UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be
published as HC 726-iii
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
EDUCATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Wednesday 14 December 2005
ANGELA E SMITH MP, MS J McLAUGHLIN and MR D WOODS
Evidence heard in Public Questions 176-266
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
on Wednesday 14 December 2005
Members present
Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair
Mr David Anderson
Gordon Banks
Mr Gregory Campbell
Rosie Cooper
Mr Christopher Fraser
Lady Hermon
Meg Hillier
Dr Alasdair McDonnell
Stephen Pound
Sammy Wilson
________________
Memorandum submitted by Angela E Smith MP
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Angela E Smith, a Member of the House, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State, Minister for Education, Northern Ireland Office, Mr David Woods, Head of Post Primary
Support Team and Ms Jacqui McLaughlin,
Post Primary Support Team, Department of Education for Northern Ireland (DENI),
gave evidence.
Q176 Chairman: May I welcome you Minister; we are grateful
to you for coming. Before I say
anything, would you like to introduce your two officials?
Angela Smith: I should indeed. Both my officials are from the post primary team: I have David Woods on my left and Jacqui
McLaughlin on my right.
Q177 Chairman: As you will be aware, the background to this
afternoon's session, is that we were approached shortly after this Committee
was formed, indeed at the beginning of the autumn, by representatives of the
grammar schools who were very concerned that they did not feel that their case
had been fully listened to and they were anxious that the Committee should hear
what they had to say about changes which they believed would be detrimental to
the quality of education in Northern Ireland.
We agreed to their request, but we felt it was only right to see
others. You will know that on our
recent visit to Belfast and Londonderry we saw various groups; some of whom
gave us public evidence. We also
visited four schools: two in Belfast
and two in Londonderry. So that the
Committee could have a varied experience we divided into two groups and those
who went to the grammar school, the selective school in Belfast, the Royal
Academy, went to the secondary school in Londonderry and vice-versa. We also visited schools catering for the
different communities, so in Londonderry we saw what were essentially a
Protestant secondary school and a Roman Catholic grammar school. That is the background. We have not yet decided whether we are going
to issue a brief report on this. We
have come to this subject rather late in the day; that is not our fault and it
is not yours. However, we now stand on
the verge of some very important final decisions being made in Northern Ireland
and perhaps we could just ask you a little about the background from your point
of view. First of all, what account did
you and your predecessors take of the household response form which appeared to
indicate a fairly massive majority in favour of opposing the ending of
selective education.
Angela Smith: Several surveys have been undertaken and
polls and views assessed on this. The
household survey is one of them. I have
to say the response rate was very poor:
around 16% responded. Having
said that, it was quite significantly against removing academic selection. We have taken account of all the many views
which have been put to us on this issue.
I am sure you will want to look at other aspects of the Costello report and
I welcome the opportunity you have given me today to discuss these issues, but
one of my frustrations as Minister around this whole process, and the Costello
report was a very wide-ranging, very complex report, has been how one aspect of
that report has been discussed almost to the exclusion of some of the
others. I very much welcome some of the
comments which your Committee have been making and questions you have been
asking across the range of Costello.
Looking at the household survey, we did take account of that, but we
have taken account not just of the number of opinions but the detail in those
opinions which have been expressed to us by a wide range of people in a wide
range of ways.
Q178 Chairman: Do you think that this is a decision, the
future of secondary education in Ireland, which should ideally be taken in
Northern Ireland by the people of Northern Ireland?
Angela Smith: I should say ideally all decisions I and my
ministerial colleagues take on a range of issues would be better taken by local
ministers in Northern Ireland. We are
in a situation of direct rule where we are charged with governing and we do so
in the best way that we can. I do take
the point very clearly and all of us would.
We would much rather these decisions and many others were taken by
locally elected ministers.
Q179 Chairman: Would it not therefore have been perhaps
prudent and sensitive, as we hope we are on the verge of a restoration of
devolved rule, to have deferred final implementation of any decisions until
after the Assembly had been re-established?
Angela Smith: It would be difficult to put all decisions on
hold until that time, whenever that may be and we all hope it is as soon as
possible. Costello was first accepted in
2004 by my colleague Jane Kennedy, when she was Minister for Education. It had been discussed for a number of years
prior to that. It would be doing a
disservice if we were not to take decisions to address all the issues in
Costello, not just academic selection but all the issues, in particular ones
surrounding the curriculum and the importance of getting a curriculum which
really does meet the needs of the 21st century in terms of
vocational, academic excellence, in terms of the kind of economy we are moving
towards. There are very great strengths
in the Northern Ireland education system that we want to maintain and build
on. Equally, there are significant
weaknesses and if we do not address those we are doing a disservice to the
young people who have been affected by those weaknesses.
Q180 Chairman: You say you have taken account of views but one
of the complaints which was made to us, and they were not all from the same
quarter, was that people had not been given sufficient opportunity to express
their views either to you or to your predecessor. There was certainly a feeling which was particularly evident when
the grammar school representatives gave evidence, that they were very grateful
to us and relieved that they were at last able to give this evidence which they
felt they had not had the opportunity to give to your predecessors.
Angela Smith: That is probably an unfair criticism, but I
accept that if people do not feel somebody agrees with them, they feel they
have not been heard. I had numerous
meetings with all shades of opinion on this issue. There was extensive consultation and my predecessors also met
with different shades of opinion. I was
just checking how many meetings and opportunities there had been for members of
the public with differing views to put their views to ministers. In fact, the organisations representing the
grammar school lobby had approaching twice as many meetings with ministers as
those with the opposing point of view.
It is difficult for people. They
see a bit of change, and there has been some misunderstanding and indeed some
misrepresentation of the Government's views on which people have based their
opinions and representations following that.
I can give you an assurance that every shade of opinion has had the
opportunity to meet with ministers, myself and my colleagues in this post
previously. All those meetings have
been very worthwhile for ministers.
Q181 Chairman: In the rest of the United Kingdom, where
there has been a suggestion that a grammar school might be closed, this
Government, your Government, has provided the facility for a local ballot of
parents. There is no such facility
provided in the proposals which you are putting forward in Northern Ireland.
Angela Smith: Because there is no proposal to close grammar
schools. If you look at the proposals
in detail, it is important to stress that what we are not seeking to do is
remove academic excellence, close grammar schools. What we are trying to do is to have a better method of
transferring pupils from their primary school to their post-primary school, but
also have a curriculum which is more flexible and better meets the needs of
those young people. Indeed, the
curriculum is more flexible so for grammar schools it is more flexible. At the moment every single post-primary
school in Northern Ireland has the same curriculum, taught in the same way, at
the same level. Our proposals have more
flexibility but no grammar schools will be closed as a result of these
proposals, which is why there will be no need for ballots.
Chairman: I am sure we shall be returning to that.
Q182 Sammy Wilson: May I follow up on the general approach first
of all? Just for the record, it ought
to be pointed out that, whilst you say there was a very low response rate to
the original survey, over 250,000 households did respond; it was the highest
response rate for any survey carried out by the then Northern Ireland Assembly,
in fact it was five times higher than the response rate for any of the
consultations by any government department taken during the life of the
Assembly. Just for the record. In relation to the consultation, 62% of the
people opposed the proposals in the household survey, 90% have registered their
opposition in the most recent survey.
You are now going to have a consultation on this document here. Given the form in which this document is now
written and the fairly finalised way in which the Order has been drafted up, in
reality what chance is there of any changes being made in a document which
reaches this kind of form at this stage of the process?
Angela Smith: That is a matter for the parliamentary
process. When you talk about
percentages of responses, some of the information we get is contradictory. I saw one poll recently which said that
roughly two thirds of people were opposed to removing academic selection; the
figures change from 90% to 50% to 65%, they vary enormously depending on the
question which is asked. The same
survey showed that slightly more than that, though roughly two thirds again,
wanted children to go to their local school and be streamed according to
ability within the local school. There
are some contradictory results. In
terms of the draft Order, the removal of academic selection was accepted back
when Jane Kennedy accepted the Costello report and it is looking at how to give
effect to that with two objectives in mind:
one to ensure that we retain academic excellence and opportunities; the
other to ensure that every child fulfils its full potential and every child is
challenged by the education system. I
have seen some things recently; I met yesterday with two groups, both of them
dealing with young people who had disengaged from the education system. One of the reasons both of them gave me
without any prompting, because I wanted to explore why they felt young people
were disengaging, was that a very large part of it was the curriculum. All young people are doing the same
curriculum in the same way and it did not meet their needs, it did not
challenge those young people, it did not address their needs. The proposals we are putting forward are to
address that within the curriculum, so that every young person has the ability
to be challenged by the curriculum they are studying, so that mix of academic
and vocational can be undertaken in every school by every child, so that does
mean we get a better outcome and fulfil the potential of every pupil going
through school.
