Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 237)
WEDNESDAY 5 MAY 2004
5 MAY 2004 MS
KATHRYN JAMES,
DR CHRIS
HOWARD, MRS
DOROTHY ELLIOTT,
MR MARTIN
WARD AND
MR TONY
NEAL
Q220 Chairman: No, Tony, this Committee
will ask you the questions that it wants and if the Secretary
of State, and I will quote him in the draft Bill, says effectively
there is less parental choice for children from low income families
and the Secretary of State said to the Transport Committee that
the Bill's aim is the encouragement of people to go to a local
neighbourhood school, that is not a removed question, it is a
question that I want you to answer. That is what the Secretary
of State thinks this Bill is about. I want you to tell me what
you think about it. It is not a side question it is a very important,
central question.
Mr Neal: It is a side question
in the sense that if the Secretary of State wants pupils to go
to local schools, he will act accordingly in terms of transport.
Chairman: But it is not a side question
to this Committee.
Q221 Mr Turner: I would like to hear
Mr Neal's answer to my question as well, which he was going to
give.
Mr Neal: I was going to answer
the question in this way: how long it is reasonable to ask pupils
to travel to school depends on the quality of the transport that
is provided for them and in some cases it would be unreasonable
to ask them to travel five minutes on some of the transport that
is provided.
Dr Howard: In Wales there is far
greater use of the local school. We have not gone as quickly down
the route of parents shipping children one hour across zones as
people in England have. I think we have got a different situation
in many areas of Wales in that people attend their local school
but because of the sparse nature of mid-Wales and North Wales
and the hilly terrain in the Valley areas in the south they attend
their local school but they must to do so still go by bus, and
those buses are hugely inferior and therefore it is unreasonable,
as my colleague has said, to ask them to go for more than five
minutes on a journey like that. Certainly I have routes in my
own school where 15 to 20 minutes is asking a great deal of young
people to travel and parents are saying no, we will take them
by car.
Q222 Mr Turner: The last line I would
like to pursue please is with Mrs Elliot. I found what you were
saying very difficult to focus on what you want us to do because
you said that there is a danger of LEAs working in different
ways, you criticised inconsistency between LEAs. We have just
legislated to have inconsistency between Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire
in terms of how the law is made for those two different counties.
Why is it so unreasonable that an LEA like Sunderland should act
differently from an LEA like the Isle of Wight?
Mrs Elliott: I think there are
the local differences my colleague pointed out before but basically
there must be some consistency across how they operate.
Q223 Mr Turner: In terms of what?
What consistency, are you looking for that you think is essential?
Mrs Elliott: If they are looking
for the same basic criteria but to give the local authorities
some leeway to adjust to meet the needs of the children in their
area.
Q224 Mr Turner: What sort of criteria?
Mrs Elliott: Good question!
Dr Howard: Can I try and help?
You spoke about the usefulness of local democracy but local democracy
works best if there is some minimum degree of provision on which
they can all base their workings, and within the Bill and within
the terms of the pilots you should be able to work out where some
statutory minima should reside. You may change the walking routes
to reflect some staggered provision by age or by locality and
that may be coupled to safer routes. I think it would be useful
for you to define, as I think the Danes have defined, what a "safe
route" to school is. It would be extremely useful to have
a minimum regulatory definition of that. It would be extremely
useful for you to define what minimum standards in terms of seating,
seat belts, anti-roll bars, or whatever, should be applied to
buses which are carrying children to school. If you did that then
authorities could opt for various forms of provision in and around
that and there would still be local accountability, but you would
not have authorities dipping below the line, as I think they are
at the moment, because the regulations are out the date and need
altering. We need to lift the bar so you will need to raise the
level at which we are providing within the terms of this Bill,
in my opinion, if the Government is to encourage people to walk
or cycle or ride by bus more and use the car less.
Q225 Paul Holmes: Moving on to a
different aspect, there is a statistic that says at 8.50 am in
term time—this would be urban areas more than rural I appreciate—one
in five cars on urban roads are taking children to school, mostly
on journeys of under two miles, so one obvious solution to that
is to stagger school opening hours so one opens at eight, one
at half eight, one at nine whereby the bus that drops kids off
at eight could even be reused for the one at nine so it solves
everybody's problems.
