Examination of Witnesses (Questions 226-239)
8 DECEMBER 2004
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG MP, MR
ANDREW MCCULLY
AND DR
KEVAN COLLINS
Chairman: We are going back to our report
on Education Outside The Classroom. We are very grateful, Minister,
for getting such good value for a number of inquiries. We might
even drag you into prison education just to really upset you.
Kerry, you were going to open up the questions.
Q226 Mr Pollard: This is a much lighter
part of the proceedings. The evidence suggests, Minister, that
education outside the classroom can raise achievement, not only
by enriching the curriculum but by improving self-confidence,
team work and, critically, inquisitiveness. Are you doing enough
to promote outside-the-classroom teaching and are you committed
to it?
Mr Twigg: I am passionately committed
to it and I think it is absolutely right that you express it in
the way that you have done, which is clearly there are areas of
the curriculum where fieldwork and work outside the classroom
is an element—geography, science, physical education—but
in a sense the case is a bigger one than that. It is actually
about the self-esteem that young people have, their confidence
about themselves, it is about life skills and about citizenship
at its deepest. I do not think we are doing as much as we need
to do. I think there is a load of good stuff going on and we can
no doubt go into some of it now. Growing Schools, for example,
is a really, really powerful instrument of improvement but I think
there is scope for us to do a lot more, which is why, like you,
we are focusing on this at the moment.
Q227 Mr Pollard: What
should schools be doing themselves?
Mr Twigg: What is very important
about this is that we do not hand down a one-size-fits-all approach
for every school. Clearly the circumstances of a school are going
to determine what they do with respect to outside the classroom.
An inner city school is going to have a different approach to
a rural school at the most obvious. We want schools to make the
very, very best use of the various opportunities that are available
and what we know is a lot of schools do but a lot of schools do
not. What that says is there is the potential within the framework
we have got at the moment to get there. Our role needs to be to
see what can be done to encourage all schools to take up the opportunities
that are available to them.
Mr Pollard: Your colleague, David Miliband,
found £30 million to promote music. Do we need to do the
same for outdoor activities? Do we need to have a champion perhaps?
Q228 Chairman: Do we have
a minister with a partner who is very keen on outdoor activities?
Mr Twigg: I will ask around—the
other Ministers rather than potential partners! I think it is
important that this is championed. I think it is a bit different
to music, partly in a sense for what you and I have just said
which is that this is not just about part of the curriculum, this
is something that runs right the way through the whole of the
curriculum and citizenship and the ethos of schools. One of the
things we have been doing, as the Committee will know, since Charles
Clarke became Secretary of State is to have a much stronger focus
on subject specialism in all schools and we are looking to have
a geography champion. There is a big concern about geography,
particularly in primary schools, and geography is clearly a major
component of what we are looking at here. We have recently established
a focus group on geography, bringing together the Royal Geographical
Society, the Geographical Association and others to look at some
of these issues. We will have a champion for geography as a subject
and we have citizenship advisers and we have a champion for citizenship.
It will probably have to make do with me as the champion of this
but I will do my best.
Q229 Mr Pollard: A brilliant champion!
Should Ofsted say a bit more about this outside-of-school activity?
Mr Twigg: I think they should.
What is interesting as the Ofsted framework moves forward with
the much greater emphasis on self-evaluation by schools is that
there is that flexibility according to the circumstances of each
school. The Committee will know that we asked Ofsted to do the
piece of work which you have probably seen on outdoor education,
which is looking particularly at the centres so it is obviously
only one aspect of your inquiry but an important aspect. That
was a particular inquiry. I would certainly like to see Ofsted
taking this seriously as an element of the inspections that they
do of individual schools. I think we have to look further at whether
there is scope to go beyond the inquiry they did earlier this
year to look at some of the broader issues beyond the classroom,
and not only of the various field centres.
Chairman: Jonathan is the inspiration
for the Committee on this subject. He is our champion!
Jonathan Shaw: Perception and reality,
Minister. There is a perception that it is high risk taking kids
outside the classroom. The HSE says no it is not. That is the
reality. There is a perception that there is lots of red tape.
The reality is that there is tonnes of the stuff. One school from
which we heard evidence had to fill in 16 different forms for
a half-day visit. You will tell the Committee that there is a
two-pager from the DfES so did that school not know about it?
The perception is that insurance is sky high. In some cases it
is. Some LEAs are obviously in the grip of fear from the NASUWT
and are requiring that there is cover of between £10 million
and £15 million. So what are you doing about all those perceptions.
Chairman: I think there were a lot of
questions there.
Q230 Jonathan Shaw: One
question.
Mr Twigg: What are we doing about
it? The central one in terms of perception and risk is your first
one, Jonathan, which is about the sense of what the risk is for
the kids who go on these journeys and therefore the fear that
some teachers have as reflected in the evidence that the NASUWT
gave. The Committee will know the figures about how safe trips
are. We have seen fatalities and any fatality is horrific but
the numbers are very, very small.
Q231 Jonathan Shaw: Why
do you not take on the union, the NASUWT because they came to
this Committee with very broad brushes saying people are concerned,
there are lots of worry. I suggested to them that they were the
problem rather than the solution. Why do you not take them on?
Mr Twigg: We want to persuade
them and we think we can persuade them. We are in discussions
with them right now on this issue. The Committee will be aware
that the Secretary of State made a major speech about a whole
range of issues to do with pupil behaviour but he also addressed
this issue in that speech, and we are very much led by the Secretary
of State on this aspect of what the Committee is looking at, looking
at all of the things that you have mentioned, talking about the
NASUWT to try to bring them on board in terms of these issues
which I think would be the best approach to take. We are talking
to the insurance industry about the premiums because that is a
serious issue—
Q232 Jonathan Shaw: What
are the insurance companies saying to you? They are under pressure
these days. Perhaps this is easy pickings for them.
Mr Twigg: They are not saying
that but—
Q233 Jonathan Shaw: They
would not say that, would they, but that might be a perspective?
Mr Twigg: We are at quite an early
stage of our discussions with them but I think we have good evidence
to present to them in terms of the levels of risk on the basis
of the statistics that the Committee will be aware of in terms
of the very, very small numbers of accidents that do happen.
Q234 Jonathan Shaw: You
send out lots—and I know you are trying to cut it down—of
bits of paper to head teachers. Could you not say, if an LEA is
saying 16 pages for a half-day trip, ignore that and ring the
DfES and get a two-pager? Have you done that?
Mr Twigg: I am not aware that
we have done that. It is a very good idea.
Q235 Jonathan Shaw: That
is a good start.
Mr Twigg: We produced the two-pager
for a reason. The two-pager is there because it has got the—
Q236 Jonathan Shaw: Why
not give it to a headteachers then? That would be a good thing
to do, would it not?
Mr Twigg: We are trying to reduce
the amount of paperwork we send to head teachers but it might
be in that particular case it would be a good—
Q237 Jonathan Shaw: You
produced a report and then you are saying you want to enable,
that you do not want to see one-size-fits-all and take a centralist
approach, but this is one of the issues and it results in quite
a lottery for kids across the country. If the LEA are in the grip
of fear from the NASUWT then they are unlikely to get a trip because
they have not got £10 million to £15 million worth of
cover. If they are in a more sensible authority they will fill
in your two-pager and the kids can have a great time in the way
that Kerry Pollard referred to earlier.
Mr Twigg: I think it is certainly
important that we do all we can to support schools to limit the
amount of paperwork and bureaucracy they are getting.
Q238 Jonathan Shaw: You
would say that, of course you would.
Mr Twigg: Then if there is evidence
that there are LEAs who are providing that sort of length of form
then we can do something about that and I will take that away
to do it, Jonathan.
Q239 Jonathan Shaw: The
number of outside-the-classroom experiences for kids is going
down.
Mr Twigg: I do not know that we
know that. The evidence is mixed between different parts of the
country.
Chairman: The evidence to this Committee
would suggest that.
Jonathan Shaw: We have not heard anything
to say that it is going up or it is staying the same, we have
only heard evidence to say it is going down.
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