The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
†
Borrow,
Mr. David S.
(South Ribble)
(Lab)
†
Carswell,
Mr. Douglas
(Harwich)
(Con)
†
Cawsey,
Mr. Ian
(Brigg and Goole)
(Lab)
†
Cryer,
Mrs. Ann
(Keighley)
(Lab)
†
Davidson,
Mr. Ian
(Glasgow, South-West)
(Lab/Co-op)
†
Gibb,
Mr. Nick
(Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
(Con)
†
Gilroy,
Linda
(Plymouth, Sutton)
(Lab/Co-op)
†
Knight,
Jim
(Minister for
Schools)
†
Main,
Anne
(St. Albans)
(Con)
†
Malik,
Mr. Shahid
(Dewsbury)
(Lab)
†
Morley,
Mr. Elliot
(Scunthorpe)
(Lab)
†
Mulholland,
Greg
(Leeds, North-West)
(LD)
†
Teather,
Sarah
(Brent, East)
(LD)
†
Trickett,
Jon
(Hemsworth)
(Lab)
†
Walker,
Mr. Charles
(Broxbourne)
(Con)
Waltho,
Lynda
(Stourbridge)
(Lab)
†
Watkinson,
Angela
(Upminster)
(Con)
Jyoti
Chandola and Emily Commander, Committee
Clerks
†
attended the
Committee
The
following also attended, pursuant to Standing Order No.
118(6):
Dorries,
Mrs. Nadine
(Mid-Bedfordshire)
(Con)
Penning,
Mike
(Hemel Hempstead)
(Con)
Ward,
Claire (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
First
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Tuesday 6
February
2007
[Mr.
Mike Weir
in the
Chair]
Draft School Admissions Code
10.30
am
Mr.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): I beg to
move,
That the
Committee has considered the draft School Admissions Code.
It is a pleasure to serve under
your chairmanship, Mr. Weir. It is the first time that I
have had the pleasure of doing so.
I start by making it clear that
the Opposition support the concept of an admissions code. A national
code will help to ensure that admissions arrangements in the 24,000
state schools conform to minimum standards and, as the code says, that
we have
“a system where
all parents feel they have the same opportunities to apply for the
schools that they want for their
child.”
That must, and
should, be the objective of any admissions
code.
Ideology has
been the curse of education policy in the past 40 to 50 years, and it
lies at the root of almost everything that has gone wrong in education.
I believe strongly that what matters in education is what
works, not the ideological passions of politicians or
educationists of the right or the left. The original admissions code
published by the Government in January 2003 was, I am afraid, subject
to just such ideological traits. For example, the code said
that
“the LEA may
suggest adopting parents’ order of ranking as the key criterion
for allocation, such that all first preferences are considered against
the school’s oversubscription criteria before any second or
lower
preferences.”
Despite
permitting that first preference first system, the code went on to
state that
“this variant
could lead to less parental satisfaction where parents cannot be sure
at the time of expressing preferences whether their children will meet
the admissions criteria for schools they might wish to put as first
preference. An example would be a selective area, where parents do not
know whether their own children will pass the
11-plus.”
That
arrangement appeared designed to undermine grammar schools by
discouraging parents from entering their children for a local grammar
school in case they failed and, as a consequence of putting the grammar
school first, failed to get their child into the best local
comprehensive, which would already have been filled with the first
preference applications of more cautious
parents.
As the
Department for Education and Skills press release for the new code
says, the first preference first
system
“forces parents to
play an ‘admissions game’ with their children’s
future.”
It is welcome,
therefore, that those provisions have been removed from the new code,
which expressly prohibits
such arrangements. It is a pity that those arrangements continued to
apply during the four years of the previous code, given all the
injustice that they will have
caused.
Similarly, the
previous code said that the results of 11-plus tests should not be made
available prior to applications to other schools being submitted.
Paragraph 7.3 of the code
stated:
“In
considering objections, Schools Adjudicators have ruled that grammar
schools should comply with the principle of ‘preference before
test’ to avoid unfairness to parents who genuinely prefer
comprehensive...schools. Admission authorities for grammar schools
should bring the timing of their testing procedures into line with the
co-ordinated LEA scheme on the basis that preferences must be expressed
before test results are
known.”
That
anti-grammar school, ideologically-driven provision will have
discouraged some parents of academically able children from submitting
applications to grammar schools, given the uncertainty involved. It is
welcome that paragraph 2.92 of the new code says that schools that
select
“should ensure
that parents are informed of the outcome of entry tests before they
make their applications for other
schools.”
It is right
that when parents wish to enter children for a grammar school they have
the opportunity to discover whether they would be admitted.
The context of the revised code
was the successful challenge to the previous code of practice by the
London Oratory school and the Government’s subsequent decision
to strengthen the code as a concession to their Back Benchers during
the debate on the White Paper early in 2006. In the case of the London
Oratory school in 2004, Mr. Justice Jackson
ruled:
“The
phrase ‘to have regard to’ means to take into account. It
does not connote slavish obedience or deference on every occasion. It
is perfectly possible to have regard to a provision but not to follow
that provision in a particular
situation”.
