to answer. Clearly
the evidence that we do have is evidence about results and outcomes.
I know from the discussions that you have had in your previous
sessions that mirror discussions that I have all the time about
this that we are trying to identify all the different factors
that lead to those different outcomes. I think what I would say
is that I am not aware of hard evidence on this and I think it
would be useful in terms of the process with our consultation
to see any such hard evidence, but I am aware from talking to
people, I suppose soft evidence if you like, that a far greater
emphasis is placed on the different factors that we think make
for success in different schools, whether that be the whole school
approach, whether that be the emphasis on tackling racism and
poor behaviour. I suppose my starting point, and I am not in any
way denying this is on the basis of soft rather than hard evidence,
is to look at those cases often in very challenging circumstances,
schools or communities that are delivering the outcomes, are narrowing
some of those gaps and sometimes completely but generally narrowing
the gaps between different minority ethnic communities and seeking
then to learn from that to spread that good practice across schools.
I accept that is not hard evidence in terms of what difference
the whole school approach makes but it is very much based on our
experience and is also based on research that has been done by
independent organisations like the Runnymede Trust and I think
it is also based on some of the research which Ofsted have done
with schools with large diverse ethnic minority communities within
them.
Q381 Ms Munn: We have certainly heard
similar anecdotal evidence given to this Committee which you may
want to look back at of pupils who came from Montserrat being
very engaged and then two or three years later doing very poorly.
Mr Twigg: Another example of that
which my colleague Annabel cited in March is the experience of
those from mixed heritage backgrounds for which we have not had
the data but for which we will have the data with the new plans
I think will give us harder evidence on that as well.
Q382 Ms Munn: The other question
I wanted to ask was in terms of the strategy that is around. There
are lots of people we have heard from who are working in schools
where there are huge ranges of pupils from lots and lots of different
backgrounds and lots of different languages spoken. Are you drawing
on their experience in terms of developing new strategies as well
as listening to advice that comes from perhaps more academic areas?
Mr Twigg: Very much so. We have
very deliberately as part of the consultation gone out not only
to the professionals and the academics, for example we have some
consultation at the moment with the voluntary sector, we also
have consultation going on in conjunction with the National Children's
Bureau, with children and young people themselves from different
backgrounds so that their experience can inform the outcome of
the document.
Ms Munn: Thank you.
Q383 Paul Holmes: I am sure you would
agree that the most important thing in improving standards in
education, whatever different initiative you are talking about,
is that there has to be a qualified, capable teacher in front
of the class.
Mr Twigg: Yes.
Q384 Paul Holmes: I have one or two
questions related to that. First of all, the schools where they
have got very challenging pupil behaviour, it has been stated
that schools like that were having increasing difficulties in
recruiting permanent staff, when they advertised vacancies they
were getting very few applicants and they often, for promoted
posts, heads of department, etcetera, had to appoint people who
simply were not ready for the job and who needed a huge amount
of support once they were in post. What incentives are you putting
in place to try and help the schools in that situation who are
the least attractive with league tables, etcetera, to teachers
and yet they are the ones who most need the best qualified teachers
to be in the classroom?
Mr Miliband: I think I will let
Stephen say a bit about the emerging strategies in London because
I think the problems you are referring to are most acute there,
although I do not want to pretend that they are only confined
to that area.
Mr Twigg: When I came to the Committee
shortly after being appointed we talked about a number of the
areas of responsibility that I had been given and one of them
is to develop a strategy for London and since then we have appointed
Tim Brighouse as the London Schools Commissioner and Tim and I
are working closely together and it may be appropriate at a later
stage for the Committee to invite us along to talk about our emerging
strategies. There are a number of aspects to it, but absolutely
crucial will be the one that Paul has raised which is about the
whole question of teacher professionalism and teacher recruitment
and retention in London and there are a number of aspects to this.
