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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