The
Government had more than a year to announce plans to strengthen the
code. The code that they published and then withdrew in 2005 would have
had the same strength as the original code. It was not until the middle
of the furore caused by the education White Paper last year that they
decided to offer the concession. In a letter to the Chairman of the
Select Committee on Education and Skills, the then Secretary of State
wrote that
“we are
concerned that recent legal judgments may have weakened the perceived
force of the Code, so we will close the legal loophole so that
admission authorities must ‘act in accordance’ with it,
rather than having to have ‘regard’ to
it”.
Since
then we have debated the code during the passage of the Education and
Inspections Bill in 2006, and we have seen the skeleton code, a draft
code for consultation and the final draft code published this month,
plus the correction notice that came out a week ago. It is important
that we debate this code today, given its importance to
parents.
The
Secretary of State says in his foreword to the code:
“Parents want their
children to be able to attend a good school where they will be happy
and secure and able to learn and thrive. As it’s one of the most
important decisions a parent will make, it is no surprise that school
admissions arouse strong feelings.”
Which, of course, they do. In fact, very
often they arouse more than strong feelings. Heartache and agitation
are aroused as parents pray that their children are accepted at their
first preference school rather than the other schools in the
area.
The principal
cause of this anguish, however, is that there are simply not enough
good schools. Fifty-one per cent. of secondary schools and 41 per cent.
of primary schools are officially regarded by Ofsted as not good
enough. The focus of our attention, our energy, our resources and our
political will must therefore be on raising the standards of the
schools that are not good enough.
The
Minister for Schools (Jim Knight):
Is not the hon.
Gentleman falling into the same trap as some of the media in that he
has looked at the various Ofsted grades and said, “Something
that is satisfactory is not good, so if it is not good it must be
unsatisfactory”? He is therefore saying that something that is
satisfactory is unsatisfactory, and that is
nonsense.
Mr.
Gibb:
The phrase “not good enough” comes
from the Government’s own press release, which said that they no
longer regard satisfactory as good enough. I am therefore citing the
Minister’s own words or those of his predecessor when I say that
51 per cent. of schools are not good
enough.
Devoting huge
resources to changing the intakes of schools assumes that this whole
business is a zero sum game where there will always be a fixed number
of good schools that need to be redistributed. All that does is replace
one set of unhappy parents with a different set of unhappy parents with
no actual net gain in educational standards. The focus of us all must
be on raising standards across the board so that every local school is
a good school. We need to spread best practice and eliminate poor
practice that leads to low academic attainment.
There is also the view that
some schools are not good enough simply because of their intake: if we
can just adjust their intake then standards will rise. That is based on
the fallacy that the quality of the school is determined by the intake
rather than the quality of the teaching and the leadership. I have been
to schoolsin the most deprived parts of Britain that have very
high standards. Yesterday, I went to Mossbourne community academy in
Hackney where 50 per cent. of the intake are eligible for free school
meals. It has been open for only three years, but I suggest that it is
one of the best comprehensives in the country. It is judged by Ofsted
to be outstanding in every single category. Ithas the ethos of
a grammar school. It has veryhigh standards, immaculate
behaviour and a calm atmosphere where academic achievement is regarded
as the norm. The school expects 85 per cent. of its year9
cohort to achieve level 5 or above in its first set of SATs in key
stage 3 this spring.
Yesterday, I also went to
Millfield community primary school in Hackney. That school, too,
has50 per cent. eligibility for free school meals, and 72 per
cent. of the pupils have English as a second language. Some 77 per
cent. reach level 4 in English, and the school expects that percentage
to rise to the mid-80s by 2008. By contrast, I know of schools in very
leafy
suburbs with intakes that have a very low percentage of children
entitled to free school meals where the results are appalling and
behaviour is, to say the least, challenging.
The truth is that the vast
majority of comprehensive schools have a mixed intake with an average
free school meal eligibility of about 14 per cent. The spread is pretty
even. Ninety per cent. of schools have an intake where the proportion
eligible for free school meals is one third or less. There are just 94
secondary schools where more than 50 per cent. of the pupils are
eligible for free school meals. It is likely that some of those schools
face a level of challenge that may not be sustainable, although I have
just cited examples where it is. Very often, the reason that those
schools have such a high proportion of children entitled to free school
meals is that the school is underperforming and anyone who has the
resources or the wherewithal to travel to other schools does so. Often
when such a school is replaced by an academy the proportion of children
entitled to free school meals drops as the local children
return.
It is a
fallacy that simply altering the intake of a school to some
pre-ordained proportion of ability range or socio-economic grouping
will somehow turn a poor school into an effective one. It is Roy
Hattersley and those who follow his strand of opinion who take the view
that the intake determines the quality of a school. He has long
advocated banding in the determination of the intake of comprehensive
schools. He wrote in The Guardian on 10 October
2005:
“The idea
of ‘banding’ was pioneered by the
ILEA”.
That should be a
warning. He went on to
say:
“At the
time it was derided as a futile socialist attempt to make non-selective
secondary schools work. The new scheme goes far further than anything
that the London Labour party ever dared to
suggest.”
Under
the code as drafted, schools may use banding to produce an intake that
is representative of either the full range of ability of applicants,
the range of ability of children in the local area, or the national
ability range. There have to be explicit statutory exemptions for such
admission criteria as banding involves a form of selection on the basis
of ability, which is expressly prohibited by the School Standards and
Framework Act 1998. The Education and Inspections Act 2006, which
introduced that exemption for two of the three categories of banding,
also insisted that such an admissions arrangement could not be
introduced without the consent of the governing body of a school. In
other words, banding could not be forced on a school by a local
authority.
