Q
31Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): In
interim report 4, you make it clear that early intervention is critical
to maintaining standards. You talk in some detail about sharing best
practice and resources across the school. Are LEAs well equipped to
deliver the outcomes that you want and will the Bill help in that
regard? Sir
Alan Steer: The clauses here are outside that. I
think the answer is probably no. If we accept—it is hard to
argue against—that early intervention is the most effective way
to remove problems, we need to look at structures and ask whether they
support that concept. I am not sure that they do. You are listening to
someone who was a secondary head teacher. I think we may need to look
at whether our resources are pinpointed in all the places where they
would be most effective. One reason for my enthusiasm for behaviour
partnerships is that pooling expertise and resources makes early
intervention so much more possible. I am not convinced that we
currently have sufficient strength in early intervention. What I am
saying is very much on the lines of what the children’s plan
says: it is an area to be developed. I hope it will
be.
Q
32Mr.
Hayes: Two short points on that theme. Would you say that
LEAs, in similar vein, have done enough to encourage behaviour
partnerships? Does the Bill encourage or oblige compliance in that
regard? Sir
Alan Steer: LEAs have done a lot to encourage people
to sign up to the fair access protocol, which most schools do. I would
be somewhat sceptical about whether the fair access protocol means much
in reality in terms of behaviour partnerships, which is why I made the
recommendations I did. In many areas it is more a paper provision than
a reality, which is why in my view we need to go a step further to make
it
real.
Q
33Mr.
Hayes: Finally, is enough consideration given in the Bill
to encouraging best practice in FE and sixth-form colleges? Are LEAs
best placed to do that or should it be promoted through another
agency? Sir
Alan Steer: I am going to have to pass on that one.
That was not an area of my report and is not within what I consider my
expertise. You might need to ask another witness that question. I do
not wish to give opinions that are a bit flaky.
Liz
Blackman (Erewash) (Lab): Sir Alan, I think we all agree
that the pay-off of having an effective behaviour and attendance
partnership is incalculable. You cited very movingly some good
examples, but you made the point that consistency and implementation
are vital. We have put those partnerships on a statutory footing, but
that does not necessarily mean that they will all be effective. We have
talked about the role of the local authority. Are there any other
levers, pressures or support that you think would play a part in
driving up the effectiveness of all these
partnerships? Sir
Alan Steer: We have to look at the organs we have and
see how they develop. Ofsted is particularly in my mind as I make that
comment. Ofsted has to be a developing organisation; it must be there
to inspect a changing world. If we are establishing behaviour
partnerships we must expect some form of inspection accountability for
them. One would want to make that at an appropriate level. Like
everybody else, one shudders at unnecessary bureaucracy, but if we are
setting up those structures because we believe they are really
important, accountability systems have to go with
them.
Q
34Annette
Brooke: I want to return in part, but not entirely, to
behaviour partnerships. A number of witnesses and representations from
the schools sector have suggested that the new duties upon them,
particularly the duty to co-operate and report to the children’s
trust board, could be very onerous for them and they fear spending more
time than ever in meetings. In relation to behaviour partnerships, and
perhaps more generally from your long experience as a head teacher, are
those real fears about getting tied up, as teachers used to, in long
meetings with local authorities—all talk and nothing
happening? Sir
Alan Steer: That is difficult to respond to. I love
the teaching profession, I loved being a head teacher. If I could wave
a magic wand, I would go back to doing it instantly and be 10 years
younger. However, ours is a jolly conservative profession and I think
there is sometimes a natural reluctance to do
that. I
cannot see why a behaviour partnership would be a bureaucratic
nightmare, and so on; I really cannot see it. If it did end up becoming
a bureaucratic nightmare—I suppose that this is me dodging the
issue—I would say that we are doing it badly. The whole purpose
of being in partnership is to solve problems and to reduce pressures
and stresses, not to increase them. If you are sitting in a meeting
that is a waste of time and a talking shop, I would leave if I were you
and do something different. I can see the fears and I understand them
and where they are coming from, but I would be bitterly disappointed if
what you said turned out to be the truth. I would actually think that
the partnerships had gone wrong and gone off the rails somewhere,
because the whole purpose of working together is to remove
problems. Dealing
with major behaviour problems in a school is enormously time-consuming.
I can remember once working out that a permanent exclusion took me
something like 21 or 24 hours of clerical work preparing it, and about
another 10 hours in appearing before various committees, and that was
all within a very short period of time. It was an enormous burden. We
want to balance such burdens against what you are trying to achieve. If
we can reduce other problems, which obviously
benefits
children, we also reduce the problems for ourselves. In answer to your
point, I can only say, “I hope not”. I cannot see why it
should be a
problem. Q
35Mr.
Gibb: One of my interests is how children are taught to
read. I read the Peter Hyman book, “1 Out of
10”, about the adviser who went on to become a teacher at
Islington Green school. He was looking at the children there who were
in detention and he was told by another teacher that 90 per cent. of
those children had problems with reading. From your experience, is
struggling with reading a contributory factor to the levels of poor
behaviour that we have in our secondary
schools? Sir
Alan Steer: You may be interested to know that Peter
Hyman was a history teacher for a year at my school, so I know him very
well and I have enjoyed reading his book and articles.