Q183 Sammy Wilson: You mentioned that one of the reasons why
this was being done now, even though it should be a devolved issue, was that
there was a pressing urgency. Is it
also not a fact that you know, and those within your Department who are
probably pushing this know, that had these kinds of proposals come to the
Northern Ireland Assembly, given the way in which decisions have been made in
the Northern Ireland Assembly, there would be absolutely no chance of them ever
going through in their present form. Therefore
they are being pushed, ahead of an Assembly being formed, because it is known
that they could not possibly go through in this form with an Assembly.
Angela Smith: I refute that. The timetable we are following is the timetable which was set out
when Costello was first published in which the last transfer tests would take
place in 2008 and the new arrangements would come into force in 2009. There has been no haste in this and I do not
think you or I would have imagined that I should be Minister for Education and
not you. No one would have imagined
that there would still be a devolved administration now. There has been no haste on the part of the
Department; we have followed the timetable which was first set down by
Costello.
Q184 Chairman: I do not think that was Mr Wilson's
point. Mr Wilson's point was that
he did not think the Assembly would ever countenance such measures going
through onto the statute book.
Angela Smith: I was making two points and I was going to
come to that second point. The first
point was that we were acting in haste and I was pointing out that we were not
acting in haste. The second point would
be a matter for the Assembly and I would not predict what the Assembly would
do. During this debate I have had the
advantage of looking at this in some detail and I have to say that the debate
has taken place in the same amount of detail in Northern Ireland as a whole and
if there is a misunderstanding, which may be the fault of the Department and
me, some of it has been misrepresentation.
I notice in the evidence you were given previously about the pupil
profiles some of the information being given to the Committee is that pupil
profiles are undertaken by the pupils.
I made a note of the comment which was made to members before that the
child set its own work in the pupil profile.
That is not true. This is
something undertaken by professional teachers with computer assessment tools to
assist them. There has been some
misrepresentation of what is actually involved. It is very important that we look at this debate in context with
all the issues which are facing us and not just one small aspect of it. I would not want to predict what the
Assembly will do in those circumstances.
Q185 Lady Hermon: I am delighted to see you here this afternoon
Minister, along with your colleagues.
May I just reflect on one point which you have already made in your
submission to us this afternoon and that is to indicate that the
representatives of the grammar schools have actually met on twice as many
occasions as other groups? Could the
Minister just clarify that? How many
times has the Minister met with the heads of grammar schools? How many times has her predecessor met with
the heads of grammar schools?
Angela Smith: We have both had a number of meetings. I and my predecessor met with the GBA on
nine occasions, with the Secondary Heads of Northern Ireland on two occasions,
and the CGSFPA on one occasion, so a total of 12 meetings. If we look at the meetings with those who
are promoting and supporting the Costello changes, the CCMS, the AHTSS, the NASUWT,
a total of six meetings, exactly twice the number of meetings with those promoting
the changes. I am not sure the number
of meetings on its own is necessarily helpful.
The point I was making was that we did not deny anybody the opportunity
to speak to me, we made the opportunities.
We wanted to ensure that we got a complete understanding of the opinions
being put to us and the GBA were certainly putting the views of the grammar
school heads very well.
Q186 Mr Campbell: You have given the indication of how many
meetings took place. Surely the
meetings would be in response to requests for meetings. Would it be the case that there was an
intensity of requests for meetings from one side?
Angela Smith: Not always.
One of the things I did when I became Minister for Education was to ask
for meetings with various groups. It
would be very difficult for me to say which ones were in response, but as we
moved through the process, I asked my officials to ensure that I met
representatives. Whether they had
written in as well, I specifically asked to meet representatives of every shade
of opinion.
Q187 Chairman: In view of the comments we had when we were
in Northern Ireland and because the Committee wishes really to see the facts,
do not delay this particular point now, but could you please write to us,
detail the meetings, the length of time each one took, whether it was at your
invitation or by request and those who attended the meetings? Then we can get a balanced view as to
exactly what happened. [**]
Angela Smith: It may be a little bit more difficult. I can give you the time the meeting was
scheduled but they often overran. We will
give us as much information as we can to you along the lines you are seeking.
Chairman: That would be extremely kind.
Q188 Rosie Cooper: My honourable friend from Antrim East was
suggesting that this decision would never have been made by the Assembly, or was
unlikely to be made by the Assembly. I
should just like to explore that. How
much do 45,000 empty school places cost and who is paying for that? I suppose the nub of my question is: how long could a Northern Ireland Assembly
sustain those costs into the future?
Angela Smith: How much does it cost? It is difficult to say in financial terms;
it does have an impact on the budget. I
should say that this is not driven by the surplus places issue. I know Committee members are aware of the
degree of surplus places in Northern Ireland schools and how that is
escalating; if nothing is done it will go up to 80,000 in the next ten
years. That does not drive this at all;
it has to be seen in context. In
Belfast alone there are 8,500 empty desks in primary schools. I was at a primary school last week and I
left feeling quite upset after speaking to a head who is doing what I think is
an extremely good job in extremely difficult circumstances, yet because his
numbers are falling his budget is under significant pressure. The amount of extra money he has per pupil
in his school is 11%, but because of the way the numbers have reduced in the
school, that has not particularly helped him balance his budget; falling rolls
do have a significant impact on school budgets in Northern Ireland. Unless something is done to address the
issue of surplus places, it will get worse and action is being taken. This is a similar context, but it is not the
driver for the changes.
Q189 Rosie Cooper: I understand that this is not driven by costs
and wanting to do that, but I was really addressing the point of my honourable
friend for East Antrim. I suppose I am
saying that at some point the Assembly would have competing priorities and in
the future costs would become a very pressing point.
Angela Smith: It would.
One of the demands which is often made on me as Minister is to increase
the amount of money spent on education.
We are continually increasing the amount of money spent on education,
but I am not convinced that we are getting the best value for that money. We
are changing a very bureaucratic structure and you may have some knowledge of
the review of public administration which is addressing this. We currently have five Education and Library
Boards and we shall be replacing them with one education authority. There is no doubt that it is a significant
pressure on schools and would have to be addressed by whoever was the Minister.
Chairman: May I bring in Meg Hillier? You will see that this Committee neither
sits nor talks in party terms, which is very refreshing.
Q190 Meg Hillier: Thank you Minister for coming; we had some
interesting debates about the subject in Northern Ireland and a lot of
interesting submissions. I want to
focus on the issue which my honourable friend has raised about pupil numbers
and the falling rolls. You have said
that it is not a driver. Would you not
agree with us though that it is a major factor in pressing for change in schools
in Northern Ireland?
Angela Smith: It has to be, in that we have to look at the
school provision because it has financial consequences and it also has
educational consequences. If schools
are not sustainable in the longer term, then there are educational consequences
for the younger children in that school.
At the moment it is most evident in primary schools, although it is
feeding into post-primary schools. I
have issues in front of me at the moment, which we shall no doubt touch on in
the course of this, as regards integrated education where there will be a
demand for a new school but the number of surplus places in existing schools
will be extremely high. It brings into
play a number of different pressures, financial and educational.
Q191 Meg Hillier: In a sense it seems to me, as a relative
outsider to the Northern Ireland situation until recently, that the falling
roll forces physical change. We have
heard about schools being forced to merge, doing it ad hoc. We have heard about
some success stories. You have talked
today particularly underlining the number of surplus places and the pressures
for new schools, integrated and other.
If you take on board all the issues around the choice of 27 subjects at
GCSE level and 24 at A level, does this not all force a physical change to make
sure that the demographics, the subject range and the ability issues are all
dealt with? Yet you say that is not a
driver. I was just wondering whether
you could explain that.
Angela Smith: It was not a driver behind Costello. I was not in Northern Ireland at the time of
Costello, it was set up prior to my being Minister for Education in Northern
Ireland, but the drive behind Costello was how best to meet the needs of the 21st
century and looking at whether transfer tests were the best way of having
children move from primary to secondary school. In terms of the change, you are right that there is a huge change
programme in education in Northern Ireland.