The
Government accepted an amendment from the Opposition extending that
requirement to the third existing form of banding
arrangements—that of applications. It was clear from the
Committee stage of the Education and Inspections Bill that neither the
Government nor the Opposition wanted a local authority to be able to
impose banding arrangements across all schools in its area. That was
for obvious reasons. Such an approach would be deeply unpopular as
children found themselves being bussed all over town because their
local school or schools had filled their quota of their particular
ability range. But the requirement that school governing bodies must
consent to banding arrangements does not apply to admission
arrangements involving a lottery. That is because lotteries do not
involve selection by ability, so there is no need for a statutory
exemption and thus no opportunity to put in those safeguards.
A lottery is a form of banding
and on average it should result in the intake of an over-subscribed
school reflecting the array of abilities in its applications. Will the
Minister confirm that it is not his intention that local authorities
should be able to impose that form of admissions arrangement on a
school or schools in their area and that what is intended by the code
is that a lottery system should have the consent of the governing body
of a school, and of each school in an area, before it is
introduced?
There is
much in this code that we support. We welcome paragraph 1.6, which
reinforces the provisions in section 42 of the Education and
Inspections Act 2006 relating to choice advisers, and paragraph 1.11,
which reinforces the provisions on consideration of parental
representations.
The
section of the code relating to looked-after children is particularly
important. As the code states:
“Looked after children
are among the most vulnerable children in society.”
Around 60,000 children are looked after
by local authorities at any one time. This is a group with very low
levels of achievement. In 2005-06, 57 per cent. of the 8,100 children
who left care aged 16 or over had not achieved a single GCSE or GNVQ,
and only 7 per cent. had left care with at least 5 GCSEs at grades A*
to C. Part of the problem has been a lack of stability. Looked-after
children have generally moved schoolsor placements regularly.
There has also been a lack of positive parenting, with no person able
to act consistently as a parent. We therefore welcome measures to
ensure that schools give those children priority in admissions
arrangements. We agree with the Government’s “Care
Matters” Green Paper, published last year,
that
“we must ensure that
children in care are able to get into the right school, make sure they
stay there once they are in, and help them get the best out of their
time there.”
We
welcome the unequivocal statement in paragraph 1.80 of the
code:
“School
uniform plays a valuable role in contributing to the ethos and setting
the tone of a school, and the Government strongly encourages schools to
consider the introduction of uniforms where they do not already have
them.”
We agree that it
is important that schools do not use uniforms to price people out of
the school. The Office of Fair Trading found that parents forced to buy
secondary school uniforms from exclusive suppliers are worse off by a
total of about £32 million a year, and a recent study by
Which? found that uniforms from high street stores were at least
as well made as those from specialist retailers. I have visited
schools, such as the Manchester United Learning Trust academy, that
have introduced washable blazers that cost in the region of just
£35. That is the type of good practice that I hope can be shared
throughout the
system.
There are a
number of other points that I hope the Minister will explain in more
detail. First, there is the division of requirements that the
relevant body—the admission
authority—“must” carry out and
guidelines that it “should” carry out. The code uses the
word “must” in a bold, red typeface, indicating a
mandatory requirement, more than 300 times. The word
“should”, in a blue, bold typeface, which indicates a
good practice guideline, is used fewer than 90 times. When the original
draft of the code was published for consultation, there were fewer
“musts” and more “shoulds”. The code seems
even more prescriptive than it was before the consultation
started.
Anne
Main (St. Albans) (Con): I am concerned that although the
emphasis of the “musts” and “shoulds” has
shifted slightly, the code states only that parents
“should have all relevant
information to hand before they
apply.”
They obviously
will not have to have it. It states that a local
authority
“must publish,
in hard copy, a composite
prospectus”.
It does not
say how many copies should be available, only that the information must
be online. That presumes that parents have access to the internet. I am
concerned that there is no emphasis that hard copies should be
available to parents or guidance on where they should be placed so that
the information is available to people without access to IT. The code
states that they should have it, but there does not seem to be a way to
ensure that it is available to
them.
Mr.
Gibb:
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Given the
emphasis on choice advisers in the code, we want to ensure that the
most vulnerable parents have maximum access to information and advice
on choosing the right secondary or primary school for their children. I
hope that the Minister will address the
matter.
It is clear
that when a requirement in the code is mandatory, deviation from it
will not be permitted. The status of the guidelines—the
“shoulds”—is less clear. Paragraph 9
states:
“Failure
to follow the guidelines in this Code may lead to a challenge and
admission authorities will have to be able to demonstrate that they
were justified in departing from those guidelines. If they cannot do so
an objection may be upheld by the Schools
Adjudicator.”
It seems
that the status of guidelines will rest entirely on the judgment of the
adjudicator. The code largely remains silent on the grounds on which
the adjudicator would uphold or reject an admission authority’s
justification for departing from guidelines. If the adjudicator were to
adopt strict criteria, the distinction between requirements and
guidelines could become meaningless. The strengthening of the code and
the provisions giving the adjudicator greater power to enforce his
decisions will make it considerably more difficult to challenge them.
There is of course no right of appeal against them. Will the Minister
assure the Committee that the distinction between mandatory
requirements and non-mandatory guidance will be meaningful in
practice?