Dr Howard: You asked colleagues
earlier about this conflict between two Government policies, this
one and the rationalisation of specialist provision in the 14-19
sector particularly, and they do not sit easily, there is no doubt
about that. There is an overall concept and I think LEAs might
find it difficult to reconcile those two policies. If there is
any way through it would probably lie in the fact that local authorities
would have to plan at 14-19 level and see what feeder primaries
can do attached to comprehensives in terms of planning. That is
you do not plan across the borough across the secondaries but
you plan with the secondary and the neighbourhood schools that
are feeding it. Primaries tend these days to start later and therefore
it is possible for buses to serve the senior school and then go
back round and do the primaries. I think there is some validity
in that. I think my LEA would like to approach that particular
solution with its schools but it is having difficulty persuading
governing bodies to enter into a dialogue by which they alter
their start times. Of course they have no overriding powers in
this matter. You may need to look at what powers an LEA has in
order to direct governing bodies and schools to adjust starting
times if it is to the greater good.
Q226 Paul Holmes: Any other thoughts
from the point of view of schools being directed as to whether
they are going to open at a certain time?
Mrs Elliott: They would have to
talk very closely to schools to organise this in clusters because
if you do not then you have chaos in some of the other schools
and also there needs to be consultation with the parents because
many parents take three children to three separate schools and
then go on to work. If you do not consult adequately and transparently
then again you cloud the argument.
Mr Ward: We would oppose LEAs
being given a power to set school opening and closing times because
the experience of our members is not good in terms of local authorities'
capacity to plan in that sort of way. It should be that the local
authority is in the right position to make decisions about borough-wide
or county-wide transport arrangements, and you have had some good
practitioners this morning I am sure, but many of them are not
nearly as good as that and in practice our members would fear
that they would misuse that power to ride over the needs of the
particular school and the particular community that they serve.
Q227 Paul Holmes: A different issue
again—school travel plans. When the Transport Committee
looked at the Bill they said they were very disappointed by the
attitude of the Secondary Heads Association towards school travel
plans. Why do schools, or the SHA in this particular case, feel
that school transport plans rather than being a wonderful idea
are actually an imposition and a burden?
Mr Ward: They may be a wonderful
idea but they are also an imposition and a burden if they are
imposed. They are not in this Bill, which we are rather pleased
about, and certainly if it is proposed to amend it we would rather
you did not amend it in that particular way. The crux of that
is that schools are about education and not about transport, transport
is entirely secondary to the function of the school, and in the
context of the Transport Select Committee (which of course is
rightly very interested in transport) it is understandable that
they were disappointed that we did not raise a hurrah for this
extra duty being placed on schools. As this Committee well knows
schools have innumerable duties placed on them and to be at the
beck and call of yet another set of enthusiasts, which is essentially
what the situation appears to be here, is simply a step too far
for schools.
Mr Neal: There is also a potential
conflict of policy in the proposal for travel plans. It is not
travel plans as such that we are opposed to but certainly what
was produced in the good practice guide we were very much opposed
to because at a time when workforce remodelling is seeking to
focus schools on teaching and learning what was coming very clearly
through the good practice guide was a bureaucratic process in
which schools were being either asked or required to take a key
role, and we see that as direct conflict. There is also a conflict
with the move towards intelligent accountability because within
the good practice guide it was suggested that schools should have
targets for the number of pupils that walk. We think that is wholly
inappropriate.
Paul Holmes: A parallel that strikes
me there is if a school had targets on travel to school for its
pupils and so forth it could then be penalised for something that
is not within its control. I know local authorities claim they
are penalised because of crime in their area even though they
might be a district council that has no direct control over the
police force or crime.
Chairman: Mr Gibb?
Q228 Mr Gibb: It seems to me the
discussion has been quite interesting and shows that inherent
British contradiction between a demand for localism and at the
same time a demand for consistency and campaigns against postcode
prescribing, and I think this issue here has highlighted that
inherent contradiction. What I think people do want in Britain
is consistent quality in all their public services. Can I ask
the schools, Tony Neal in particular, have you had any transport
schemes in the last few years encouraging children to walk or
use the bus? Have you had plans that you have implemented yourself
that have worked or not worked?
Mr Neal: No, I cannot say that
there have been specific schemes. We do things within the school,
as most schools do, in terms of trying to encourage sensible use
of bicycles particularly in our area. You must understand the
context where for the vast majority of our pupils the distances
are too great anyway so a huge majority of our pupils travel on
school buses. Of those the vast majority travel free because they
are more than three miles from school, and some of course pay
because they have chosen to come to the school.
Q229 Mr Gibb: What is the median
mileage that a child travels to you school?
