| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Geraint Davies : Is my hon. Friend suggesting that much greater weight should be given to requiring schools to take at least a proportion of pupils from their immediate vicinity, and that in the case of voluntary aided and foundation schools with a wider catchment mobility should be limited? Is he saying that there should be more local choice?
Martin Linton: I am not really saying that more weight should be given to how far people live from a school. We have a problem with that in Battersea, which I will explain shortly. I am, however, suggesting that we should consider banding systems to ensure that schools take a certain number of pupils from each ability range and do not end up with a preponderance of more able pupils, which by definition would create schools elsewhere in the system with a preponderance of less able pupils.
I want to say something about the powers of the adjudicator, which are critical to the Government's attempts to allow parents to reduce the level of selection. We have had two or three adjudicator reports on secondary education in Wandsworth, supported by many north Battersea parents who feel that their choices have been artificially restricted by selective schools in other parts of the borough. That has led the adjudicator to force schools to reduce their proportion of selected children on three occasions.
Last year three schools were forced to reduce the proportion. One appealed through Wandsworth council, which took the Government to court and won. The adjudicator approached the position cautiously and conservatively, reducing the proportion incrementally from 50 per cent. to 30 per cent. and then from 30 per cent. to 25 per cent., but, extraordinarily, the few powers possessed by the adjudicator have effectively been overturned by the court. I think the Minister and his colleagues should look seriously at the Education Act 2002 to establish whether it can be strengthened to ensure that the few weapons we have enabling us to create a fairer education system in London are
29 Jun 2004 : Column 180
preserved. Otherwise there is the possibility of an appeal from parents to the adjudicator for an increase in the amount of selection in Wandsworth, as well as the possibility of the court's overruling the adjudicator in favour of a more selective approach. After all, that has happened twice already.
My hon. Friend mentioned the distance between people's homes and schools. The situation in north Battersea is anomalous: we have only two secondary schools, one of which is for Catholic boys. The other, which I have described, is still at a low level compared with some, despite its heroic efforts. The adjudicator found in his last report that
"parents and children living in the Battersea area have a much lower likelihood of gaining a place for their child at schools with the highest levels of pupil attainment".
In other words, people who live in north Battersea are in the worst possible position to get their children into high-achieving schools. I would certainly recommend them to consider the schools that are there, because they will often educate their children far better than is realised, but I understand the feeling of many parents that they are in a black hole because there are no high-achieving secondary schools in their area.
Those are the people who lose out on distance grounds. A map in my office shows the radius from which the different secondary schools in Wandsworth will take pupils, and very few of those concentric circles, all based in Putney and Tooting, reach as far as anywhere in my constituency. On distance grounds, people living in north Battersea have no chance of qualifying for any secondary schools in the area except for the one or two that are so undersubscribed that they have no alternative but to accept any child who applies.
That means that parents have very little choice. We have to understand the special way in which school selection operates in a city such as London. Every child probably has 15 or 20 schools to choose from within an easy travel area. Many of those schools will rule them out on distance grounds, but there is still that possibility. The statistics suggest that on average, middle-class children in London travel 3 miles to school whereas children from lower-income families travel 1 mile. What prevents school choice from being a reality for many people in my constituency is not only that they do not have any high-achieving secondary schools near them but that they could not afford to pay the fares if they applied for a school in another borough or a long way away. My constituents are caught in a double bind, and it is very difficult for them to have the options that we want all children to have at their disposal: a choice of schools, a diversity of schools, well-resourced schools and high-achieving schools. I look forward to hearing the reply of my hon. Friend the Minister.
2.2 pm
Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey) (LD): This is a welcome and timely debate for London Members. I pay tribute to the way in which the Minister and the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) made their contributions, and I shall seek to follow in their positive, constructive style and manner.