The section
of the code on home-school contracts reflects statute, but we believe
that it should be possible for schools to require parents to sign such
a contract before they can accept a place at a school. It seems
inconsistent that the Government regularly talk about the importance of
home-school agreements in the ethos of a school, but are unwilling to
consider making acceptance of that ethos a condition of
entry.
Angela
Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree
that one of the major contributory factors to the success of a
child’s education is not the parents’ financial
circumstances but the level of interest that they take in their
child’s education? A home-school contract would ensure that the
parents followed through on the pledges and took a close interest in
what their child was doing in
school.
Mr.
Gibb:
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I do not
understand the Government’s reluctance to make home-school
contracts a condition. They were certainly a condition of the
university that I went to, and it is a condition that parents sign them
when they enter the independent sector. Most parents would be happy to
sign such home-school contracts. At Mossbourne academy yesterday,
behaviour was immaculate. Parents are involved, even those parents who
we are told at other schools simply do not co-operate. At Mossbourne
academy, they all do. Parents want to know that the school that their
children go to will give them a good education. All parents want that.
I do not accept that there are any parents who do not take an interest
in the education of their children. If a school is providing what they
regard as a good education, parents will be involved and happy in such
circumstances to sign a home-school contract before their children
enter the
school.
Another matter
raised with me relates to co-ordinated admissions schemes. Paragraph 2
of schedule 1 of the Education (Co-ordination of Admission
Arrangements) (Secondary Schools) (England) Regulations 2002 provides
that such a scheme requires an
authority
“in the case of
any application made under the common application form for a secondary
school in their area for which the governing
body”—
of the
school—
“are the
admission authority, to forward details of the application, together
with any supporting information provided by the parent, to the
governing
body”.
The
ranking of children against the admission criteria is supposed to be
conducted by the school, which then passes the information back to the
local authority to be compared against preferences. However, that point
does not appear to be explicit in the code. Some schools that I have
spoken to feel that co-ordinated admissions schemes are removing their
autonomy to decide, or at least check, which pupils match their
criteria. The code could have been more
explicit.
Another
major issue that has arisen out of the code is the use of sibling
criteria at schools that select more than 10 per cent. of their intake
by ability or aptitude. The original draft of the code stated that
schools “should not” give priority to siblings where they
operated a system of pre-existing partial selection. The new code
allows such schools to operate a sibling priority, but there is a
vagueness about when such a priority would be justified. Although it
permits the use of a sibling priority, the code makes it clear at
paragraph 2.21 that those
schools
“should ensure
that their admission arrangements as a whole do not exclude families
living nearer the
school.”
Although
it gives examples of how a school could ensure that—for example,
by using inner and outer
catchment areas—the code remains rather vague about the degree to
which local children should be given priority and about the grounds on
which the adjudicator could judge that local children were not being
included. If taken literally, the paragraph could be construed as
permitting no criterion other than proximity, which, given the other
kinds of criteria permitted by the code—such as random
lottery—seems slightly inconsistent.
It would be very helpful if the
Minister would clarify the actual effects of the paragraph. I know of
one school that wants to guarantee 10 per cent. of its places to pupils
from the local area, as that reflects the number of children living
within reasonable walking distance of the school. Such a criterion
would ensure that pupils from the local area who were not otherwise
admitted because of sibling connection or ability would have a fair
opportunity to attend the school. Would that be a permissible way to
demonstrate that a school was including local
parents?
Another issue
is raised by the case of Dame Alice Owen’s school in Potters
Bar. The school admits 10 per cent. of its pupils on the basis of
proximity to Finsbury Park tube station in Islington, which is an
oddity but is because the school was originally based in Islington and
moved out to Potters Bar. Will the Minister assure us that the phrasing
of the paragraph will not sever such historic connections between
schools and the communities that they have traditionally
served?
Paragraph 2.20
refers to schools that select “substantially more” than
10 per cent. of their intake by ability or aptitude. What would the
Minister regard as being “substantially more” than 10 per
cent.? The paragraph goes on to refer
to
“the school’s
intake including a disproportionately high number of children who would
have passed the selection test, as some younger siblings would be
likely to have passed the selection test if they had taken
it.”
What does the
Minister mean by “disproportionately high”? What evidence
has he collected on the abilities and aptitudes of the younger siblings
of academically able children? Is there a correlation between the
abilities of an elder brother or sister and their younger sibling? What
evidence is there on
that?
Paragraph 2.71
of the code refers to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998,
which changed the law so that schools could not increase the proportion
of selective admissions
above
“the lowest
proportion at any time since the beginning of the 1997/98 school
year”.
I am aware of one
school that was required by the adjudicator to lower the proportion of
children admitted through partial selection, but that determination was
later overturned by the courts. In the meantime, however, the school
had had to lower its entry requirement for one year. The following
year, it reverted to its original criteria with their higher level of
selection. Will the code require that school to use the year of the
lower entry requirement as a reference, or could it ignore that year
for the purposes of the code? Any clarification from the Minister on
that issue will be helpful for that
school.
I have spoken
for long enough. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my
points.
10.57
am
The
Minister for Schools (Jim Knight):
It is a pleasure to
serve under your chairmanship, Mr.
Weir.