It is massive in terms of the
RPA and Costello and there is a very, very significant issue in the falling
rolls. Coupled with that is the kind of
infrastructure we have in schools. I
visited a school last week and was quite appalled at the standard of the school
and the work which needed to be done. I
shall be announcing fairly shortly, hopefully in a matter of weeks, a new
capital programme for schools and that is an opportunity to address some of
these issues. The Queen opened a new
school in Northern Ireland last week, Downshire School, which is an
amalgamation of two schools. What we
have now is a brand new school which is sustainable in the long term as a
primary school, but also has adult education facilities within the school and a
mother and toddler group. It is very
much a community based school at a brand new school. When I have to close schools in a community - and I have had to
do so now on two or three occasions - I have to understand the very detrimental
impact it has on the local community.
When a school has been allowed to get to such low numbers that the only
option is to close that school, I feel extremely sad about that and I do
recognise, and members here have made representations to me on those particular
issues for those particular schools, how damaging it is to the community. That is why, if we can do some forward
planning and look ahead at what the needs are for the future, address the issue
of falling rolls in the longer term and have schools which are fit for purpose
and sustainable in the longer term, we do start to address these issues in a
much more effective way.
Q192 Meg Hillier: You have highlighted some of the big issues
about falling rolls. Why is it that it
has not been fully addressed before now, or is that an unfair assumption?
Angela Smith: You would have to ask others not me. I was quite shocked at the marked decline in
school rolls. It is difficult across
five Education and Library Boards. I
have had different responses to this particular point, but I was speaking to
one head teacher and he was keen to amalgamate his school with another school
which was across an Education and Library Board boundary and, for various
reasons, it became impossible to amalgamate the two schools and that school is
now in a very difficult position. The Department's
role and the role of the Minister has been to make an assessment of development
proposals which have been brought forward by the Education and Library Boards
and CCMS would also do it within the Catholic sector. I am not convinced that the examination of this has been as
robust as it should have been within the Education and Library Board sector.
Q193 Sammy Wilson: You have talked about the problem of falling
school rolls and surplus places and everyone in Northern Ireland accepts that,
though you are saying that is not what is predicating this document. Is there then a contradiction in the
approach of your department which is committed to growing the Irish medium and
the integrated school sectors by 10% each year against a background where you
are saying you already have 45,000 surplus school places? How do you explain to those schools which
are going to be closed how in some circumstances you will be opening a new
school in the exact same area because of your Department's policy?
Angela Smith: It is not just departmental policy it is
legislation which has been put forward.
I do not recognise the target of 10% which you gave; I am aware of no
targets. Under the 1998 legislation we
have to encourage and facilitate Irish medium and integrated education. It does create a huge challenge to me as
Minister. If a proposal comes forward
to me, and I understand that a proposal will shortly be coming forward to me,
for an integrated school, a post-primary school in an area where in that wider
area there are 750 surplus places, I have legislation which says I should
encourage and facilitate. I have 750
surplus places. To build a new school
has capital implications and it also has revenue implications. I have had representations from the
principals and two of the MPs in that area supporting the local schools who are
worried about losing further pupils. On
the other hand I speak to a parent on the margins of another event - the parent
was not making representations, but he was from that area - and the parent
tells me that he particularly wants his child to go to an integrated
school. I have to ask: why is it, when there are 750 surplus places,
that parent does not want to send his child to any one of the schools with
surplus places? At the moment the
integrated school has two places vacant.
That is one of the dilemmas in decision making. As the Minister making that decision, I have
to take into account the surplus places available and that is part of the
decision-making process. It is not
quite as you would indicate; it is not that we have a target and we have to
have create 10% and we have to do this, but it does have to be taken into
account. If we are also looking at
parental choice, the parental choice is that they want another integrated
school in that area, there is a demand for it.
At the same time there is an excess of places in that area. One of the ways to deal with that is to have
more cooperation between schools and schools across sectors. There are schools which do that. I made a note of two in particular. There are two schools across the controlled
and maintained sector which are doing some A levels jointly in the sixth form. That kind of cooperation can assist with
that, but the problem is that it is not happening everywhere and it is not
really happening enough.
Q194 Chairman: The commonsense, cost-effective answer would
often be to encourage the existing to integrate rather than to close and build
something fresh. Is this not something
you try to encourage?
Angela Smith: At the moment that responsibility is not with
me as Minister. Under the new RPA
arrangements that may be easier to do.
One of the things that an integrated proposal would have to look at,
would be whether there was another school in the area which wished to become
integrated. Sometimes that is not
possible because the threshold which is set for a school to change from one
sector to being integrated is not the same balance as a new integrated
school. Some parents prefer a new
integrated school, because there is more of an equal balance than in a school
which converts or transfers to become an integrated school. It is one of the complexities we have in the
education system which makes decision making and funding more difficult. I do not have all the answers on that; I
just get some of the problems.
Q195 Lady Hermon: I am increasingly concerned about the issue
of falling pupil numbers being used as an excuse to slow down announcements
about capital expenditure. I shall give
you an example: Bangor Academy, which
will be the largest new build at secondary level in the North Down
constituency. It is not a school which
suffers from falling roll numbers and yet and all the announcement to go ahead
with that expenditure has not been confirmed by your Department. That has a serious knock-on effect for the
staff, for the pupils, for the board of governors. Will the Minister indicate to the Committee this afternoon when
she is prepared to make an announcement about capital expenditure?
Angela Smith: I would hope to make an announcement in the
fairly near future. It is a bit unfair
to say that it is being used as an excuse to close down the announcement of the
capital programme. What I do have to
ensure, if I am announcing a major capital programme for the building of new
schools and significant refurbishment of others, is that I am able to stand
across that and say those are the schools we all want in 10 years' time, in 15
years' time. I would be heavily
criticised by various committees and Members of Parliament, if I were to
announce a capital programme which included schools which were not sustainable
in the longer term because of falling rolls.
There is no excuse to slow down the capital programme using falling
rolls as an excuse to slow down the capital programme, but it does have to be a
factor in the sustainability of any schools.
May I just share my thoughts with you on this, which are not
particularly public at the moment? What
I should like to do is perhaps look at a two-stage announcement, where those
schools which are quite clearly sustainable in the longer term and need to go
ahead fairly soon can be moved forward and then some additional work done on
looking at the long-term sustainability.
If we can look at the capital programme in terms of falling rolls and
where new schools could be built, and rather than seeing a community extremely
upset about losing a school, a community being delighted at having a new school
and amalgamate two or three schools, there may be opportunities there. I may have the opportunity to make a capital
programme announcement in two stages. I
should apologise to those schools which have been waiting, but this is a very
difficult area and I do not think it would be right to have a short-term
programme when there is a long-term issue to be addressed.
Q196 Lady Hermon: When do you hope to make the first of these
announcements?
Angela Smith: I should like to do so shortly after
Christmas.
Q197 Mr Campbell: On the business of encouraging and
facilitating in relation to Irish medium, would you think it could be helpful,
if it were to be the case in future, where there are schools - and I can think
of one at least in my constituency, a very small maintained school - which are
under threat of closure, that encouraging and facilitating towards integration as
an alternative to closure might be equally productive and acceptable if that
were enshrined in legislation and you were able to deploy equal facilitation in
that regard?
Angela Smith: Normally when integrated schools bring
forward a proposal to a Minister they would have to show that they had looked
at that area of it. I should welcome
any legislation which would make my life easier.
Chairman: Maybe the Committee should offer some
suggestions.
Q198 Meg Hillier: One thing I did not quite get in on was where
integrated schools fit in the future.
At the moment we have integrated, Irish medium, Catholic-controlled,
grammar schools, in summary. You are
also proposing academic and all the other secondary schools would be perhaps
slightly different, perhaps overlapping with specialist. Where do you see integrated schools? Do you see them overlapping? How do you see them fitting into those types
of schools?
Angela Smith: Any of the post-primary schools could apply
for specialist school status. That was
not just the maintained or controlled sector, Irish medium or integrated, all
of them could apply for that. There was
a mixture of applications. We have had
the first sift and I hope to announce ten new specialist schools. Thirteen have applied; a mixture of
controlled secondary, maintained secondary, integrated, maintained grammar and
controlled grammar. One of the controlled
grammar schools has now pulled out because it is working on so many other
initiatives and does not wish to be considered at this stage. A mix of those schools with the various
specialisms applied for that status and they were assessed on the quality of
their applications and we would hope to be make a final announcement on those
in the not too distant future.
Q199 Mr Fraser: You claim that your proposals will enable
every child to reach the maximum of their potential. That is correct, is it not?
Angela Smith: Yes.
Q200 Mr Fraser: But when you look at the Costello report it
actually says that all-ability intake may impact on the achievements of higher
ability pupils and more able pupils may not be stretched fully. As Costello's advice has been accepted in
everything else, why have you made an exception in this case?
