Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Quesitons 220-239)

JIM KNIGHT MP AND MR PARMJIT DHANDA MP

24 JANUARY 2007

  Q220  Stephen Williams: The BBC thinks that is fine.

  Jim Knight: There was that debate on Radio 1, was there not? Issues like that are really quite difficult, and that is why we are working on guidance. We have got Stonewall and others working with us on that, and we will be issuing that shortly, but I do not think a requirement to report homophobic bullying is something that we are actively considering because of the burden that it would place on schools.

  Q221  Stephen Williams: When we had Support Against Racist Incidents before the Committee (SARI), which happens to be based in my constituency, they said, despite this statutory duty on schools to report racist bullying, they felt it was a problem that was grossly under-reported and echoed what you have just said about schools being reluctant to admit that they have a problem with racism. Is this not something that needs to be urgently tackled by the Department and by local authorities, and if misery is going on within schools, whether through racism, homophobic bullying or any other forms of bullying, it does need to be openly talked about.

  Jim Knight: Yes. We are very clear that schools should have a policy. They have a statutory duty to have a policy on bullying as part of their behaviour policy and that should be communicated to pupils on an annual basis. As part of that, we say that their policy on bullying should ensure that there are consequences for bullies, that you punish bullies and you are clear that bullying is wrong, all forms of bullying in all settings, be it homophobic bullying, be it any other from of prejudiced-base bullying, and that we try and create a culture which addresses that on those terms. We saw last week with the whole business to do with Celebrity Big Brother that one person's version of what is racist bullying is not another person's version of racist bullying. Culturally, within society as a whole, we have got to address that.

  Q222  Stephen Williams: Does not the Department then have a role to play in helping schools define what is racist bullying? Do we need to have some sort of national definition of what is racist bullying, what is homophobic bullying, so there are no opt-outs within individual schools?

  Jim Knight: We are refreshing our guidance on bullying at the moment, and we will publish that this year and we will produce a package of guidance on prejudice-related bullying which I hope will help define things, but we have also got the publication tomorrow of Keith Ajegbo's review on citizenship and there are aspects of what we do in the curriculum and a culture of respect that we look to engender in schools that respects everybody's difference in terms of faith, in terms of race, in terms of sexuality and that they are not used as the target for bullying, and that is absolutely fundamental and the culture that we want to see engendered in our schools.

  Q223  Stephen Williams: The Department has commissioned reports from Stonewall on homophobic bullying and Beatbullying specifically on religious faith-based bullying. What is the timescale for those two organisations to report back to you?

  Jim Knight: They will be reporting fairly soon and we want to be able to publish guidance informed by that this year.

  Q224  Stephen Williams: "This year"—being?

  Jim Knight: This year, 2007. Is that where we are now!

  Q225  Stephen Williams: Which part of the year, I was meaning.

  Jim Knight: I cannot give you a definite response on that, because obviously we have yet to receive their piece of work. We then have to consider it. Without knowing what it is saying, it is difficult for us to anticipate how long it will take us to consider it and then put it into guidance.

  Q226  Stephen Williams: This Committee will also be producing a report, and I am sure you will take due notice of it.

  Jim Knight: We will, as ever, be informed by your wisdom.

  Q227  Stephen Williams: What feedback have you had from schools themselves about how they could be helped by the Department to deal with racist bullying, homophobic bullying or bullying in general?

  Jim Knight: There are a number of areas. As I said earlier, in terms of any management of behaviour of children it is important to be consistent and to be clear about what the boundaries are and what the consequences are of crossing those boundaries. Some of these areas around prejudice in particular, as I have said, schools are saying to us that they do find some of them difficult—they find it difficult to have a clear definition. Normally you would look for a common sense view on what is reasonable. In some of these areas people take radically different views on what is common sense and what is reasonable, and we need to offer some consistency, and that is what we will seek to do with guidance. They also are looking for help with things like pupil mentoring, and that is why we have announced the expansion of funding to CHIPS, the ChildLine-based organisation. Currently we have been funding them £200,000 a year, I think it is, to be able to develop pupil mentoring in this area for, I think, 20,000 individuals,[1] and we are expanding that to 480,000 from April—so that will hit 60,000—with very much a view on training so that we are building the capacity within pupils themselves to be able to develop that. The only other area—and it is not something I have talked about before—where we are looking to develop some assistance for schools is in gang-related bullying, which is a relatively small problem. We have only got four places where we think there are problems of criminal gangs infiltrating schools—those would be Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham and London—but it is particularly a London problem. As we have said, it is important to be really open about problems in this area so that we can tackle them. We have had some good practice in London from Haringey and Southwark in this area and we want to be able to talk about the problem and extend that, so we are doing a little bit of work on gang-related bullying so that we can extend that best practice to those areas that have a big problem in that area.