Some have told
me that they find the Opposition support for the code surprising. The
hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton says that he supports
the code, yet the Opposition have prayed against it and required us to
have this debate, which, however, I welcome. The new school admissions
code is an important part of our
education—
Mr.
Gibb:
We prayed against the code so that we could have
this debate. The code is important and the Minister should be held to
account for its content. However, we do not, of course, intend to
oppose the motion at the end of the
sitting.
Jim
Knight:
As I was saying, I welcome the chance to discuss
the code and Opposition Front-Bench spokesman’s support for it.
I look forward to that support being reinforced from the Opposition
Back Benches.
Today
we are debating whether the new code should set the framework for
school admissions in future. We are not debating whether schools are
good enough, but obviously I have a whole string of statistics on
improvements. In 1997, for example, pupils in 45 per cent. of schools
were achieving five A* to C passes at GCSE; now the figure is 59 per
cent. Only a third were getting five A* to C passes including English
and maths in 1997, but now 45 per cent. do. We need to do better, but
there has been a substantial improvement in the number of good schools.
We inherited more than 600 failing schools, but there are now only 49.
Again, that is a really good improvement in the past 10 years, and we
seek to sustain it.
We
can discuss the issues in the code, but we cannot amend the draft code
laid before the House. It is important that the Committee understands
that. We either agree to the full code or lose it completely; in this
case, there is no third way. If hon. Members resolve not to approve the
draft in its current form, the existing code of practice, which came
into force in 2003—the hon. Gentleman gave us an admirable
history lesson—would continue to apply. We would miss an
important opportunity to rule out once and for all the unfair practices
and criteria, used by a minority of schools, that make the system so
complex and hard to navigate for
parents.
Anne
Main:
I want to touch on the statementing of children with
special needs. I particularly noticed two references in the code and
should like to hear the Minister’s views on them. Many parents
tell me that schools are reluctant to statement, and under paragraph
3.17, which concerns the in-year fair access protocols, if children
have recognised special educational needs but do not have statements
they will have no special treatment whatsoever. My concern is that,
given the reluctance of local authorities to statement for cost
reasons, that might well mean that children in primary school will have
to fight even harder to get statements if they are trying to go through
the access process for secondary school.
Jim
Knight:
We seek to improve specialist teaching to meet the
individual needs of children who have special educational needs but
have not been statemented. At the heart of our response to the Select
Committee report on special educational needs is the commitment to
improve the continual professional development and the initial teacher
training of staff in that area. Indeed, last week we announced 15 new
specialist special schools, and we announced, too, that we will
encourage those schools to act as the heart of a network to improve the
level of specialist teaching so that regardless whether children
without a statement find their way into a special school—if they
do not have a statement, they will not be allowed to go to a special
school—they will still get specialist teaching that responds to
their individual need.
Angela
Watkinson:
I have an excellent special school in my
constituency called Corbets Tey. It had a wonderful Ofsted report
recently, and has just been rejected for specialist status for special
needs children. That is exactly what is does, and it does it well, and
the people involved are perplexed about why it was
rejected.
Jim
Knight:
I would hope that the school has had feedback on
its application and that it will receive it shortly if it has not. If
the hon. Lady would like to write to me, I am happy to look into the
matter and correspond with her.
I remind hon. Members that the
code has been widely welcomed by the vast majority of schools and local
authorities for its clarity and its rejection of unfair practice.
First, let me set out why the new code is so important and why we need
it now. We want parents to have a genuine choice between schools and to
ensure that all parents are fully informed about their options in an
increasingly diverse school system. In creating a more diverse system,
we will allow many more schools to be free to decide their own
admissions arrangements. In some ways, that answers the question about
the lottery asked by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton. As we have more schools with self-governing
status—that is the clear trend—each will be their own
admission authority. That is where the lottery may come into play, if
schools choose to use the lottery system rather than having local
authorities imposing it across the whole authority
area.
Mr.
Gibb:
Is it the Minister’s intention that when
schools are not their own admission authority, in practice the
governing body ought really to give consent to such an admissions
arrangement, as it would have to for banding
arrangements?
Jim
Knight:
Clearly, the legislation sets out that a local
authority could require a community or voluntarily controlled school to
use a lottery, as the hon. Gentleman has described, but, as I said,
Government policy is that we will move towards more self-governing
schools and overcome the problem that he is concerned about. We would
look to local authorities to implement that particular aspect
sensitively and not to create the sort of problem that he talked about,
with a mass of transport going up and
down a huge shire county. I do not think that any of us would regard
that as common sense or good practice.
Greater flexibility and freedom
for schools must be balanced by a robust framework that prevents
unfairness, promotes good practice and provides for independent means
to challenge the decisions taken by authorities. That is what the new
code delivers. It ends the ridiculous and unfair practices that give
some children higher priority because their parents are wealthier or
because their parents are married. It bans criteria that require
parents to play games with their children’s future and which
make the system far more complex than necessary, often disadvantaging
children already in challenging circumstances. Instead, the new code
promotes good practice so that we can secure equity and fairness for
all. I do not think it unfair or unreasonable to ask schools to ensure
that their policies and practices are fair.
The hon. Gentleman asked a
number of interesting questions. I have an array of answers in front of
me and will work through some of them. If I do not get to them all, I
will certainly follow them up in writing, and no doubt if he is
desperately impatient for an answer on a particular point today, he
will intervene on me.