Angela Smith: I do not think we have. I am not sure all schools will be
all-ability schools, although I have to say that some grammar schools are
becoming all-ability schools now as a consequence of falling rolls. Last year we saw some grammar schools taking
4% and then it got to 9% of children with Cs and Ds. The do-nothing option is to see all-ability schools. What Costello and the proposals for the pupil
profile show is teachers making the assessment over the period of that child's
time in a primary school, parents using that information to make a choice about
what kind of education, what school best suits the young person. I do not think all schools will be mixed
ability schools; the driver on choice will be the kind of curriculum being
offered by the school. You are aware
that the curriculum will be one third academic, one third vocation and
technical and one third will be for the school to choose what best suits the
kind of school it wants to be. That
will be the driver for parents choosing the best school for the needs of their
child and within schools they can set and stream.
Q201 Mr Fraser: You claim you want to preserve the excellent
standards achieved by grammar schools, but then you want to abolish academic
selection. Perhaps it is just me, but I
am not clear from what you have told us so far how your objective is achieved
if academic selection disappears. Could
you very briefly explain it again to me?
Perhaps I am foggy on it, but I cannot see that you have actually
answered that.
Angela Smith: At the moment every school in Northern
Ireland teaches the same curriculum in the same way. Under the new proposals there will be the opportunity for schools
to vary, have more flexibility around that curriculum and in the way it is
taught as well. It will not be for me
to tell teachers how to teach a subject.
The schools who want to have a more academic ethos have an academic
curriculum and that will attract the choice of parents who want their children
to have that academic excellence. I
want to add a little word of warning, that it would be unfair to say that the
only schools in Northern Ireland which achieve academic excellence for their
pupils are the grammar schools. There
are several very, very good secondary schools which do not have selection. Particularly with falling rolls, the other
post-primary schools which are not grammar schools do not have a choice in the
pupils they take and some of the results from those are equally excellent. At the moment you will find, and it will
continue, that grammar schools are taking an increasingly mixed intake: 88% of grammar schools took children with Cs
and Ds this year.
Q202 Mr Fraser: If, as you are saying, grammar schools can
have an amount of academically orientated curriculum, in effect they are being
denied a voice in identifying the pupils who would benefit most from that
curriculum.
Angela Smith: Because it is not the schools who are making
the choice any more. The proposal would
be for the parents to make the choice.
The parents would consult the schools and it is up to parents, if they
wish to discuss with the staff of the school whether that is the best route for
their child, to do so. Grammar schools
are not just about who they admit. If
they were, they would not be admitting Cs and Ds in many schools now, because
that would not suit their ethos. It
would be the range of opportunities offered, the curriculum offered, parents
would be making that choice. What we
have at the moment is a number of young people who at the age of 11 have one
shot over two days of exams and that decides which route they take. What I am saying is that there is a choice
for parents to make at age 11; there is also a choice to be made at age 14 when
they choose the subjects they study. We
are not cutting off options for young people at age 11; we are opening those up
and then there is further choice at age 14 around the curriculum.
Q203 Mr Fraser: How do you answer the charge that the
abolition of academic selection results in a decrease in social mobility?
Angela Smith: It would have to be proved to me that
academic selection in itself provides an increase in social mobility and it
does not. No evidence has been
presented to me which shows that removing it decreases that. I know that there are some good examples of
people who have gone into grammar school, but I am quite upset that only 5% of
kids on the Shankhill in three years ever got a shot at a grammar school
place. I do not believe that 95% of
kids on the Shankhill are not competent or able to have an academic
education. They are; they can achieve,
but they are not getting the opportunity for various reasons. I know you have also met the Shankhill
principals and I have met the Shankhill principals and I have visited schools
on the Shankhill. They say that this is
a discussion which does not really affect them, that their kids are not even
getting to take the 11-plus. Some of
them may achieve later on, but at 11-plus they are not ready to make that decision
for their future. I have also visited
and met with principals of secondary schools, post-primary schools which have a
non-selective intake, and they have young people coming to them who have not
taken the selection exam, who have Cs and Ds, who are going on to do
degrees. I do not accept that the only
way for social mobility is through a selection exam, academic selection at the
age of 11.
Q204 Chairman: It is incumbent upon us to be fair to our
witnesses. When the grammar school
group came before us, they were at pains to say that they were not there to
advocate the retention of the 11-plus as it currently exists. There seemed to be no support for that at
all, whether they were lining up behind Costello or not. What they were adamant in saying to us was
that a form of academic selection was necessary and they were suggesting that
computerised adaptive testing, a special computer-based profile, offered a
surer and a better way forward than what was proposed in Costello. It does not seem to me that in your answers
to Mr Fraser, or indeed to anybody else, that has been faced up to.
Angela Smith: I am sorry you have that view. I think you are talking about
Dr Morrison's evidence. I was a
little bit disappointed with Dr Morrison's evidence to you, which
misrepresented what the pupil profiles do.
The point I made earlier was that when he says pupils were making their
own assessments and that of others, that does not happen. There is some merit in what Dr Morrison
says. It is disappointing that Dr Morrison
never approached the Department directly or CCEA who are doing profiling in the
pupil profiles and piloting them, because there is some merit and we should
welcome the opportunity to discuss that.
I received copies of his papers, not directly but from others who
helpfully gave them to me. They are
quite technical. I think he is under a
misapprehension about some of the work of the pupil profiles and that is why I passed
them on to CCEA for them to make an assessment. He is right on the computer assessment tools and they have been
incorporated into pupil profiles. You
need that rigour and robustness of pupil profiles. Computer adaptive tests can give very valid and reliable outcomes
and I think they help prove the consistency of teacher assessment. One of the things we need to do, if parents
are making an assessment of the future educational route of their child, is
ensure they are be able to make an informed choice. I should agree with him on the computer assessment tools.
Q205 Mr Fraser: Whatever is adopted in terms of the pupil
profile, are you determined to meet international standards of validity and
reliability?
Angela Smith: I am not aware that there is an international
standard, but there will be standards of reliability. These are professional judgments being made by professional
teachers. We are confident that that
relationship between the teacher giving the information to the parents each
year, really replacing the annual report with the pupil profile - it will
include class work, teacher observation - is reliable and robust. It is not a replacement for a selection
tool. It is important to note that it
is a different kind of assessment. It
is not replacing the transfer tests; it is a kind of assessment. We are confident that it is robust and can give
the information that parents need to make an informed choice.
Q206 Mr Fraser: There seems to be a determination to impose
the fundamental elements of the comprehensive system in Northern Ireland. That is the charge which has been laid. It goes against the wish of the people in
Northern Ireland when you look at the statistics. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education Ruth
Kelly are currently trying to mitigate the consequences of that failure
elsewhere in the United Kingdom. How do
you balance that?
Angela Smith: I do not agree with your assessment of
that.
Q207 Chairman: I did not think you would.
Angela Smith: I listened carefully and I am sure you
appreciate that the point has been made to me on more than one occasion. We are not imposing the kind of
comprehensive system you are talking about, the one-size-fits-all comprehensive
system. That is one of the
difficulties. You interjected and I
have to respond to that. With respect,
it is one of the difficulties of what is a very complex issue, a change in the
curriculum, a change in the transfer process, which cannot in a nutshell just be
about the end of academic selection. It
is not just about academic selection, it is about a completely different kind
of educational system which challenges every child, gets the best out of every
child. The pupil profiles are very
important in that. In terms of academic
selection, both the Secretary of State for Education and the Prime Minister
made it very clear in Prime Minister's Questions in the Secretary of State's
statements to the House that the White Paper in England is not a return to
academic selection. I cannot remember
the exact quote from Ruth Kelly but she made it very, very clear in numerous
speeches she has made and as recently as last week ---
Q208 Stephen Pound: By the front door, not by the back door and not by the trap
door.
Angela Smith: That was it.
Even last week the Prime Minister again reiterated that there is no
return to academic selection in England.
The fact is that the proposals put forward in the White Paper in
England, particularly in terms of banding, are trying to increase "comprehensivisation"
in England. What we are saying is that
we need to change the curriculum in Northern Ireland to be more responsive to
future needs and to the economy and we need to have a better way of deciding
how young people move from primary to post-primary.
Q209 Sammy Wilson: In your submission to the Committee on this
particular issue, a number of things do require some explanation. First of all you talk about the widening
profile in the grammar schools as though this were something grammar schools
were deliberately pursuing. Is it not a
fact that the Department set the criterion that if someone applies for a
grammar school place below an A grade or a B grade and there are places
available, they are obliged to take those people and if the Department wants
that changed the Department can change it, but it has consistently refused to
do so.
Angela Smith: I am not apportioning blame; it is not a
matter of blame, it is a matter of fact.