One of the big issues in London, although frankly it is a big
issue in some other parts of the country as well but it is especially
pronounced in London, is the whole question of the cost of living
and the ability of teachers particularly to stay in teaching.
It is not so much a recruitment issue as a retention issue. We
are exploring how the starter homes initiative can be built upon
in a way that can be of assistance in a sense to the school leaders
of tomorrow to actually encourage those school leaders, the heads
and deputy heads of the future, to not only stay in education
but to stay in education in London. I realise that a lot of the
issues that you are raising are not just about London but what
I think will be important when we do publish our strategy document
is that there will be a great deal in it, although we will be
implementing it initially in London to meet some of the specific
challenges of London, that will have great applicability in other
parts of the country as well.
Q385 Paul Holmes: Obviously the cost
of living in London is a big factor but the HMCI report was specifically
talking about things like pupil behaviour, I threw in the comments
about league tables. If you want to attract a good teacher into
a school one way to put them off in a city, apart from cost of
living, is the fact if pupil behaviour is seen to be getting worse
in certain areas and if you are going to be assessed and judged
as a teacher and told that you are failing because the five A-C
rate is too low, the league table position of the school is too
low, that is going to put teachers off from going into the schools
in the most challenged areas.
Mr Miliband: We have got to recognise
the achievement of teachers and pupils and that is why we are
developing the value added indicators, which we have not yet had
a chance to talk about today but if one believes that there should
be some accountability framework at all—some people do not
believe there should be—it should be an intelligent one
that recognises that achievement does not have cliff edges, etc.,
and I think value added is a big step in that direction. It will
go further next year with the value added that recognises Key
Stage 2 to GCSE rather than just Key Stage 2 to 3 and 3 to GCSE.
Secondly, I think your point about behaviour is very important
and significant. That is one of the reasons why, firstly, I attach
significance to the findings in Excellence in Cities in relation
to learning mentors and learning support units but, secondly,
why we are so passionate about workforce reform. If we say to
teachers, especially in tough areas, "Here are 30 kids, shut
the door, do it on your own", that is a very big ask of them,
it is a very, very big ask. If we say to them, however, "We
want you to lead a team of professionals who have got relevant
training and skills to tackle the specific problems that children
in that class have got, some of which are about behaviour, some
of which are about special needs, some of which are about a whole
range of other issues, and there is a team of adults who are going
to be working with you, under your leadership", that is a
much, much better offer. Apart from anything else, you have got
not just one pair of hands and one pair of eyes in a classroom,
you have got two or three sets of adults. You have got groups
of children being taken out of the class for periods so that they
can be given some dedicated personal attention to get them some
way on to the rails so that they are able to participate in a
whole class. I think one of the biggest offers of workforce reform
is "You are not on your own. If you are in a tough school,
there is back-up for you. There is support". It is not just
about getting rid of bureaucracy, it is also about classroom support.
Your insight is a good one but the prospect of 30 teenagers for
you to look after on your own, some of whom are taller than you
are, is a very, very difficult thing. However, if we get workforce
reform right we will be saying "Look, you have got real support
in the classroom and here is a big, big bonus of it".
Chairman: One last point.
Q386 Paul Holmes: Can I have two
very quick ones. One of them is something you may need to look
up and write back to us on with the statistics. A few years ago
the number of teachers who were leaving once they turned 55, leaving
with enhanced pensions, was reaching such a high that the previous
government changed the rules so you could not do that any more.
I understand that the figures for teachers in that sort of age
range, 55-plus, who are leaving despite the fact that they cannot
take their pension at that stage is now almost reaching the same
levels it was, say, 10 years ago when they could leave with an
enhanced pension. If that is true it would seem to indicate there
is some considerable crisis in teacher retention. Certainly two
friends of mine in Chesterfield, senior teachers, handed their
notice in on Friday in exactly that sort of situation. I do not
expect you to have those statistics off the top of your head but
if you could write back to us. The final point, because David
mentioned you have got all these extra teachers so there is no
crisis in recruitment, is firstly the number of pupils in schools
has been going up because the population bulge is coming through
into the secondary schools which reached its height this year
in year seven, or the new year seven intake for next year, so
you have to have more teachers just to stand still. Secondly,
you keep talking about over 20,000 extra teachers but the number
of full-time qualified teachers actually went down last year.