I declare my interest: beyond being a local Member of Parliament, I chair the governing body of St. James's primary school, a Church of England primary school,
29 Jun 2004 : Column 181
and I am a trustee of Bacon's city technology college. Just so no one picks me up on this, I opposed the setting up of Bacon's city technology college, but I now think that I was wrong. However, I was not wrong about the fact that it should have an appeals system against refusal to admit a pupil. The Government still have not conceded that, and if I could have one small wish granted it would be that there should be an independent appeals system for all non-fee-paying secondary schools in London, including city technology colleges. That has been bouncing around on the Government's agenda for a while, and it is really disgraceful that it has not yet happened. I hope that it will happen soon for every London secondary school, whatever its name, title or status.
I join the Minister and others in paying tribute to all those who work in schools and for schools: the teaching staff and all the other staff making up the increasing numbers in the school family. We all agree that we have in London the biggest challenges of anywhere in the country, not just because of the diversity of our population and our language mix but because of the fantastic mobility of the teacher and pupil population. My constituency has about 25 per cent. mobility, so about one in four families move home every year. In looking at a school's success, that means that teachers there do much less well in adding value, because they have each year a huge churn of pupils with whom to work, than those in stable communities in rural England. When looking at relative performance, we have to be honest about the differential factors that apply, of which that is a crucial one. Informed people know about it, but it is easy to be ignorant of it.
I pay tribute to the Government, who since taking office in 1997 have clearly identified a need to examine and sort out London education. They have given great commitment to that, and I express my unqualified gratitude. The London challenge programme is very welcome, and local education authorities and local authorities of all political colours have sought to respond positively and constructively to it. I say that, too, without qualification. However, I will list, because it is my team duty to do so, those boroughs that are led by my colleagues, although they are doing the same as Conservative and Labour boroughs. They include two different types of borough. Kingston and Sutton have very different academic profiles and issues from Lambeth, Islington and my borough, Southwark, but all those boroughs are seeking to get much better education for all their pupils.
Some separate groups of people deserve to be applauded. The Minister rightly applauded the Teach First initiative. I have seen the initiative at work, and I second that. However, I shall list another four groups which make a huge difference in all our schools, certainly in my experience, and shall signal one example of good practice in each category. The first is the business community, which often comes into schools. At London Bridge in my constituency there is a large PricewaterhouseCoopers office, which has contributed phenomenally to the education system by bringing in business people to assist in mentoring and other ways. It has made an excellent contribution. The second group is the cultural community. An English National Opera
29 Jun 2004 : Column 182
production is being put on today at the Coliseum, involving lots of London schools who have been working on it for months. ENO has done brilliant work in schools all over London for many months, raising the sights and aspirations of people who would never even have thought about opera, let alone considered going to or taking part in one. They have realised that that can give them great added value.
The third group is those at the other end of the cultural spectrum. Millwall football club has been brilliant at going into schools in the community, with community programmes in and after school. Other football and sports clubs have also done that. Fourthly, there are faith groups. A Christian group which received the Queen's Jubilee Award in the voluntary sector, XLP, based in Peckham, goes to schools in lunch hours and undertakes assemblies and out-of-school activity. It has done brilliant things in getting youngsters to take part in all kinds of music and arts, and helping them to do so with a pride and quality that they might not otherwise have had. There are all sorts of people who make up the community of energy in our schools, to whom we must pay tribute.
We are obviously discussing at all types of school, including nursery, primary and secondary schools, sixth forms and pupil referral units, but, following the hon. Member for Upminster, I want to mention special schools as well. Throughout my career, I have always said that there is a good place for special schools and a good case for them to remain. A brilliant school in my constituency, Spa school, deals with children and young people with autism, and is excellent—a high-quality, caring school. A school for children with severe learning and other disabilities, including physical needs, Cherry Garden school, does work of huge quality in all sorts of ways. I would defend to the last ditch the right for special schools to exist and the right for parents to choose them, rather than have every special school pupil integrated where that is inappropriate.
We need to assess how we are doing, and I want to reinforce the plea that we should not just look crudely at league tables. They are an unfair, inappropriate way of making assessments. It is value added that counts: assessing children as they arrive and as they leave. Only that can be the measure of a school's success, and even that must be qualified by the variations in the school community when people move in and out of the school.