As numbers overall in the post-primary sector decline and are set to
decline more there are more applications to grammar schools and they will take
a wider range of intake. That is a
matter of fact not blame. It has gone
up and this year was 9% Cs and Ds; it was 4% last year, so you can see that
increasing. That is why I say, if you
are talking about changing the profile of grammar schools, that it will happen
by default if nothing is done. You say
that grammar schools are obliged: they
are not actually obliged. A grammar
school can apply to the Department if it feels that a grammar school education
would be detrimental to the education of that child; the grammar school can
apply to not take that particular child if the education in the school would be
detrimental. This year only three
grammar schools made that application and 15 pupils were refused admission to
grammar schools on that basis. A
grammar school is not obliged to take a child if it would not benefit from
grammar school education.
Q210 Sammy Wilson: I was hoping you would give me the answer you
have given me. If you follow your logic
on this, and given what you have said in paragraph 8 of your submission to
us that "Grammar schools are currently seen as the preferred choice of many
parents and the combination of this and falling pupil numbers is having the
effect of " and you list a number of things, is it therefore not logical to
suggest that, given the proposals which we have, contained in this draft
document, that process is going to accelerate because the popular schools,
whether we like it or not, are grammar schools, and if there is an open-door
policy, that is exactly what you are going to get. Therefore it defies logic to say later on in the document that
grammar schools are not being abolished and comprehensive schools are not being
imposed, because you are going to have a wider range of academic ability and the
grammar school ethos will be lost and a wider range of academic ability, if you
have all-ability comprehensive schools.
Angela Smith: Two points:
one point is about the curriculum.
At the moment every single post-primary school in Northern Ireland has
the same curriculum taught the same way.
If you want an academic curriculum you can go to any of the schools, but
the grammar schools have more of a reputation for academic excellence. What we are talking about is changing that
curriculum so that there will be different kinds of curricula in different
schools. Every school will be one third
academic, one third technical and vocational and one third of the curriculum
will be chosen by the school to match the school ethos. It may well be better in the interests of a
more vocational pupil, one who has an aptitude in a different way, to apply to
a school which is not the more academic kind of school. So it is about the curriculum. It is also about the relationship which the
parent will have with the primary school to best meet their child's needs in
their secondary school. For some
children that will of course be more academic; for others it will be more
vocational, but every child, whatever school they are at, will have the
opportunity to do academic and vocational.
Q211 Dr McDonnell: You mentioned the child in the Shankhill Road
and that is something which has perhaps been glossed over in a lot of our
discussion at times. I congratulate you
on the good work you have done in education in Northern Ireland but my deep
concern is what we can do and what you can see being done for the child who has
not achieved, for the disadvantaged areas.
I see it essentially mainly for disadvantaged Protestant areas. You mentioned the Shankhill there and there
are others as well which are not exclusively on that side of the divide, but
the worst black spots appear to be concentrated in places like the
Shankhill. Where do you see the
education system and the changes making a difference for those children? I think the inclination of what you said was
that it was all above their heads and some of them felt it did not even relate
to them.
Angela Smith: I think you are quite right in that. This is not something which education alone
can resolve. If we were to say that the
education system on its own can deal with social disadvantage, education disadvantage,
it cannot; it has to be done across government. The Secretary of State today announced the budget and the
children and young persons' package in that budget places £28 million next
year and £33 million the year after for improving the life chances of
children and young people. Part of that
will be building on the work we have done around education action zones, rather
than just having two education action zones in each Board area, rolling across
Northern Ireland in areas of particular need the enhanced provision, the
wrap-around provision extended to schools, SureStart, after-school clubs,
breakfast clubs and that kind of wider provision across government supporting
the education system and that funding goes forward to support that; £28 million next year and
£33 million the year after. It is
very much looking at an integrated delivery from education, from health, from
social development working together where the need is to improve the life
chances and the educational opportunities of young people in the more deprived
areas.
Q212 Dr McDonnell: Do you have much confidence that there will
be a positive outcome?
Angela Smith: Yes; I do think it is the way forward and the
way to deal with the issue. I have met
with heads in these areas, I have visited the schools and I think they are
doing a tremendous job. I really admire
the work they are doing in very difficult circumstances. You will have spoken to some of the heads
and visited some of the schools, but in circumstances which are more challenging
probably than any teacher in this country faces. They need additional support and one of the things which struck
me in speaking to them was, for example, if a child needs speech therapy it
often means the child has to be taken to a speech therapist and that is
delivered somewhere outside the school.
Why can we not do that in the school for the kids who need it? Why can we not provide a breakfast club in
the school where the children may not get the food they need before they come
to school? Why not have an after-school
club at that school which will keep children so they can do their homework in
school and receive extra support. If we
have that wrap-around provision, then I really believe we can make a difference
to those young people. It is not just
saying that it is the less able; very often it is children who are very able
but do not have the opportunities to fulfil their potential. A fund of £28 million sounds like a lot
of money, but it is really a pilot to see how this works. If we can really get government working
together across departments to make a difference for young people, then we
start to break down the kind of issues and concerns we have about young people
not achieving.
Q213 Mr Anderson: May I take you back to the education action
zones? We asked the people from Belfast
area partnerships about them and in their view they were announced but nothing
further happened. Is that a fair
comment?
Angela Smith: It is but the announcement today will
help. It was not that nothing happened;
perhaps everyone was not kept as well informed as they should have been. A lot of work was undertaken: £2 million was provided to each Board area
to bring forward plans. Two costed
proposals for each area were given to the Department. Looking at that now, it has been overtaken by this new fund which
the Secretary of State announced finally today in the Budget; it was announced
in the draft Budget a few weeks ago. So
we can now extend the benefits from those areas much wider than we would have
done otherwise. From today we can go
back to schools and give more information out, but the final budget
announcement was made today.
Q214 Chairman: Will they still be called education action
zones?
Angela Smith: Probably not; we might not call them
that. It does not really matter
particularly what we call them.
Q215 Chairman: A degree of consistency and intelligibility
is always commendable in government.
Angela Smith: And possibly wishful thinking sometimes. Cynicism in one so young. What will be achieved will be that the
outcomes will be very consistent with education action zones, but it will be
wider than the two proposals we would have looked at for each Education and
Library Board area.
Q216 Mr Anderson: Just to be clear, did anything actually
happen? Did anybody go in, because they
do not say they did?
Angela Smith: Yes, £2 million was earmarked and was
put in and the Boards have had staff in place working up proposals. It is just that it came to us that we could
do more, so the proposal was to have two in each Board area, but, with the
announcement of new money, we can do more and extend it further.
Q217 Chairman: Our witnesses told us that nothing happened
for three years. You have effectively
confirmed that.
Angela Smith: Work was ongoing at Board level, as I
understand it.
Q218 Chairman: Come on.
Angela Smith: A level of bureaucracy which can give money
direct to schools would be more effective.
Chairman: Mr Anderson has highlighted a very important
point. Do you want to pursue it any
more?
Q219 Mr Anderson: I do, because it links into the whole feeling
we had when we were over there that this was a most depressing time because
people just felt hopeless. We asked
about Costello and we really pressed them on this and people said the truth was
that it meant nothing to them, it would not change what was happening to their
children. That has to be an
indictment. How will it help them?
Angela Smith: One of the things is the package I have
mentioned of £28 million and £33 million. The other one is having a much better policy on sustainable
schools in the longer term.
Q220 Chairman: Is this new money?
Angela Smith: This is new money. People in Northern Ireland have paid a 19% rate increase to pay
for this and that money is going into these two new packages.
Q221 Lady Hermon: Does that go to individual boards?
Angela Smith: No, it will go directly to schools; the money
will go directly to schools. It is very
important that we have the minimum level of bureaucracy delivering this service
for young people. I have been to some
of the same schools as you have and I have come away with the same
feelings. One of the things I have
instigated in the Department is a sustainable schools policy and I hope to be
able to announce that in the not too distant future. It is not about small schools, it is about the sustainability of
schools which have surplus places in the longer term. Unless we address those kinds of issues, so we get more funding
direct to the frontline and do not fund empty desks in schools but fund pupils
and fund teachers, those problems will continue. So I should say that we are doing two things: one is looking at the sustainability of
schools in the longer term; the other is providing extra money in those areas
of greatest need to provide a wrap-around service across departments which most
addresses the needs of those schools. I
have met with the schools, I have met with the heads, I met the Shankhill
Principals' Group not so long ago and asked them what their needs were, what
would make a difference. That is how we
can make a difference with the money we are putting in.