  Q228 Stephen Williams: One last question on this section. We have all seen on the news in the last 24 hours in particular a collection of cardinals, archbishops and bishops all saying why they think the Catholic Church should be exempted from the Goods and Services Regulations particularly to do with adoption. This Committee had one of those characters, Archbishop Nichols of Birmingham, in front of our Committee on citizenship, and I asked him about homophobic bullying then and he said that he did not feel, in his role as the head of the Catholic Education Service, that schools needed specific policies on bullying because they would cover the wall with paper if that was the case and he did not think it was necessary. When the Department does take note of all reports that are coming your way and you do come up with your guidance, can you give us an assurance that there will be no exemptions for faith schools that are state funded from carrying out what should be a child welfare policy rather than a disagreement over theology?

  Jim Knight: I think from what I have said to you, you would be able to read (I think I said) whatever the setting, so whatever the ethos, whoever the external partner to a school might be, if they have got one, be it the Catholic Church or anybody else. We should not tolerate bullying in any from, we should not tolerate people not respecting the differences that people have and I think that applies to homophobic bullying, it applies to faith-based bullying, it applies to all forms of bullying in all settings.

  Jeff Ennis: A supplementary question to the line of questioning that Stephen has been pursuing with the Minister. Minister, in one of your remarks you referred to the racist incident on Big Brother which happened recently. It is not a programme that appeals to me.

  Chairman: Did you say racist or allegedly racist?

  Q229  Jeff Ennis: I said racist, Chairman. The only time I would watch a programme like that is if someone like the Chairman was in the house!

  Jim Knight: An interesting prospect.

  Q230  Jeff Ennis: With Rula Lenska, or something like that! The reason I asked is because programmes like that do not appeal to middle-aged people such as myself, they tend to appeal to young people, and a lot of these young people are still at school. Can I direct this question towards Parmjit. What sort of impact or influence does a racist incident like that on television, which is openly allowed to carry on, have on our students?

  Mr Dhanda: I think more as a kind of commentary than an opinion, we can all see the number of calls that went into Big Brother during the course of the debate and discussion. I must confess to the Committee, I do actually watch Big Brother and I used to watch it prior to the alleged incident as well. I am afraid that is on the record now. Does that answer the question?

  Jim Knight: I would just add to that that I think we can draw something positive out of last week. The fact that, whatever it was, 85% of those who wanted to give Endemol money by phoning in and voting voted to get rid of Jade Goody. I think it is also positive that she herself has said she thinks it is racist, that she herself is saying that it is something she needs to address—I gather from The Sun she is going to India—but we have got a debate going amongst young people about whether their language, intentionally or unintentionally, is racist and I hope that is being discussed in schools up and down the country because it is a good way into discussing what is a really important issue around community cohesion in this country.

  Chairman: Does it not obscure the racist aspect and whether it was racism or just ignorance in an ill-educated person? One can discuss whether it was racist, but it was bullying and it was classic bullying. Of course, in the next question we are going to ask you, interestingly enough that bullying led to exclusion, and we will come back to that in a moment.

  Q231  Jeff Ennis: Changing the subject slightly, how far does the responsibility of the school go in terms of trying to prevent anti-bullying? Does it extend beyond the school gates?

  Jim Knight: Yes. We have changed the law in the Education and Inspections Act last year to allow schools to extend their behaviour policy beyond the school gates, where it is reasonable to do so, where you can reasonably associate behaviour with the school, for example, and I would hope that that would extend to bullying. If someone is on home school transport and is bullying another pupil or bullying a pupil from another school, I would hope that the school would do something about that.

  Q232  Jeff Ennis: What about cyber bullying?

  Jim Knight: Cyber bullying is an area we have been very active on, and we have convened a group from industry to help us look at how the technology is being abused. I do not think it is going to be possible to shut down technology that is being abused. It is a bit like teaching young people to cross the road safely. We need to teach them how to use the technology safely and responsibly, but there are measures that we can use and that we can take and we are discussing those with industry. Again, it is an area where we are looking to advise schools later on this year.

  Q233  Jeff Ennis: Who else needs to be engaged other than schools to ensure that anti-bullying work is effective? Do we need to involve the wider community?

  Jim Knight: I think we do. I think we need to certainly involve parents and ensure that parents have a good understanding of what the signs are that either their child is being bullied or is bullying. It is often quite difficult for a parent to accept that their child might be bullying, but we need them to be able to deal with that if it arises, but the wider community as well so that those places, be they the Chamber of the House of Commons or the Big Brother house, where bullying might take place, we can try and tackle that in the wider community and make sure we are not giving a bad example to young people.

  Q234  Jeff Ennis: My final question is directed towards Parmjit because he has got responsibility for Every Child Matters. Obviously the Every Child Matters agenda is very important to the future of education in this country. Once the ECM agenda is up and running all over the country extensively, what sort of influence will that be able to have on future anti-bullying strategies?

  Mr Dhanda: I think it will only help that we have got 150 change programmes on the ground all over the country. We are working with local safeguarding children's boards and I think the whole principles behind Every Child Matters and making sure that it is child focused and that we are repeating that good practice in every locality in every area of the country will make a lot of difference.

  Jim Knight: It is crucial that we start with safe—the first one of those outcomes. We cannot do anything on standards in schools unless children feel safe and are ready to learn because they are safe from each other as well as being safe from adults.

  Q235  Chairman: We are now moving to practice in schools. We are particularly concerned about this because some of us who in anti-bullying week last year visited schools know that it is all very well having standards and structures around this at a national level, but it is how you train young people in a school to behave on bullying against bullying, and there is some very good practice out there. Would you not agree, Minister?