Only 4,000 of the 20,000 are full-time qualified teachers, the
rest are made up of unqualified staff, trainee teachers, sports
instructors, overseas teachers here on temporary contracts. Is
there not a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention that you
are masking but it is there, it is a real crisis?
Mr Miliband: No. There is a crisis
in your talking down of the education system. Let us get the facts
a bit clearer. First of all, it is a 24,700 not 20,000 increase
in teachers. Secondly, you referred to "unqualified"
teachers. In fact, these are teachers who do not have qualified
teacher status but may have equivalent qualifications, and in
the large number of cases do have equivalent qualifications, from
other countries. Are you telling me that someone who is qualified
in France, Germany or the United States but does not have QTS
but has an equivalent qualification is not qualified? They are
not unqualified. Third point: those are full-time equivalent numbers
that I have given you, the 24,700. Some of them will be part-time
but they are doubled up, so it is a full-time equivalent number,
that 24,700. My final point: we never say that because there are
more teachers there are no problems with recruitment or no problems
with retention, we never say that. What we say is there are subjects
in areas of the country where there are pinch points and we want
to address them seriously, and you have got an inquiry about that.
Let us not talk ourselves into a crisis when, in fact, the figures
do not bear it out.
Q387 Chairman: Minister, fine, we
got a good exchange there but that is the next phase of our inquiry,
retention and recruitment.
Mr Miliband: You did ask.
Q388 Chairman: Before we leave that
point there are two quick points. Some of the evidence that we
have got has very much complained about the Department's inability
to explain how closely the Department compares schools with similar
intakes. One of the complaints is that the mechanism, the methodology
that the Department uses is too blunt, too crude, that the Department
comes up with similar schools but if you look very carefully they
are not similar schools. That is a complaint and we wonder what
you have to say about that. That leads us to ask you how sure
you are that schools are being fairly evaluated by the Department.
It is a consistent theme.
Mr Miliband: I read four or five
hours of evidence last night and I did not pick that up. If we
get the details from the clerk of the allegation.
Q389 Chairman: Remember, Minister,
that this inquiry has encapsulated visiting Birmingham for a whole
week, New Zealand for a week, going to Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland. Some of the evidence is picked up more anecdotally.
Mr Miliband: All I am saying is
I have not heard it. Let me see the details of it. I had not picked
this up as an issue because we like to think that we are helping
schools compare like with like, but if we are not of course we
will look at it.
Chairman: Let us move on to English as
an additional language.
Q390 Valerie Davey: I would like
to go back to David Daniels' evidence again which he brought to
the Committee from White Hart Lane, which was incredible, 65 languages
in one school, and we heard of the remarkable work he is doing.
Part of that evidence was that he used mother tongue initially,
this was for his Turkish students in particular and the science
project which he had, and then he moved from 80% Turkish to 20%
English and eventually it was the reverse, so 20% Turkish and
80% English. He felt that project using the home language, as
he described it, was invaluable and he would like to extend that.
I am going to Stephen for this. Have you looked at this evidence
and is this something that might be a feature of future development
for youngsters coming with their own home language and no other?
Mr Twigg: Absolutely, and it is
very much the kind of good practice that we want to promote and
which the document talks about. I think it is part of the whole
school approach that we were talking about earlier on in response
to the questions from Meg Munn. The evidence that I have seen
is that that is particularly powerful when it goes hand-in-hand
with an attempt to engage with the parents as well, and that is
especially the case in secondary, and of course David Daniels
is head of a secondary school, where you are talking about recent
arrivals arriving with little or no English, engaging the pupils
in their mother tongue is important and then moving on into English.