Q222 Mr Anderson: Does your Department have responsibility for
adult education or work-based learning, that sort of thing?
Angela Smith: Not the Department of Education, but one of
my other departments, the Department for Employment and Learning. It was interesting, talking to some people
recently on those particular areas: if
young people miss out on the education system it stays with them throughout
their lives and we should start getting young people involved at this age. In one of the schools I visited, the
Downshire School I mentioned earlier on, you have a new school which is an
amalgamated school and as part of that school they have an adult education
centre and they have a mother and toddler group, so you are bringing in the
community as a whole. Part of the new
money we are talking about there for the next two years will be for things like
parenting support. Some of the schools
I have visited have already had the parenting coordinator, where a member of
staff has worked with parents on their parenting skills and helped parents give
the support their children need. I know
we are sometimes accused of being a nanny state, but if you speak to parents
who have had support and have received parenting skills, they will tell you how
much they value them and how much of a difference being able to give the best
support to their young child has made to them.
Q223 Mr Anderson: Some concerns have been expressed to me by
some of the young people over there that there are going to be changes to some
of the work-based funding. May I write
to you on that for some clarification?
Angela Smith: Drop me a note on that. It is not the Department of Education, but
with one of my other hats on I shall be happy to get back to you on it. [**]
Chairman: We shall let Mr Anderson follow up on
that.
Q224 Gordon Banks: A lot of administrative changes are being
promoted in Northern Ireland at the moment and what we are talking about today
is just one of them. Critics have
highlighted an absence of any costing in the Costello proposals. You have put forward a statement that there
will be £24.7 million between 2005 and 2008 to support the phased
introduction of the new arrangements, but that you do not know the overall
costs at the end. Where did the
£24.7 million come from? How did
you arrive at that?
Angela Smith: That was an assessment which was made by the
Department of money which would be needed.
There were costs with Costello; there are also savings to be made
through Costello. Until we know exactly
what the collaborative arrangements will be between schools and between schools
and FE institutions, it is difficult to work out exactly. I was told recently of a school which has
built a new technology facility for its pupils and yet half a mile up the road
there was an identical facility in an FE college which was greatly
underused. The sharing of facilities is
important and is one of the savings I would identify. It would be wrong for me as Minister to dictate in areas what
kind of collaborative arrangement best suits an area. I met some secondary heads recently who were already working on
what they would do post Costello and how they would collaborate. Proposals will be coming out from different
areas and then we can do some more detailed costings as they come forward.
Q225 Stephen Pound: I am very interested in that.
Burns talked about the 20 collegiates and by and large they were not
massively popular across Northern Ireland as a whole. How does what you have just said fit in with the apparent lack of
impetus behind the Burns' collegiates?
Angela Smith: What was wrong with the Burns report was that
people looked at it and were quite appalled to be told how they would
amalgamate and collaborate. We think it
is better to let the local areas resolve that themselves. If it is partnership through choice, they
are more likely to be successful.
Wearing one of my other hats, FE colleges have already announced a
reduction in the admin of FE colleges; there will be six units of FE colleges. They are quite excited about collaborating
with schools and some of the older pupils on the skills base which they can
provide education on. It will be a
case, in each area, of developing proposals, bringing those forward and then we
can cost them in detail. We should be
able to get some early indications, but they will not be as detailed as when we
get the final reports.
Q226 Stephen Pound: How does that factor in with the vocational enhancement
programme? If you have that degree of "let
a thousand flowers bloom" - and I respect where you are coming from on that -
but people are not working in line with the VEP, which is the crucial part of
progress, what would you do? Would you
then be directing this self-selective collaborative process?
Angela Smith: We should have to if it did not work, but the
evidence is that it is working. Eleven
and a half thousand pupils are involved, 160 schools, 60 further education
colleges and we can test how that is working and use that as a pilot. There is no evidence that it will not work;
the evidence from VEP is very encouraging.
Q227 Stephen Pound: Are those current figures?
Angela Smith: Those are current figures at the moment.
Stephen Pound: I shall look forward to reading those
figures in the transcript; I have not seen them.
Q228 Chairman: Could we come back to money and Mr
Banks? You were answering his first
question and you seemed to give the impression that this figure of
£24.7 million was very much a guestimate rather than an estimate. Is that unfair?
Angela Smith: No, it is something which has been costed by
the Department as money we need. I do
not have the calculations in front of me, but I can write to you with more
detail. It is something which has been
costed by the Department as money required.
Chairman: We should like to see the detail. [**]
Q229 Gordon Banks: As with any new system which is introduced,
the establishment costs have an impetus on getting something up and
running. You mentioned savings as well. In the long term do you see these proposals
reducing the cost of post-primary education per head in Northern Ireland in the
future or adding to it?
Angela Smith: A lot of things are happening at the same
time. It is very difficult to isolate
the impact one particular proposal would have.
We have several very small schools and we are saying to all schools that
you have to collaborate to offer this wider curriculum. I know some of the rural areas are a bit
concerned, but I am determined that kids in rural areas will not be
disadvantaged and have less opportunity than those in urban areas. It is difficult to tell. It would be difficult to say at this stage
that it would be more expensive, because there are savings to be made.
Q230 Chairman: But you do not have a clue.
Angela Smith: No, it is not fair to say I do not have a
clue; it is just putting an exact figure on it. If you want an exact figure, I would be very reluctant to do
that. There are costs involved in
setting it up, but in the longer term significant savings will also be
made. It would depend on the
collaborative arrangements in each area.
I know that there are some scare stories about the extent of costs, but
I do not accept those. We need to make
better use of the money we have available at the moment and I have been convinced
throughout my time in the Department of Education that we are not making best
use of the money we have and we are disadvantaging pupils because of that. I do not think there would be significant
extra costs because of the savings which will come through collaboration.
Q231 Gordon Banks: You are also not of the opinion at this point
that these proposals will make a saving per head.
Angela Smith: I am not looking to save money. If there are savings, they would be put back
to improve the education system. I am
not looking to make savings.
Q232 Gordon Banks: I was talking purely in terms of post-primary
education per head. I know that there
is an area where money can be dispersed throughout the education budget but I
should have thought the Department would have isolated whether these proposals
were actually going to have a positive or a negative effect on the overall
budget.
Angela Smith: We do not anticipate any negative effect on
the budgets.
Q233 Gordon Banks: In relation to making good use of money, what
do you say about the financial implications of the proposal from Belfast Royal
Academy "... that best practice requires that change be made on the basis of an
in-depth analysis of the costs involved and, where possible, piloting of that
change". Bearing in mind that the Government
are not averse to piloting new projects, what is your view in relation to the
benefits of piloting the changes?
Angela Smith: In a sense the vocational enhancement
programme is piloting the changes in the curriculum; we have 160 schools, 60 FE
colleges, 11,500 pupils. We have also
been going through a stage-by-stage process of change with the RPA and with the
Costello proposals. It would be very
difficult to pilot the ends of a selection exam, because having some children
doing it and others not doing it would create an imbalance. In terms of how the curriculum works out,
that has been very carefully organised and piloted. Pupil profiles have been piloted and continue to be piloted by
CCEA and there is ongoing work on that.
A lot of work has been ongoing on this for some time. I have spoken to a number of heads and
schools who are already looking at the kind of collaborative arrangements they
would undertake. Some schools are
already collaborating in terms of sixth form provision.
Q234 Gordon Banks: So you would argue the pilot is going the
other way.
Angela Smith: A lot of work is going on currently. Some schools would argue for more piloting
if they do not want to see the changes go ahead, but we do have to make a
decision that there has to be some change in the system, otherwise change will
be forced upon us by falling rolls and it is better that we are in charge of
change and managing that change rather than have it happen by default.
Chairman: Let us hope the pilot weathers the storm.
Q235 Mr Campbell: On piloting, the issue of pupil profiling has
raised concern, notwithstanding any inaccurate perception to which you have
already alluded, but has there been any piloting of profiling?
Angela Smith: No.
Q236 Mr Campbell: Have you any independent evaluation of that?
Angela Smith: I do not know whether members had the
opportunity to look at the CCEA website.
The CCEA website has all the information on the pilots; it has the
responses from parents, from teachers; it has what the pupil profile looks like. I put some of that information in my
submission to you. There has been a lot
of misconception and that is why I am very pleased that CCEA put it on their
website. There have been
criticisms. Dr Morrison made
criticisms in his evidence to the Committee and I hope I explained why some of
that criticism was unfounded and based on inaccurate information. I should be very keen to see a much wider
debate on the pupil profiles. I am very
confident about them. They do seem to
be meeting the needs we have. I met
with CCEA again yesterday and I met with them previously, just looking at this
and working out what the responses are and some concerns I had about issues
which I have asked them questions about.