  Jim Knight: I would certainly agree. That is why we have expanded the funding to CHIPS, which I referred to earlier, to develop the pupil mentoring schemes. I too have seen good practice in a number of different schools, as I recall, in Dewsbury, in my own constituency, and up and down the country, but we need to develop that, because it is not only good for particularly younger secondary school pupils coming in to have an older pupil that they can look to for support, to disclose things that they might be reluctant to disclose to teachers, but it is also good for those older pupils as well; it builds their self-esteem, their confidence and their communications skills and they are skills that they will be able to apply in the workforce in the rest of their lives. It is a very strong, sustainable scheme.

  Q236  Mr Marsden: Minister, I would like to pursue the issue that the Chairman has raised of bullying in relation to issues to do with exclusion and truancy. You referred earlier to your involvement with Beatbullying in the Department. We have seen recent research by them that suggests that something like 55,000 young people a day may be absent from school because they are being bullied. Do you find that a shocking figure? Is it one that surprises you?

  Jim Knight: That would be a shocking figure. I would say to the Committee that I think, partly through the problems to do with definition that I talked about with Stephen, we have some nervousness around some of this data. Our own data goes back to 2004. It is getting out of date, so I have asked that we should refresh that through the sampling and surveying that we do of pupils as part of the joint area review process. There is something called Tellus II, which is something we are working on with Ofsted and MORI to complement that so that we can get more up-to-date data for ourselves. There is the danger, and I do not necessarily refer to bullying in this, but some of the data that we have seen reported in the media have been self-selecting samples, so they have been collected on an anti-bullying website where it is probably only likely to be people who are suffering from bullying or who are worried about bullying who visit that website, and they respond to the survey and the results are then skewed.

  Q237  Mr Marsden: I would fully accept the discussion about Big Brother. It illustrates how subjective people's views of what bullying is can be, but that raises the question of the way in which bullying leads to absenteeism and exclusion. What information do you as a Department keep on exclusions and the reasons given for them?

  Jim Knight: We collect data on exclusion, we collect quite a lot of data on it, and we publish data on absence as well, authorised and unauthorised absence, and we are looking much more closely at that data individualised down to schools so that we are now able to identify those schools that have a significant problem in respect of unauthorised absence,[2] in particular, so that we can target our interventions from the National Strategies Team, and we have increased the resource that we are spending through national strategies on intervention on absence. Similarly, we can do the same with exclusion. You will always have this definition or problem around here. I have got a figure in front of me that 130,000 pupils were permanently excluded for bullying in 2004-05. One head teacher's definition of a bullying incident worthy of permanent exclusion might be different from another's.

  Q238 Mr Marsden: I accept that. One of the other issues is the effect of bullying on particular groups. I want to talk specifically here about children with special educational needs. We know as a fact that children with special educational needs are far more likely, for whatever reason, to be excluded. We also know that certain types of children with special educational needs, not least those with Asperger syndrome and autism, are particularly vulnerable to bullying. What I would like to know is what is the Department's view on the problems involving children with special educational needs and bullying, what research have you commissioned on it and how does that fit into your overall anti-bullying policies?

  Jim Knight: It is a difficult and sensitive area, certainly, and it is one where we have to be mindful of the Disability Discrimination Act and the ability of parents to appeal to SENDIST in respect of exclusions where they feel there has been discrimination on the grounds of the disability that a child has. What the school needs to be able to do is to apply its discipline code, its behaviour policy, to children with special educational needs along with everybody else. The fact that a child has special educational needs does not mean that they are exempt from any behaviour policy and any sanction against them from misbehaviour, but the school has to demonstrate it has taken proper account of the child's disability and that the teachers and the people who are administering the discipline code and the behaviour policy properly understand and have had proper training to be able to appreciate what is deliberate poor behaviour that should be punished as proposed to disruptive behaviour that is just a function of their disability.

  Mr Dhanda: I am sure it was Jeff that launched the "make school make sense" campaign. We are working very closely with the National Autistic Society and the Autism Working Group to help people understand better autistic spectrum disorders, because if staff are aware that there are children with ASDs and the consequences of that, hopefully we can reduce the rates of exclusions in the first place.

  Q239  Mr Marsden: A quick final question on that point if I may, Parmjit. That is all good news. What, however, we have heard, both from the NUT and from Professor Peter Smith, is that they are very concerned that there is a lack of training for teachers in how to prevent bullying; and from my own experience and from discussions with your colleague Andrew Adonis, I know that is an issue, particularly in terms of teachers identifying children with special educational needs. Do teachers receive enough training? If not, what are you going to do about it?

  Mr Dhanda: It is a part of initial teacher training, but we are actually putting in place a £1.1 million programme to further that, including getting teachers on that initial teacher training course.


1   Note by witness: Previous number of children and young people reached by CHIPS when funding was based on £200,000 grant was over 40,000. Back

2   Note by witness: As well as the information which the Department has previously collected on unauthorised absence, we are now using School Census data to identify schools with high persistant absence. Back


 
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