In respect of the code saying
“must” in red and “should” in blue, the
distinction is as the hon. Gentleman described it: one is mandatory and
the other is good practice. In many ways, it is worth thinking about
the “shoulds” as having similar force to the old code,
including the point made by the court in the London Oratory
case—that the adjudicator should not follow it slavishly. I hope
that that is a helpful clarification as to how it might work in
practice. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the increase in the number of
“musts” between the code that was consulted on and the
one that we are discussing today is principally to do with completely
ruling out the use of first preference first, a change that the hon.
Gentleman welcomed.
On
home-school contracts, we ruled out requiring parents to sign them in
primary legislation, in section 111 of the School Standards and
Framework Act 1998. The Government do not believe that parents should
be required to sign such a contract as a matter of principle. Although
I agree that the vast majority of parents want to support their
child’s learning and work with the school on their behaviour and
learning, and that parental background and support is, as the hon.
Member for Upminster said, the biggest determinant of their success,
there are one or two cases where parents may not provide that support,
and I do not want to disadvantage those children because of the
irresponsibility of their parents. Rather, I would like schools to use
the powers in the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to issue parent
contracts and, ultimately, parenting orders, to force parents to fulfil
their responsibilities where they choose to be
irresponsible.
Angela
Watkinson:
May I return to remarks that my hon. Friend the
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made about looked-after
children? They clearly do not have the same sort of parental support as
a child living in a nuclear family. Where looked-after children are in
children’s homes, would it not be advantageous to designate one
person—a house parent—as somebody in that extended family
and home to have specific responsibility for the education of each
individual child?
Jim
Knight:
In the looked-after children Green Paper, we make
a very similar proposal in which the state would effectively provide a
parent, and in the 2006 Act we made the primary legislative change to
require looked-after children to have admissions priority. We will be
developing our response to the consultation on the Green Paper over
time.
The penultimate
point that I would make in response to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis
and Littlehampton concerns cases where the adjudicator reduces the
percentage of selection and the school then increases it the following
year. He asked which percentage would apply for the purposes of the new
code and law. We think that the relevant percentage would be the
reduced percentage, in accordance with a change that we made at the end
of the proceedings on the Education and Inspections Bill—the
Battersea amendment, as I called it when my hon. Friend the Member for
Battersea (Martin Linton) moved it on Report.
I think that I have responded
to all the hon. Gentleman’s points. However, I should comment on
the significant change between the original draft code and the one
before us. In consultation, some parents expressed concern about the
proposed treatment of siblings. The hon. Gentleman made a number of
points about that, especially regarding children in partially selective
schools. I am delighted to see the Lord Commissioner of Her
Majesty’s Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford
(Claire Ward), in her place. She was particularly instructive in
raising that issue during consultation, and at the very end, I was
pleased to meet some of her constituents, who informed me of their
concerns. That was very helpful in guiding me in how to respond to the
overwhelming number of responses to consultation which objected to our
initial position on the treatment of siblings in partially selective
schools.
Let me first
say that the new code goes much further in promoting the best interest
of siblings than was the case with the previous code. That is
especially the case when it comes to enabling siblings to attend the
same primary school. To respond to the particular concerns of the
relevant parents, we will protect the position of siblings of children
already at such schools—another protection unavailable under
current arrangements. We accept that parents have a reasonable
expectation that their children will follow each
other.
I
want to make it clear that such schools should be working with other
schools in their area to ensure that all local children find a school
place. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton read out the
part of the code that sets that out. Schools could achieve that in many
ways and one example is given in the code, which will provide them with
the freedom and flexibility to use a variety of approaches. We want
that flexibility to continue. For example, they could give priority for
their selective places to children who live within a given distance
from the school and who pass the entry tests and, at the same time,
allocate non-selected places to children who live nearby. In the end,
however, it is for the admission authority to set its arrangements and
then to justify them if an objection is made to the adjudicator. That
matter dominated the consultation and I hope that we have responded
sensitively.
The code is essential to ensure
that every child can benefit from the diverse and modern school system
that we are creating, and I hope that hon. Members will support
it.
11.12
am
Sarah
Teather (Brent, East) (LD): Members will be grateful to
hear that I shall be extremely brief because I am not sure whether my
voice will hold out for more than about four minutes. I hope that the
Committee can hear me—hon. Members might have to be extremely
quiet. I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Weir. It is a great
pleasure to serve under you. I have not had the honour
before.
I must confess
that I was a little mystified about why Conservative Members prayed
against the code. I am grateful for the clarification that they gave:
they simply wished to debate it. That is very important. I have great
sympathy with many of the comments made by the hon. Member for Bognor
Regis and Littlehampton about the need to get away from the belief that
over-subscription is driven by the flight from schools that are
perceived to be failing. It is vital that we raise standards and the
perception of standards in all schools to avoid the clamour during the
admissions period every
year.
Nevertheless, I
welcome the code strongly. I feel much as I did during the Committee
proceedings on the Education and Inspections Bill. In particular, I
welcome the fact that the code will for the first time outlaw
interviewing processes and that it attempts to reduce the influence of
individuals over decisions about a child’s admission. Paragraph
2.13 is very helpful because it prohibits over-subscription criteria.