Yes, they do seem to be very reliable, but there is further piloting to
be done, further testing and if further adaptations need to be made then they
can be made.
Q237 Chairman: Would you give an undertaking to the
Committee that you would devote a lot of attention to this during the
transition period until 2008?
Angela Smith: I certainly give a commitment that I shall
continue to give a lot of attention to it.
Q238 Gordon Banks: You mentioned Dr Morrison again and,
notwithstanding the inaccuracy you pointed out, in his evidence to the
Committee Dr Morrison said the following, "The profile meets no
international standards. The curriculum
we are getting is a progressivist curriculum.
The Americans abandoned that curriculum in the 1960s because of its
impact on the poor". What is your view
of that?
Angela Smith: I do not recognise what he says as having any
relation to the curriculum we are introducing.
It is not a progressivist curriculum:
it is a very structured curriculum.
The situation in America was not about pupil profiles: the situation in America was where young
people went into schools with that kind of curriculum and decided what they
were going to study that day. It was
very much a case of the pupils leading the way. That is not the case here.
This is a structured curriculum.
What happened in the American system, which we would not do, was that
teachers were told how to teach that. I
should not presume to do that; that is not the role of the Department at
all. Teachers will teach the subject in
the way they are taught to teach by their own training methods.
Q239 Chairman: Would you discuss this with
Dr Morrison? He is a man of great
eminence and reputation. Would you be
prepared to invite him in to see you to discuss this?
Angela Smith: Dr Morrison has never made any approach
to the Department or CCEA.
Q240 Chairman: Would you be prepared to invite him?
Angela Smith: I should welcome him speaking to me about
it. I am a bit disappointed that he has
not chosen to do so. He has addressed
the papers, but I do think it is inappropriate to have this kind of discussion
in the letters page of the Belfast
Telegraph. I have asked CCEA to
look at his papers; I have both of them with me. I should welcome more information from him.
Chairman: That is helpful. We shall take this as a publicly issued invitation and let us
hope he accepts it.
Gordon Banks: We shall look forward to the response.
Q241 Chairman: Yes, we shall look forward to the response. Could you keep us informed?
Angela Smith: I should be very happy to do so. [**]
Chairman: That would be very helpful.
Q242 Sammy Wilson: Earlier on the Minister said that as far as
she was concerned, and she is quite right of course, the pupil profile must
have rigour and robustness.
Angela Smith: Yes.
Q243 Sammy Wilson: I have to say that when I look at the pupil
profile here, it is peppered with these boxes asking for teacher comments. Having been a teacher myself and having seen
the wide variation just within one school in the kind of subjective comments
and subjective ways in which teachers can make those comments about youngsters
where you would expect some consistency, yet you sometimes get some complaints
about that, how are you going to ensure rigour and robustness in a document
which relies mostly on teacher comments, though I accept that there are parts
here which talk about levels?
Angela Smith: It is a mixture of having the level and the
comments. That is why I said the
computer assessment support was important and that has been undertaken, which
seems to have been forgotten in this and that is why they have been piloted in
the way they have. I do not know
whether you have had the opportunity to look at the results of the pilot on the
website and look at the information.
You may be quite reassured by the kind of information which has been put
on the profiles. I have had the
opportunity to see them and read them.
It is also a professional judgment and teachers are being trained in how
to do this and the best way to do it. I
think you are implying that it is very hit and miss, there is no
professionalism behind them. I can
reassure you that there is a great deal of professionalism and assessment
behind them which ensures that they are robust and stand up to those kinds of
tests which you want them to do.
Q244 Sammy Wilson: The test it has to meet, given that these are
going to be used as guidance documents for parents in making selections for
youngsters as to which is the best school to send them to, is how parents will
react to them. They have not been used
for that purpose yet, so we do not know how parents are likely to react.
Angela Smith: We have involved parents in the profiles;
parents have been very much part of the profiles.
Q245 Sammy Wilson: The point is that they will only be a
meaningful document when a parent is faced with having to go to a series of schools
and use this as the basis for choosing which school is best for their
youngster. Can you honestly say that when
parents, who may have a desire to send their youngster to a grammar school - as
you have said, that will be the preference for most parents, even currently -
read through a document like this and it does not really show that a grammar school
is best for his youngster, at that stage do you really think the parents are
going to take this document as a robust and rigorous assessment of their youngster
or will they simply say the teacher did not really like their youngster?
Angela Smith: You seem to be working on the basis that the
parent will be presented with a pupil profile and that is it and they go away
and make a choice. There will be a relationship. Instead of the annual report the parent will
get the pupil profile each year of the child's education in primary. As well as the profile, the parents are
getting clear guidance from CCEA on how to use the profile, they will get
guidance from the school as well. It is
not just a case of "Here's a document, go away and do what you will with
it". There is a relationship between
the parent and the school and guidance from CCEA on how the profile can be
used.
Q246 Lady Hermon: You seem extraordinarily confident about the
success and usefulness of pupil profiling.
Can you actually point to some evidence, whether it be international or
whether it be in another part of the United Kingdom, where in fact it has actually
worked and been successful?
Angela Smith: It is very difficult to do so, because there
is no education system like that in Northern Ireland anywhere else in the
world.
Q247 Lady Hermon: Are our children being guinea pigs?
Angela Smith: No, because we have a different system. We have to look at something which is right
for Northern Ireland and the confidence I have on this is because I have had
the opportunity to speak to CCEA, to look at the information, to see how it is
working. We do have the opportunity,
where we think there are deficiencies in it, to alter or change it, because it
is an ongoing process until it comes into operation. I suppose the confidence I have comes from seeing the
deficiencies in the current system which has enormous benefits but also is
letting down a number of children as well.
Q248 Chairman: I think your confidence is based on faith
rather than experience.
Angela Smith: In some ways it is, but it is experience of
looking at how it is working. The
reason we profile anything and pilot things is to see how effective it can
be. I have been quite prepared, if I
was not happy with the results of those pilots, to say "Forget it. We're not going to do this. It doesn't work".
Q249 Lady Hermon: How large is the pilot?
Angela Smith: Fairly small at the moment; initially small
though it has been extended.
Q250 Chairman: How small is small?
Angela Smith: About 20 schools at present. One of the things I was a little concerned
about and I pressed the question of what kind of schools they were, whether
they were schools where the parents would be the easiest to engage? I am sure that is not the case. I have seen evidence for myself. I have a school in my constituency where the
primary head said pupils would not get their annual report unless parents came
to receive it and talk. Every single
parent except one went in and spoke to the head to get the report. In the same way, we can engage parents in
pupil profiles in the most difficult areas, because you build up a relationship
between the school and the parents and that in itself is important for the
development of the young person in primary school.
Q251 Rosie Cooper: Earlier you mentioned a possible future
announcement of specialist schools.
Will the development of specialist schools result in more fragmentation
or will it result in a real increase in parental choice? What about the cost of it?
Angela Smith: Development of specialist schools is not
another group of schools but something which overlays the schools we have at
present. The applications went out to
all post-primary schools and they could apply to be included in the pilot for
specialist schools. We had 46
applications and the geographical spread was not as great as I should have
liked, but there was a spread across different kinds of schools. We have short-listed 13 of those schools,
purely on the basis of the quality of the applications they put in: four controlled secondary; four maintained
secondary; one integrated; two maintained grammar; two controlled grammar,
although one has pulled out at present.
I do not know whether they are likely to want to be considered in the
future, but they are running a number of initiatives at present and do not wish
to be included at this stage. The
specialisms are: ICT, performing arts,
business and enterprise, science, music and languages, across those areas. It is a way of giving a distinctive ethos to
a school. My experience in my
constituency, when I was initially a little sceptical of specialist schools,
has been very encouraging. Let us test
it to see whether it works in the Northern Ireland system. There is additional funding for the schools
which take on specialist status, they will get an extra £100 per pupil for four
years and a one-off capital grant of £100,000.
Q252 Chairman: A capital grant of £100,000 and £100 per pupil
for four years.
Angela Smith: Yes.
We can calculate the final totals once we have announced the list of
schools, but it gives a distinct ethos to those schools and I cannot at this
stage tell you which will be successful; hopefully around ten,.
Q253 Chairman: Are those figures irrespective of the size of
the school, the number of pupils?
Angela Smith: It is an amount per pupil.
Q254 Chairman: No, the capital provided.
Angela Smith: Yes, it is.
Q255 Lady Hermon: You said you were disappointed with the
geographical spread. Are the ones which
have been short-listed across Northern Ireland, or are they concentrated in one
area?