Engaging the parents as well can achieve an incredible bonus.
The example of the school that I gave earlier just up the road
from David Daniels' school is another one where they are seeking
to do that, particularly with some of those communities, perhaps
smaller communities in national terms but quite large communities
in that part of London, like the Turkish and Kurdish communities,
increasingly the Somali community, where the evidence seems to
be that performance is quite poor and engaging with the parents
is equally critical with what you are describing, which is also
something that we want to encourage.
Q391 Valerie Davey: The bilingual
development appears from some recent Ofsted report on the college
to say that bilingual studies do very well in oral skills but
as they get to the need for higher qualifications they are not
as good at grasping the more technical written English. Is this
something that we are going to bear in mind as these youngsters
are coming through because obviously we want them to attain as
well?
Mr Twigg: Is that survey on a
particular college?
Q392 Valerie Davey: This is a recent
report analysing the bilingual learners, so I guess it is rather
broader than just that. I have not got the reference here, I am
sorry.
Mr Twigg: That is all right. I
understand from a nod behind me that that is evidence that we
are aware of.
Ms Munn: It is Ofsted.
Q393 Valerie Davey: I have not got
the exact quote here but I will make sure you get it.
Mr Twigg: Thank you.
Q394 Valerie Davey: Could I move
on from that and say that the bonus which we are getting here
I hope we can reverse in as much as we are now looking to ensure
that more, as it were, mother tongue English youngsters are bilingual.
Mr Twigg: Absolutely.
Q395 Valerie Davey: How are we going
to turn the corner? We have learned a great deal here, that bilingual
youngsters are a huge bonus to our education whether they start
off with their home language as Turkish or English. How are we
going to get this experience and information dovetailing so that
we really do get the bonus of all this through the system?
Mr Twigg: I think that critically
is about the work that we are going to do in terms of foreign
languages in our primary schools and the new emphasis on that
that has been set out by other colleagues in the Department. I
have seen some good examples, talking about secondary schools
in terms of existing practice, of how some of the specialist language
schools have been able to extend some of that good practice from
their English as an additional language students into the wider
pupil population within their schools. Another London school that
I visited recently was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, which is a
girls' school in Islington near to King's Cross with a hugely
diverse pupil population. Because of the facilities that they
have got they are able to not only allow their Bengali and Turkish
girls to continue to be excellent at Turkish and Bengali as well
as English but also, because of those facilities, to offer other
languages to the kids who do not have English as an additional
language. Not yet getting any of those pupils to study Bengali
or Turkish but contemplating that might be something that would
happen in the future.
Q396 Valerie Davey: Good. One last
question if I may, Chairman. We have mentioned several times the
lack of attainment relative to others, of the Afro-Caribbean boys
in particular. How much work have we done on recognising that
actually the home language for many of these Afro-Caribbean youngsters
is not English, not the kind of English that we use perhaps, it
is a specific form of English? Are we taking recognisance of that?
Mr Twigg: I think it is an area
that we need to do more work on. I read the account when the officials
came here and I know you raised the same point with them. It is
not an area that I am aware we have done any specific research
on as a Department. It is an issue that I am aware of and what
I would like to do is to take that back into the Department and
keep in touch with you on that.
Valerie Davey: Thank you very much.
Chairman: You will be pleased to know
we are on the last section of our questions. We want to talk about
fair evaluation of achievement and David is going to lead us on
this.
Q397 Mr Chaytor: Are we the only
European country to have a system of national testing and publication
of league tables?
Mr Miliband: That sounds like
a question that you know the answer to.
Q398 Mr Chaytor: I am seeking enlightenment.
Mr Miliband: I do not know the
answer to that.
Q399 Mr Chaytor: So you do not know
the answer to my next question, which is are we the only country
in the world that has national publication of league tables?
Mr Miliband: I do not know the
answer to that.
Mr Chaytor: Would you accept that the
question of testing—
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