In particular, I would like to draw to the Committee’s attention
the parts that prohibit schools from
giving
“priority to
children according to the occupational, financial or marital status of
parents”,
or
to
“the educational
achievement or background of their
parents”,
or from
taking
“account of the
behaviour of other members of a child’s
family”.
That is very
welcome and I was pleased to see it written clearly into the
code.
I was pleased
also that some of the softer aspects—concerns that many of us
have been raising for some time—have also been listed in the
code, such as the impact of expensive uniforms or of prospectuses
designed to intimidate parents into believing that they cannot apply to
a particular school. I think that that is very helpfully laid out in
the code. However, I am concerned about how aspects listed as
“shoulds” rather than “musts” will be
enforced. Although the code is very clear that it disapproves of such
behaviour, I am not clear how we would ensure that it does not take
place. It would appear to place an enormous burden on adjudicators who
might find themselves overburdened by the large number of decisions and
challenges that could result from those aspects of the code.
Hon. Members will be aware that
neither I nor my party want extra freedom regarding admissions to be
given to all schools. The evidence suggests that giving
schools that freedom tends to make them more socially segregative,
regardless even of house prices in an area. For that reason we were
pleased that the Education and Inspections Bill required schools to act
in accordance with the code. Nevertheless, we want even more safeguards
than those listed in the code. During the passage of the Bill we asked
for an anonymised admissions process, which the Minister agreed to
pilot. Given the relevance of the issue, will he say whether any such
pilots have been set up?
We broadly welcome the
proposal, but we have some concerns about how it will be
enforced.
11.17
am
Mike
Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): I am grateful to you,
Mr. Weir, for giving me the opportunity to speak, as I am
not a member of the Committee. The issue is very important in
Hertfordshire. I am slightly disappointed that the Minister has
selectively forgotten that other hon. Members who represent
Hertfordshire constituencies, not just the hon. Member for Watford,
have been very concerned about selective admissions. The hon. Gentleman
met a delegation of other Hertfordshire Members last night, and I hope
that he will acknowledge that fact when he replies to the
debate.
I raised some
issues with the Minister last night that I want to bring into the open
in public. Although I welcome the Minister’s move backwards, or
his common-sense approach to partially selective schools, I am still
worried, as are many teachers and parents who have contacted me, about
what happens on the matter of the sibling rule post-2008. It is right
that the Minister listened to the many requests for him to reconsider
that rule in partially selective schools, but after 2008 it is open to
challenge. One of the most important questions that we asked the
Minister at our meeting last night was whether he thinks that any
school that is partially selective now will not be challenged after
2008 on the sibling admission rule.
As I understand it, all those
schools, especially the ones in Hertfordshire, are very
over-subscribed, while other schools, especially in the Watford area,
are often under-subscribed. There will clearly be challenges and the
adjudicator will have to decide whether it is fair to break up siblings
who want to go to the same school. I praise the Government because the
criteria of the school admissions code state clearly that schools try
very hard to make sure that families stick together, and it is right
and proper that they should do so. However, post-2008 there will be an
adverse effect on the plans that schools make, and on the decisions
that parents make about whether their child should undertake the entry
requirement selection process to go to the school, based on what will
happen to their younger children. It is a major issue that has not been
addressed. The Minister has put off making the decision and passed it
on to the adjudicator.
I welcome the decision to look
at the matter but I am very worried about what will happen
post-2008.
Anne
Main:
My hon. Friend has been careful not to imply that
what parents are concerned about is that the decision will be passed to
the adjudicator, all the bad press will fall on him and as long as
parents register by
2008 the original rules will be followed, which puts the issue
conveniently post-election. We do not want it to turn into a political
football; we want to ensure that what is done is in the best interests
of current and future
parents.
Mike
Penning:
I could not agree with my hon. Friend more; the
issue affects not only parents but children, too, as it is about their
education. That is why I was so interested when the Minister praised
one particular hon. Member for her work rather than the cross-party
delegation. There has been no party politics in any of the
meetings.
My hon.
Friend raised a very important point about the adjudicator, who is not
responsible to anyone apart from the Minister. The adjudicator will
make the decision and take all the flak in public for it, but there is
no appeals procedure against him. As long as he does the
Minister’s work, everybody will be happy. That is the way the
code reads. I see the Minister nodding; he is probably
right.
Will the
Minister clarify whether, in his opinion or that of his officials,
partially selective schools will not be challenged over the sibling
rule post-2008? Many families with children coming towards the end of
their primary education will be interested in that. The schools have to
plan in advance. The children are the most important issue
here—and keeping families
together.
11.21
am
Angela
Watkinson:
I want to speak briefly on the additional
guidelines for faith schools. I welcome the faith-based
over-subscription criteria. There are four faith-based schools in my
constituency and I am a governor of one, the Sacred Heart of Mary girls
school, the name of which will be familiar to the Minister because it
is always at the top of the league tables, despite having a genuinely
comprehensive intake. There was some disquiet, before the code was
published, about how faith schools would be affected. All the schools
that I am speaking about are consistently over-subscribed, so the
guidelines in the code are extremely welcome to
them.
There have been
times in the past when those schools were not over-subscribed and, at
those times, they welcomed children from other faiths and none. The
four schools that I am talking about are all Roman Catholic. The Sacred
Heart, for example, gets many applications from Muslim families, who
are attracted by the general ethos of the school and the level of
discipline, apart from the academic achievement. I am sure that those
schools would accept children from other faiths and none in future. The
guidelines for over-subscription for faith schools are welcome and will
put at rest the minds of their head teachers and governing
bodies.