Angela Smith: Four ELB areas are represented overall. There was a good spread from the
applications we had in, but the short-list was not quite such a good
spread. Four Education and Library
Board areas are represented on the short-list.
Q256 Chairman: Is there a reasonable balance between town
and country?
Angela Smith: They are mostly urban, though not entirely.
Q257 Sammy Wilson: Some of the rural ones mentioned to me that
the big problem was, especially in a small town, the £25,000 which they had to
raise. In some of the bigger urban
areas it was possible to get sponsors, but there was a difficulty getting
sponsors if you were in a small town.
Is that something you could look at?
Angela Smith: That is right. It was half the amount which was required in England; we reduced
it to try to make it easier. That is
something we can look at in the future.
This is just a pilot to see how effective it can be in a Northern
Ireland setting. As we analyse the
results of the first wave, if it has been effective, I should like to see a
second wave. That is something we need
to look at.
Q258 Chairman: Can you keep the Committee informed on that,
because I think this is an area in which we are all interested?
Angela Smith: I shall be very happy to do that. [**]
Q259 Rosie Cooper: May I throw you one from left field, which is
a misnomer on this page. I really want
to knock the last three letters off and talk about special schools in the way
we talk about them in England? Where do
those children who are visually or hearing impaired, perhaps multi-handicapped,
fit into the Northern Ireland education system?
Angela Smith: Under the SENDO, the Special Educational Needs
and Disability (NI) Order, parents have an opportunity to put children into
mainstream education. We have special
schools as well and we have special schools units within mainstream
schools. There is a range of provision,
but there is the opportunity now for parents who wish their children to be
educated in the mainstream, with the appropriate support provided, to have
mainstream education. We have seen a
growth in the requirement for special needs education and quite dramatic
increases. I have put significant
additional money into special needs education in the last year. I cannot recall the exact figure, but I can
let the Committee have the exact figures. [**]
It is a need. One of the things
which concerns me is that we need to identify children who have special needs
very early on so we can meet those needs better and sometimes prevent those
becoming more acute special needs, if we have identified them early on. There is a lot of work going on in that
area. The more we can provide classroom
assistants in schools the better. This has
been a budgetary pressure, or there has been an issue where you might have
three or four classroom assistants in one class and none in another because it
has been led by statementing. We are
improving the provision for children with special educational needs.
Q260 Chairman: Do you recognise that there will always be
some children for whom a special school is the only sensible option?
Angela Smith: Yes; both for them and in some cases the
staff and other children.
Q261 Dr McDonnell: Is there some mechanism in the new system
which you intend or are working hard at whereby children with special needs can
get some more resource, some more attention?
I am thinking particularly of the twilight zone; I am thinking of
Asperger's syndrome; I am thinking of AD/HD.
It is my experience that a lot of this ultimately feeds a frustration
through adolescent years and ultimately may very well feed into some of our
youth suicides. Speaking to the parents
of children who fall into those categories, it does not appear to be well
looked after. Could we ask you perhaps
whether there is some mechanism for an improved system, an improved interface
between education and health on that? I
feel that the split responsibility ends up with nobody responsible.
Angela Smith: Having been a Health Minister prior to being
the Minister for Education, I am acutely aware of that issue. One of the things we want to ensure in the
children and young people's package which I mentioned earlier is better linkages
between health and education and working across departments. There is additional money. Even though we are seeing pupil numbers
falling we are putting additional money into special educational needs; in the
current budget an extra £5 million and £15 million. I put extra money in when I announced my
amendment to the budget last year. Yes,
it is partly financially led and we need to put in additional money, which we
are doing, but the other side of it is better joined-up working between
departments. There is an anomaly here
sometimes where you have a decision made by the Department of Education about
what the needs are and the provision has to be delivered by the Department of
Health. I also think there are complexities
in having five Education and Library Boards delivering that. We suddenly have five Education and Library
Boards with five different policies on special educational needs and I do not
think that is the best way to address the problem.
Q262 Sammy Wilson: You have indicated the benefits of the
collaboration between schools. We took
some evidence on it last week and there were several concerns. The first concern was about timetabling. The evidence we had from St Catherine's
College was "We have a three-way system going ... It puts constraints on us, obviously. The timetabling demands a lot of liaison. It is possible and it is feasible and in the
last number of years we have expanded that further". Under further questioning it turned out that about 25 pupils were
involved in that. If having 25 pupils
in a school puts pressure on the timetable and the timetabling arrangements,
how do you envisage a smooth working of a system which requires the whole of
the sixth form to move around and this between schools which are close
together?
Angela Smith: It is one of those areas where we have to
ensure that every young person gets access to a wider curriculum. If you look at the size of schools, you have
some schools which are offering a handful of A levels; I can think of one
school which only offered one A level.
In terms of providing opportunities for young people, we cannot do that
and that is why collaboration is so important.
It does involve complexities in the timetabling; I fully appreciate
that. It does not necessarily mean
additional costs go with that and the sharing of resources can also help. The pilot for the vocational enhancement
programme with 11,500 pupils involved in that shows how it can work and it will
be for individual schools to look at how it can work. You may be aware of the case in one area, Cross and Passion
College and Ballycastle High School, where post 16 you have two schools
cross-community jointly doing their A levels.
That seems to me to be the model of the kind of education system we want
to see and I congratulate both those schools on being able to do that. It does present challenges, it presents new
ways of working, but it does not necessarily mean, as some people have said,
that you put the kids in a bus and bus them to the other side of town. It may be that teachers' timetables are
altered, it may be that we encourage teachers, we may do more interactive
learning with young people, but I really do not think we can disadvantage
particularly young people in rural areas and not offer them the same kind of
opportunities in the curriculum as we can offer those in urban areas. It will require new ways of working. I have spoken to a number of heads who said
that it was challenging but they are going to make it work. I am very confident that the determination
to offer those opportunities will ensure it does. We are not going to say on day one that they have to offer
this. We shall work with schools who
find it difficult and ensure that we give them the support they need.
Q263 Sammy Wilson: It is significantly going to happen where
schools are together. When we visited
St Gabriel's, a small secondary school, I spoke to the head and asked about
arrangements for cooperation in North Belfast.
There can be different difficulties.
He pointed out that collaboration in North Belfast, with youngsters
moving across four or five dividing lines to get to the next school where there
could be collaboration, really is just not feasible.
Angela Smith: It may not be the youngsters; it may be the
teachers who are moving. I really do not
think we can say that because there are difficulties we cannot offer the same
kind of curriculum. We already have a
number of small schools which are offering ten A levels, so some schools are
finding ways of doing that already. It
may not be appreciated by the entire Committee, but the number of schools which
have fewer than 300 pupils is very large in Northern Ireland and yet Saint
Gabriel's has 197 pupils and they are already offering 14 GCSE subjects, so
they have gone a long way towards meeting the needs already. There will be ways in which they can work
with other schools locally to offer a wider range of subjects to young people.
Q264 Sammy Wilson: On the results so far where you have these
collaborative ventures, have you had any indication as to how the results in
those cases compare with the results of youngsters who are taught within the
one school?
Angela Smith: I do not have figures, but I can try to get
some more information on that for you.
[**]
Sammy Wilson: Just if there is anecdotal evidence.
Q265 Chairman: That would be helpful.
Angela Smith: It may be a bit too soon to get that, but as
soon as something is available.
Q266 Chairman: We shall write to you on that. We shall also be writing to you about the
entitlement framework because I should like rather a detailed answer there and
I think the Committee would. [**] We
are running out of time and all colleagues have had the chance to ask you
questions so may I thank you for the good humoured and honest way in which you
have sought to answer them. You have
taken on a major responsibility and you are going to be passing on a number of
incomplete files to your successors, who will take over when devolved
government is restored. Your commitment
is quite clear and we shall be reflecting on your answers. We may well wish to follow up by
correspondence on some of these points.
Angela Smith: Thank you.
May I thank you for the opportunity to meet the Committee today? One of the things which I hope I have
highlighted is that this is a very wide subject and I should be grateful for
the opportunity to come back to members on any issues they are concerned
about. One of the things which struck
me when I first looked at this was that I was being presented with what
appeared to be quite a small issue on academic selection, but it is actually
much wider and has the potential to give enormous benefits to Northern
Ireland. I shall be happy to come back
on any questions members may have.
Chairman: We are very grateful for that. We should like you, if you would, just to
stay for a moment or two privately with the Committee but may I publicly wish
you a very happy Christmas, a good New Year and hope that you might be passing
on your responsibilities during that new year and I think that is what you hope
too. I declare the public session
closed.
