Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
DEPARTMENT FOR
EDUCATION AND
SKILLS
28 FEBRUARY 2005
Q60 Mr Bacon: I should like to turn to
the subject of faith schools. You mentioned earlier that faith
schools tend to have a better record of attendance, a lower record
of non-attendance. If that is the case, in order to get value
for money out of the money we are spending on education, should
we be thinking of expanding the faith school sector?
Sir David Normington: There are
no barriers to faith groups setting up schools as long as they
can find the resources to do so. One of the things which makes
it difficult for faith groups to do so is that they have to put
some money into the school themselves. We are not discouraging
that from happening. There are very, very large numbers of faith
schools, as you know; 40% of the primary sector is faith schools.
Q61 Mr Bacon: The church was doing it
before the government, was it not?
Sir David Normington: It was and
that was part of the 1944 Act.
Q62 Mr Bacon: Is it true that the top
two schools in the UK in terms of the performance tables were
a Moslem girls' school and a Sikh school? I heard that on the
radio recently.
Sir David Normington: I think
that is quite likely. They are certainly up there. I cannot recall
precisely whether it was those two, but certainly the Moslem girls'
school, which I think is probably in Bradford, is at the top.
Q63 Mr Bacon: You very kindly did an
extra note for me on faith schools and it says in paragraph 2.21
on page 27 "Although faith schools are associated with lower
rates of unauthorised absence in primary schools, our model did
not find that there was a significant relationship between faith
schools and total absence rates". You have very kindly done
this extra note in which you have given me some actual figures
rather than blobs on a chart.[1]
Looking at it, for example, among secondary schools, among the
3,071 schools in your survey, 517 were faith schools and 2,554
were non-faith schools. Of those 517 faith schools 326 had a performance
better than average and only 108 had a performance worse than
average. Of those 2,554 non-faith schools 994 had a performance
better than average and 1,048 had a performance worse than average,
so in the non-faith schools nearly as many were doing better as
doing worse. However, for the faith schools, there was a radical
difference. The faith schools had significantly more out of your
total sample of 517 which were doing better than were doing worse.
My question is: why is that not a significant relationship?
Ms Hands: The two analyses are
different. If we look at page 23 of the Report, those two graphs
are the basis for the analysis that we developed for you, which
is looking at the distance of the schools from the local authority
average. The statistical significance that we talk about in the
paragraph you quote is referring to the analysis at the back of
the Report, which has been adjusted for various factors like proportion
of free school meals, ethnicity of the students in the schools,
the kinds of areas the schools are in, whether they are in a coalfield
ward, the big list of factors which are in the appendix. They
are actually different analyses. It is not saying that there is
no difference: it is saying that there is no statistical significance.
Q64 Mr Bacon: If you adjust, but if you
look at the raw data you sent me, there is a difference, is there
not?
Ms Hands: Yes. There is a clear
pattern, which you have just described, in the raw data.
Q65 Mr Bacon: If you tweak it enough,
you can eliminate any difference.
Ms Hands: Yes, in terms of the
factors we have used to adjust the data in the back of the Report.
Sir David Normington: If you turn
to page 58, I thought that was showing that in the secondary sector
in voluntary aided schools, which are effectively faith schools,
total absence is quite significantly lower than in secondary schools
generally. Is that not what that is showing?
Ms Hands: Yes, but when you add
the voluntary controlled to the voluntary aided the statistical
difference—
Sir David Normington: But there
are many fewer which are voluntary controlled, are there not,
than voluntary aided?
Ms Hands: Yes.
Q66 Mr Bacon: This is exactly the point.
I notice the Report, in paragraph 2.21, says there is no difference
". . . the former status is associated with lower absence
while the latter status is not". I immediately looked at
your figures and I noticed that out of 18,000 schools you looked
at only 93 were voluntary controlled and of those 28 were worse
than average and 46 were better than average.[2]
So even there, there appears to be, at least on the raw numbers,
a trend in favour of what I am suggesting.