Mr Neal: My guess would be six
or seven miles.
Q230 Mr Gibb: You think that is too
far to cycle?
Mr Neal: I do not necessarily
think it is too far to cycle but I think it is a big hearts and
minds job to persuade youngsters that that is the right thing
to do.
Q231 Mr Gibb: Do you have bicycle
sheds in your school?
Mr Neal: We do, yes.
Q232 Mr Gibb: You have enough?
Mr Neal: We have enough for the
bicycles that appear at the moment.
Q233 Mr Gibb: How about you, Mr Howard?
Dr Howard: We have bike racks
but they are not as commonly used as the store cupboard that houses
the skateboards. It is a fact of life.
Q234 Chairman: It is a bit hillier
in your part of the world!
Dr Howard: It is a lot hillier.
Q235 Mr Gibb: Touching on a subject
we covered earlier—behaviour on schools buses—do you
think that the schools themselves have a responsibility? One of
the earlier witnesses was talking about the general behaviour
of children, suicides, and deep social problems. Do you think
that the schools themselves have a role to play in improving behaviour
outside the school gates? Are you responsible for this decline
in behaviour?
Mr Neal: We have heard that the
situation is wholly ambiguous at the moment. Schools do take on
that responsibility in that almost all schools deal with misbehaviour
on school buses but we do not have a responsibility for supervision
on school buses and I think that is right and proper and if we
cannot supervise then the extent to which we genuinely can take
responsibility—
Q236 Mr Gibb: One of the biggest
issues in my constituency is anti-social behaviour amongst 13-15-year-olds
and, okay, you can blame the parents for that to a large extent
but are the schools not abdicating their role?
Mr Neal: No, I would say again
that schools are taking on that role because we do deal with misbehaviour
and we do deal with that in a very direct way, but we are in the
position where the situation is created where misbehaviour happens
and the causes of that are out of our control. I do not think
it would be right that schools were put in the position of that
supervision.
Dr Howard: My view is that we
do it far better than society at large, to be honest, given that
levels of crime in school are much less than levels of crime outside.
If my youngsters get into trouble with the legal process it is
most commonly outside school. They fight more often outside school
and they do all sorts of things more commonly outside school.
In fact, I think secondary schools in Great Britain at the moment
are relatively controlled and calm places and we should be very
grateful for that. It is the bottle of pop scenario I suppose.
Because they are so well- controlled in school when they hit the
school buses there is this half an hour of release and that does
compound the situation. I think all schools take their educative
role seriously and we spend hours in PHSE lessons and assemblies
educating about all kinds of pro-social behaviour but that does
not legislate, does it, for young adolescents who are experimenting
with life and are pushing the boundaries of what adults call tolerable
behaviour. I expect you were like that; I certainly was.
Q237 Chairman: I would not be very
impressed by any potential head in interview who said that his
responsibilities ended at the school gate. I would have thought
discipline and behaviour on the school bus is something the head
should have some control over.
Dr Howard: I certainly think it
is, but if I can identify the miscreant, which is difficult enough
in itself because you have volatile situations and you rely on
adult witnesses and you have parents who say, "It is not
my child," and you have to demonstrate these days with a
great deal of clarity that person X was responsible, I then have
the problem what do I as the headteacher do about it and the answer
to that is I have no power to do anything with him (I have got
an all boys' school) the local authority does, so I am dependent
on the local authority's reaction to the work that I do. I have
a very good relationship with my local authority and it does withdraw
transport for periods of time from pupils and that is effective
in the short term at dealing with problems but that is not the
case in every school and it is not the case in every authority.
I think in that regard we are advocates of better practice and
that has taken time to work out. I have to say that that practice
developed not really at my behest but with colleagues who went
the extra mile and more who were working with me and were prepared
to take what their professional associations would have deemed
unacceptable risks by travelling on the buses, following the bus
home in the car, this kind of thing.
Mrs Elliott: Just to pick up on
the last point there. Citizenship is now taught in schools and
again referring back to the initiative we had in Sunderland, we
had two training videos made, one for drivers and one for the
schools to be discussed in citizenship, and it can be used in
various ways. This has been trialled out and you do not just think
about secondary schools you think about the junior schools, the
younger ones because when you start teaching the younger ones
about citizenship you have got more chance of it remaining in
their mind than it does when you start at 13 or 14, it is a bit
late then.
Chairman: Thank you very much, it has
been a very valuable session. Can I thank you all for attending
and we will be, I hope, in further communication with you.
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