11.23
am
Jim
Knight:
I shall respond quickly to the points that hon.
Members have raised. The hon. Member for Brent, East asked an important
question about whether the burden on adjudicators is being unduly
increased. The adjudicators will no longer have to spend as much time
on objections in relation to
looked-after children or interviews, or on other practices that have
been ruled out. We are confident that the office of the schools
adjudicator will cope. However, I have agreed to some extra resourcing
to recruit one or two extra adjudicators to help him with his task.
Clearly, we have to see how many objections follow the publication of
the code and its
use.
The hon. Lady
asked about admissions administration. As she said, I committed myself,
during the debate on the Education and Inspections Bill, to seeking
volunteers to pilot the admissions administration approach. We have
since sought expressions of interest and we ran a workshop for a number
of respondents to that. We are waiting for final confirmation from two
areas that have said that they are considering running pilots and are
putting those questions to members of the relevant
authorities.
The hon.
Member for Upminster talked about faith schools. Over-subscribed faith
schools may give priority to children who practise, or are members of,
their faith, but, as she suggested, if they are under-subscribed they
must admit all children who apply. Religious authorities are encouraged
to provide guidance for their schools, as the Church of England has
recently done, and the new code says that faith schools should follow
that guidance in setting faith-based over-subscription criteria.
Objections can be made and the adjudicator can decide whether the
criteria adopted are
fair.
The hon. Member
for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) asked a number of questions about
the sibling criteria post-2008. I enjoyed a useful meeting with him and
some of his colleagues, the hon. Members for South-West Hertfordshire
(Mr. Gauke), for Enfield, Southgate (Mr.
Burrowes), for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), for St. Albans, for
Broxbourne and for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers). I think
that that constituted last night’s attendance. A useful
discussion was had and I am pleased that they were able to find the
time to talk to me about the issue.
The hon. Member for Hemel
Hempstead asked what evidence we have about schools and challenges
post-2008. We do not know who will challenge. We are not going to
stimulate challenges by asking people whether they are going to
challenge. It is up to local authorities and local schools to decide
whether to object once they have seen the arrangements. Those
arrangements will not be published until after 16 April. Equally, it is
up to admission authorities to publish arrangements that are acceptable
to them within the code and that stand a minimal chance of having
objections made to them.
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): The Minister was
gracious enough to meet us yesterday. He clarified something then and I
shall give him the chance to do so again in Committee, although I know
that it is too late to amend the wording of the statutory instrument.
Paragraph 2.22 of the code
states:
“Where
an admission authority for a school that selects more than 10 per cent.
of its intake by ability and/or aptitude gives priority in its
admission arrangements to the siblings of children still at the school
they may continue to give priority on the same basis to the younger
siblings of pupils who will be on roll at the school before the
beginning of the 2008 school year.”
Perhaps that could be redrafted.
Parents might find it clearer if it talked about pupils who are on the
roll at the school “at the beginning” of the school year
as opposed to “before the beginning” of it. The use of
the words
“before the
beginning of the 2008 school
year”
might suggest that
the pupils involved would have to be on the roll at the end of the 2007
academic year. The Minister told us yesterday that the sibling policy
would cover the younger brothers and sisters of children who had been
enrolled to start at the beginning of the 2008 school year. I hope that
that made sense.
Jim
Knight:
Clearly, this is fairly complicated. I shall
reflect on whether I can come up with a clearer form of words than that
in paragraph 2.22. If I successfully do so while responding to the
points raised by the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead, I shall relate
that to the Committee. If not, I shall write to Committee members
detailing a clearer form of words. I hope that that will prove helpful
to hon. Members when they are talking to their
constituents.
Anne
Main:
I seek clarification in Committee of what we were
told last night about who can challenge. Will the Minister confirm that
parents are not allowed to challenge and that it is only the schools or
other interested bodies that can do
so?
Jim
Knight:
It is open to individual parents to launch a
challenge on the basis that the admission authority is not fulfilling
the mandatory requirements—the “musts”—of
the code. Where we are talking about the guidance—the
“shoulds”—it is up to the local authority or the
schools, rather than the parents, to object to the
arrangements.
The
hon. Lady raised the bizarre notion that this is politically motivated
around elections. That is the first time that such a thing has been
pointed out to me. We have simply sought a date that takes into account
the parents and the siblings who are currently in the system and those
who are applying to go into the system. Applications in respect of
younger siblings have been made in good faith on the basis of the
current arrangements, and we want to be able to protect people and
offer them a transitional arrangement. I do not think about the dates
of general elections when I consider these things; I just try to
implement them in a fair and reasonable way.
It is important that the hon.
Members for Hemel Hempstead, for St. Albans and for Broxbourne, who are
particularly concerned about this, are aware that we have improved
sibling protection in this code. Given that under the previous code
there was little mention of sibling criteria and that admission
authorities could change their arrangements from year to year and
consult on them in the normal way, we have improved arrangements,
including those for parents and siblings in partially selective
schools. I hope that that response helps the Committee, and that on
that basis we can approve the code.
Question put and agreed
to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has
considered the draft School Admissions
Code.
Committee
rose at half-past Eleven
o’clock.