Ms Hands: There certainly is on
the raw data.
Q67 Mr Bacon: Sir David very helpfully
points out that there are in fact very few voluntary controlled
schools anyway. The reason I think this is interesting from the
point of view of trying to understand it, is that it is a matter
of huge controversy. There are people in the political parties
who think faith schools are a good thing and there are people
in political parties who think it is a bad thing. I happened to
be listening to something on the radio the other day and there
was a Labour MP who thought faith schools were a very good idea
and a Liberal MP who thought they were a very bad idea and they
were busy tearing each other's eyes out, obviously something with
which, personally, I do not have great problem about, but nonetheless
it is very important that we have some very clear facts on this.
It looks so blindingly obvious in the raw data that there is a
very significant relationship, that I am surprised you managed
to will away this relationship by putting it into a pot, stirring
it for a bit of ethnicity or free school meals and coming out
with a non-statistically significant relationship.
Ms Hands: The factors we used
are in the appendix on page 52; there is quite a range of factors
there. The free school meals one can actually change the position
of the school. If it has very low numbers of free school meals
then it will be expected to have a lower absence than otherwise,
than if it had a high level.
Q68 Mr Bacon: The Chairman mentioned
the ethos earlier and of course we all know that faith schools
are often associated with a very particular and identifiable ethos
and the Department for Education has itself said that the right
ethos is extremely important. Is it possible that the NAO will
look further at this issue of faith schools and whether, and if
so how, they are providing, as these raw figures seem to suggest
that they are, better value for money for the taxpayers?
Ms Hands: Yes, we will have opportunities
to do that.
Q69 Mr Jenkins: When you read the Report,
Sir David, were you pleased with it or disappointed with the content
of it?
Sir David Normington: I thought
it was a fair Report. I should have liked the unauthorised absence
figures to have been better, though I knew them of course, but
I thought it was a fair Report.
Q70 Mr Jenkins: I should have liked the
unauthorised absence figures to have been better, but I am not
in charge of the Department. I do not have the levers to pull
to get them lower. If I were in the Department and this Report
had come forward saying I was making no headway, I should be sending
signals out down the line saying "We know the problem, this
is a fair analysis of what the problem is". It is no surprise
to me that the London Oratory has a low absence record, when it
selects the parents. Any school which can select good, well-motivated
parents, be it a faith school or specialist school or any other
school, will have a low absence record. Is that right?
Sir David Normington: Yes, it
may be a factor, but it is only just one of the factors; the parents
are only one of the factors.
Q71 Mr Jenkins: Let us see whether we
can get it better than "may be a factor". I can assure
you that it will be a factor.
Sir David Normington: Yes, who
the parents are is a factor.
Q72 Mr Jenkins: So we are dealing now
not just with the child but we are dealing with the parents in
our society, are we not?
Sir David Normington: Yes.
Q73 Mr Jenkins: This Report is a condemnation
in very many cases of the parents of those children. It was no
big surprise to me that this showed a deprived area, low qualifications,
unemployment, low income, high levels of free school meals are
associated with higher absence rates than we want. We have this
constant level of absence and the worrying figure for me is in
the primary school. What do you think the strategy should be within
your Department to send down to the local education authority
and to send down to the education welfare officers if you have
a five- six- or seven-year-old child who is not attending school
because their parents does not get up in the morning, either through
drugs, drink or pure inactivity they decide they cannot get up
to get the child ready for school? What action do you think we
should take as a society to protect that child?
Sir David Normington: We should
certainly focus on those children and on those parents. We should
find out what the solution is in each case, because it will be
different. In the extreme case of course you can take the child
away from the parent. I would not normally recommend that as a
solution but in the extreme case that is what you should do. In
a sense this is what the education welfare service does and why
we are putting other support into professionals, both for primary
and secondary schools. You need to focus on that family and on
that child and find out what is going to solve the problem. If
it is drugs, it may be that you have to tackle it through drug
rehabilitation and so on. There may be indirect means of getting
that child back to school.