What has been happening? The Government have been going down the road of having different types of school, and I do not dissent from that. We are in the middle of a period of debate about choice. More different types of school, with more names and characteristics, are going to be proposed by different parties. In itself, that is not a bad thing. A city technology college that does its job well and enhances technology learning is a good thing, and the Minister knows that I supported the city academy idea before many of his colleagues in Southwark. I visited Ministers and people in Downing street about that, and the City of London academy, which happens to have been built in my road, although not by my choice, is a hugely welcome initiative. It started on a temporary site in Peckham and is moving to Bermondsey later this year. That is a brilliant development, involving nearly 700 new places, of which all but a few go to Southwark children, with a few going to the City of London.
29 Jun 2004 : Column 183
Other schools have changed their status, including Warwick Park, which has become a city academy. I pay tribute to Lord Harris of Peckham, a Conservative peer who has put money into schools in his borough and into schools elsewhere in London. In doing so, he has begun to transform them into schools which people want to go to, rather than the opposite.
On recognising value, there are more such schools in the pipeline. Notre Dame Roman Catholic girls school near the Elephant and Castle has twinned with Sacred Heart school in Camberwell. Notre Dame and Sacred heart have language status, which is really important, because its community consists of people from all over the world. There is a huge Latin American community, for example. Archbishop Michael Ramsey school draws people from all over Southwark, and Aylwin Girls school is seeking new status. I should also mention St. Michael's Roman Catholic school in Bermondsey. Such developments give schools status and recognition, which is welcome.
I want to pick up on a hugely important point made by the hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton). Every year, I go through the trauma and grief of having many families come to see me about their choice of London secondary schools. Such choice is often a tragic delusion. To say to London parents, "You have a choice" is just not true. At this time of year, there are thousands of families in this capital city who have made their choice of secondary school, but have not been given a place in any of the schools that they have chosen. Having more independent schools with a greater number of independent admissions policies does not produce a fair choice of schools for the pupils and families who are applying. It does not necessarily produce greater equality of opportunity for the people whom we seek to represent.
I am absolutely clear, therefore, that Londoners need a diverse variety of schools—so that they can choose one that specialises in sport, languages, technology, arts, science or whatever—but they must also have a common admissions system. Nobody would seek to argue that there should not be a common university admissions system; indeed, it would be bizarre to argue that there should not be equality of process. London schools must also have such equality, but all must take part. It would be completely unacceptable—I say this as a member of the Church of England—for Church schools not to take a full part. Church of England schools, Roman Catholic schools and all other faith schools must take part; indeed, it would be selfish and immoral of them not to do so.
I sincerely hope that such schools do play a full part, because it would be quite wrong for them to seek a status that separates them from the rest. The city academies and the city technology colleges must also take part, and all secondary schools in London must be part of that process; otherwise, it will not be fair, and the intended outcome will not be achieved. Our university admissions process does not take the view that, because Selwyn college, Cambridge had an Anglican foundation, or because University college London had a secular foundation, they should not be part of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. The reality is that one has to go through the system, and all London schools should do so as well.
29 Jun 2004 : Column 184
Of course London needs to build new schools and to re-start failing schools, but success in this city will have arrived only when every parent and youngster is happy to go to every single school. We will know that we have arrived when every parent says of every school in Battersea, Bermondsey, Southwark, Upminster, Chipping Barnet or anywhere else, "It may not be exactly where I wanted, but I am very happy that my child goes there."
If we are going to have a common admissions system for all non-fee-paying schools, I hope that it will apply to all schools, process applications quickly and prevent people from holding on to more than one place, as currently happens. However, a second step is needed: to ensure greater reconciliation of admissions policies in each borough. As the hon. Member for Battersea rightly said, at the moment, if one conducts admissions by distance, the anomaly arises whereby places in certain boroughs do not get nearly as many opportunities as others, because they do not have as many schools near to them. In a borough such as mine, which has a lot of Church schools, one has a much better chance of getting into a secondary school if one is a Roman Catholic or an Anglican. Other boroughs have almost no Church schools.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |