Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-128)
RT HON
RUTH KELLY
MP
2 MARCH 2005
Q120 Chairman: Is this not just because
there are still 20% of children who get to 11 with no great competency
in reading?
Ruth Kelly: We have to do better
but 89% of boys, or something like that, reach level 3; many of
them, the majority, get to level 4. High level 3s in literacy
is actually pretty competent. We want to do better and we want
everyone to get up to level 4 at the age of 11 and then level
5 at the end of Key Stage 3 and we will continue that relentless
focus on making sure that people improve.
Q121 Mr Gibb: There are schools in deprived
areas of London, Tower Hamlets, which are getting 100% of their
children to level 4 and there are schools in very wealthy parts
of Britain which are getting 60 or 70% of children to level 4.
One set of schools adopts synthetic phonics, the other does not.
Why do we have schools in wealthy areas which are not getting
100% of their children to level 4?
Ruth Kelly: We have to continue
to raise standards and one of the things we have to do is to raise
the schools which are drifting up to the level of the best performing
ones. I do not think it is just about synthetic phonics.
Q122 Helen Jones: Some of us would agree
with you that the process of learning to read is far more complicated
than synthetic phonics advocates might suggest. Although it may
have a role to play there are other things which influence the
development of reading skills as well. We should like to ask two
things. Can we have some proper research commissioned by your
department into the different methods of teaching children to
read with proper control groups. A lot of the evidence is anecdotal
and does not necessarily compare like with like. Secondly, could
we look much more carefully at developing reading readiness in
children? Many countries who do not start to teach reading until
children are older than ours are very successful at doing it because
they spend an awful lot of time in preparation with young children,
in songs, in stories, in recognising patterns and shape and so
on. Are we going to look seriously at those things, because that
seems to me to be where the gap in the system is?
Ruth Kelly: We keep the evidence
base under review and the real test of this is how well our children
do internationally in literacy and our 10 year olds are the third
best out of 35 countries at the moment, so we have world class
standards. We have to continue to keep this under review and we
will change the national literacy strategy if we can improve it.
Q123 Jonathan Shaw: We were very pleased
at your response to our report on outdoor education and you have
agreed with us that there is going to be a manifesto for outdoor
learning in a similar way that you have a manifesto for music.
The question the Committee would like to ask you is whether there
will be sufficient funding to ensure that pupils are not prevented
from participation because of their parental income.
Ruth Kelly: This really is a matter
for individual schools. We have given them stability in their
budgets now. They have very generous settlements and per pupil
guarantees. I do not want to see children excluded from outdoor
trips because of parental income and nor would head teachers quite
frankly. The issue has not been there in the past; it has been
about people thinking that they ought not to take risks. That
is the fundamental problem and one of the things I was very keen
to tackle when I made the announcement on outdoor trips was this
perception that it is wrong to take risks. We need a common-sense
approach applied here and if the risks were explained properly
to parents, they would all want their children to undertake outdoor
activities and trips.
Jonathan Shaw: We heard evidence from
NGOs giving evidence to the Committee that they had written to
schools in poor areas in London offering to fund trips and many
were not taken up. There is an aspiration there. We also heard
evidence that some of the exciting activities in which young people
now have the opportunity to participate were beyond the reach
of some parents.
Q124 Chairman: The manifesto for music
got £30 million. How come this manifesto does not have a
price tag with it?
Ruth Kelly: I have said that I
want to set out a manifesto for education outside the classroom.
We will develop that over the coming months and produce something
which I hope will command the support of head teachers and schools
and parents and pupils and the sorts of things that a school ought
to be able to offer its pupils within its budget.
Chairman: We were hoping for a minister
with a husband or a partner with great enthusiasm for outdoor
education because the previous minister of schools was married
to a musician; perhaps that was a secret agenda. We did not know;
we did not believe that for one moment.
Q125 Paul Holmes: The mantra of education,
education, education has become choice, choice, choice. This Committee's
reports on admissions and diversity last year said that schools
which are competing for the best pupils, the league table position,
for survival, are not going to give priority to what are supposed
to become priorities: children in care, disabled children and
children with educational needs. Yet you said in your opening
comments that it will all be alright. On what evidence do you
base that?
Ruth Kelly: Because I have said
that by September 2005 admissions protocols ought to be in place
with schools taking a proportion of vulnerable children, including
looked-after children and children who have recently moved into
the area. I expect that to be in place in September.
Q126 Paul Holmes: They are not statutory
protocols and as the disability rights committee has said, the
system is failing disabled children, schools are flouting their
existing duties with relative impunity and that is what we said
in our report last year.
Ruth Kelly: I shall obviously
examine that report but I expect schools to have these in place
by September. I shall keep it under review and if they have not
I shall retain the option of legislation.
Q127 Mr Chaytor: May I return to your
opening remarks where you talked about continuity of purpose in
respect of standards? In the first parliament every minister was
programmed to say in every speech that government policy was about
standards not structures. In this parliament we have had the biggest
structural reform in education since 1944 and are likely to have
further reforms. Are you now accepting that standards are absolutely
linked to structures?
Ruth Kelly: Related to structures.
No, I think it is about opening up options and opportunities for
children and making sure that those opportunities are available
in networks of schools. In practice this is what is happening
in many places in the country at the moment and I should like
to see that more widespread. The focus is on standards and delivering
opportunities for all our children, as I think it has been.
Q128 Mr Chaytor: We are having a revolution
in terms of school structures and overall structures in the system
of links between schools and LEAs, the links between schools and
the DfES. You are not saying that structures are irrelevant to
all of this. Reforming structures is at the heart of what the
government is now doing.
Ruth Kelly: We have been encouraging
schools to develop their own ethos and mission and sense of purpose
and have been doing that from the word go. We can develop that
and make it easier for schools to become foundation schools or
specialist schools to develop second specialisms, maybe third
specialisms, but to deliver a range of opportunities to children
they will have to work together. It is all about delivering those
opportunities.
Chairman: Secretary of State, it has
been a long session and a good session and it has been very good
to have you here for the first time. We hope for a long relationship
with you as Secretary of State. We shall give you a hard time
when it is necessary but we do wish you well in your new job.
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