Q74 Mr Jenkins: One of the free gifts
in this country which is available to every child is a free education.
To deny that child, for any reason whatsoever, that opportunity
is a crime against the child.
Sir David Normington: Yes.
Q75 Mr Jenkins: If we were not feeding
that child or not clothing that child, we would step in very quickly.
I get the impression that when we do not send that child to school,
we are very slow to react to that situation. Am I right?
Sir David Normington: I do not
think we are. I think schools are very quick in picking it up
these days and referring it to the specialist services, if that
is what is needed. The solution to the problem is much slower
because the solutions are intractable. We are quite quick at picking
up those problems now and that is what we have been trying to
encourage. I agree with you that this needs dealing with in primary
school; that is where the pattern of absence can get established.
I agree with that, but these are really difficult cases. In the
end you do have to be tough, you do have to take tough action;
every year 7,500 prosecutions of parents. In the end that is what
you have to do, but in the really difficult cases it still will
not solve the problem.
Q76 Mr Jenkins: I agree with this 7,500
prosecutions, but somewhere deep inside me I believe that we are
flogging a dead horse. It is no good trying to prosecute the people
who are themselves incompetent, incapable, cannot organise their
own lives. What action do we have planned to get that child back
into mainstream school or, taking that child out of mainstream
schooling, to accelerate their development to a position where
we can get them back into mainstream schooling and break the link?
If we do not break the link, and I can take you to any young offender
institution or any prison in this country and show you people
in there who started on that route by not attending school, playing
truant, getting into crime, we have to pay £30,000 to £35,000
per year to incarcerate them in a prison and in some cases give
them their first opportunity of education. Do you not think it
would be better value for money if we were to put that money at
the start of the programme rather than at the end?
Sir David Normington: I do. I
agree with you that we should put it earlier.
Mr Housden: You are on a very
important point here. Our experience is that you are right, once
those patterns are established early on in a child's career, it
can be progressively more difficult to turn that pattern of behaviour
round. We found one of the key things that prevents a pattern
of poor attendance emerging is the extent to which the young person
is able to behave properly in school, the link between attendance
and behaviour very early on. We are doing some serious work now
both in the early years setting and in primary schools, in nurseries
and in reception classes, on the way youngsters treat each other,
the way they behave with each other, their general adaptation
to formal learning. We believe that is having a good effect. You
then go on to say that parents are in different situations. In
some cases it is an incapacity; there are so many other things
going on in a parents' life that the attendance of their child
at school can seem to be a very low priority. That is where the
Department's Every Child Matters strategy is very important
to make sure that the school is able to bring in all the support
services, whether it is about drugs or housing, employment, whatever
it is, to support them, to work with that family in need. The
last point you make is equally important, which is the question
of speed. Our experience had been that where you had a circumstance
where the parent really, probably, was capable of getting their
child to school regularly but was not doing so, it was a matter
of will, often those cases were getting bogged down between the
school, the local authority and the courts. This is where—and
the Report brings this out—the fast track to prosecution
has been very important. What it is basically is a case management
system which makes clear to the parent right from the outset that
the consequences of them not collaborating with the school and
the education welfare services will be a prosecution which is
likely to result in a fine or worse. The evidence on that is not
overwhelming, but it is generally positive and is producing improvements
in behaviour. That question of taking early action, recognising
that you need things to support parents in a variety of circumstances,
but all the while the system showing its determination, that there
is an end point and there are consequences if you do not send
your child to school.
Q77 Mr Jenkins: It is that emphasis on
the prosecution of the parents about which I have some doubt.
I am not interested in prosecuting the parent; honestly, I am
not, or penalising the parent in any way, shape or form. The only
thing in which I am interested is the welfare of that child and
ensuring that we can break the cycle and give that child the opportunity
to step outside. Are you looking and have you looked at what effect
you are having, because the figures do not show this at the moment,
to be honest. They are lost in the total numbers. Are you analysing
and are you looking at the effect your problem has had to date
with the greater involvement? For instance, do you send education
officers at eight o'clock in the morning to make sure the child
is dressed and make sure the child is taken to school? Have you
considered agreeing with the parent that that child should go
away for a short while, maybe a month, from Monday to Friday over
a term or two terms to some sort of boarding school where that
child can get up to standard before being re-admitted into the
primary school? Are we taking direct action of this nature? I
do not get the feeling that we are taking this action.
Mr Housden: This would go back
to one of the first points Sir David made. It is actually about
an individual response to the circumstances of the case. You are
quite right to say that good practice is that as soon as you spot
a trend you look at what the reasons are and what you need to
do to reverse it. If those measures you indicated were appropriate,
yes, they ought to be done. The other thing which has been very
effective and this speaks to the electronic registration point
a bit, is actually phoning parents. Schools who know very quickly
in the morning who is not in school are actually having staff
phone home, and parents are very supportive of this, to say "Your
son/your daughter is not in school" and then action is taken.
Young people need to know—
Q78 Mr Jenkins: I smiled when I found
that electronic registration and being able to mark children through
the day now showed an increase in absence rates because it was
the first time we were able to find the true figure. I agree that
we can tackle some of the stuff by developing the curriculum,
I know we can work in the right direction and on page 46 I thought
the strategy laid out by the Millbank Primary School was brilliant
and one which should be rolled out over the country. There is
no difficulty there. When we have all these things in place, we
recognise and I think society will recognise that we are never
going to stop children not attending school. I did see a brilliant
tape the other day where one of the head teachers had a book with
nearly 200 pages; a child attends school for about 194 days a
year. He took the 10 pages at the back and ripped them out. He
asked whether, when they took their child off on holiday, they
would like to read the book and told them, by the way, the last
10 pages were missing. This was to drive home the point that the
last 10 days of a term for that child can be very, very important,
or any 10 days. We have to tackle parents and make them recognise
the disadvantage they put their children under. I think, by and
large, most parents are responsible. All I was saying was at the
very, very sharp end there is that very small group of people
we need to tackle and that is the group which very often sends
the signal back down the line as well. They are the ones who affect
other students, other families. I am not sure we are really taking
the welfare issues of that child seriously enough. On reading
the Report, I do not see that degree of commitment.
Sir David Normington: I do not
know to what extent the people who wrote the Report were able
to follow the services and see how they deal with those very difficult
cases. I think they picked it up to some extent but actually there
is a huge amount of help going in to support those children and
families now. It has greatly increased. We have talked here before
about Sure Start. It has to start almost before the child is born
in some families so that the issue of parenting and how to bring
up that child starts immediately. That is why we put so much effort
into Sure Start in some of the most difficult bits of the country.
That is a precise example of prevention and putting the money
in to prevent them rather than having to deal with the problems
at the other end. It is a long process.
Q79 Mr Jenkins: The Sure Start programme
is brilliant; I think it is very effective and does tremendous
work. Hopefully, if we can crack this issue at primary school,
where we are going to be more supportive of their attempts to
get children sometimes in difficult circumstances with difficult
families into primary education. The secondary school education
system is a different scenario; totally different. I am not sure
we should be penalising parents in this scenario. Have we ever
thought about paying children to go to school; not from the day
when they are sixteen-years' old but from day eleven? If they
fail to turn up, they fail to get paid.
Sir David Normington: I do not
think so. I would not want to encourage that thought at all. There
are many other things on which to spend money than paying children
to go to school. They ought to be there and their parents ought
to get them there.
1 Ev 24 Back
2
Note by NAO: Mr Bacon refers to 93 voluntary controlled schools
out of 18,000, but our (the NAO's) briefing shows that there were
93 voluntary controlled schools out of 3,071. Back
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