I think that
what you say is absolutely true: struggling with reading is a
contributory factor. I do not want to avoid the question, but perhaps I
can broaden it slightly to encompass special needs, which I mentioned a
lot in that last report. There can be a clear link between behaviour
problems and unmet special needs. There can be a straight special needs
child who has emotional and behavioural difficulties; that is obvious.
However, there can be a wider spectre. If a child cannot access a
lesson it will impact on their behaviour. One can see that in
one’s own life.
When people
visited my school—we got a lot of visitors and they were very
complimentary—and they asked me what I would pick out as key
factors, I always picked out the special educational needs department.
I was worried that people might think that I was just giving them a
nice answer, because they would think that that was good, but it is the
truth. If you can deal positively with the children in your school who
have most difficulties, you make such an enormous impact on the school
culture. You reduce the amount of problems and the other key thing is
that, if you get the expectations right in the school for the least
able, you can sure as anything get them right for everybody else.
Seeing it the other way round, the “What do you expect with
children like that?” attitude is a cancer. That is not what you
asked me, but it is the point that I wanted to
make. My
answer to you is yes, absolutely. If children cannot access their
learning, why are you surprised when you get that sort of behaviour? We
can probably remember sitting in boring lessons in our youth,
occasionally, and not behaving quite as we would wish to have
done.
The
Chairman: On that note, it remains for me to thank you
very much indeed for coming along, Sir Alan, and for
contributing to our
deliberations. Sir
Alan Steer: Thank
you. 4
pm
Q
36The
Chairman: We now have our next panel of witnesses. Good
afternoon, thank you for coming along. Will you introduce yourselves
for the
record? Clem
Henricson: I am Clem Henricson, director of research
and policy and deputy chief executive at the Family and Parenting
Institute.
Anne
Longfield: I am Anne Longfield, the chief executive
of 4Children, a national children’s charity working across the 0
to 19 age
range. Clare
Tickell: I am Clare Tickell, the chief executive of
Action for Children, which is another national charity working with
children and young people between the ages of 0 and 19 across the
UK.
The
Chairman: Maria Miller has the first
question.
Q
37Mrs.
Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con): Thank you for coming to
the Committee today. It is useful to have you here. This is an
important opportunity to look at how we can improve the effectiveness
of support for families and children throughout the country. The Bill
looks in particular at children’s centres, children’s
trust boards and the funding of nursery places. Concern has been
expressed by a number of organisations that there has been a great deal
of change in the sector over the last decade. Further change must be
carefully considered before it is put in place. There must be a focus
on how we can improve sustainability, make services more responsive to
local communities, improve our work with the private, voluntary and
independent sector and have a more effective partnership with health.
What would you do if you could change any aspect of the Bill to achieve
those objectives or others that you think are
important? Clem
Henricson: A major thing I would do is specify
consultation with parents more clearly. Although it is generally
implied that that will happen, it is not specified in the Bill. During
our research on the development of parenting strategies we have found a
reluctance to consult with the users and a tendency to focus on the
providers when developing needs assessments. Often there is the will to
consult with parents, but there is a need for guidance on the different
methods that can be used to do that when developing services. Having
said that, there have been huge moves in that direction. Sure Start has
pioneered many ways of doing that. My advice is that we should develop
good guidance for developing the various
strategies. Anne
Longfield: The first thing to say is that the Bill
contains much that is helpful. We have always firmly supported early
intervention and integration. The further work on children’s
trusts and co-operation is enormously helpful. Children’s
centres are, of course, what we do and great work is being done. There
is a question over whether we should do things differently or ensure
that what is done is factored in and strengthened. We must ensure that
we are talking about the development of the child rather than the needs
of the professional service around the
child. We
have been working in a fast-moving environment, but it has moved in an
evolutionary way. We have to get to a stage where some of the
difficulties created by the piecemeal system are cleared up. We must
enshrine something that is fit for purpose for the future. The work on
children’s centres starts to do that. There should be a broader
link to services across the age range and we should link better with
services for over-fives. There must be continuing support across the
age range linked to early
intervention.
Q
38Mrs.
Miller: Are you therefore happy with the definition used
in the Bill of the sorts of services that children’s
centres are allowed to deliver? Might
putting those on a statutory footing make local authorities more
conscious of the need to keep within the
rules? Anne
Longfield: We think that children’s centres
are very positive, deliver the sort of support that people need and are
effective, so we suggest that enshrining them in a legal framework
would help. However, we would be really concerned to ensure that that
was an enabling framework. We believe that they need to be community
based, whoever runs them. Many third sector organisations find it
difficult to run such organisations, but they are important entities
that have an important role to play alongside statutory agencies.
Sometimes there is a bit of a pecking order involved. We would not want
to put something in place that only local authorities could deliver.
The majority of provision is currently delivered by local authorities,
and that might be a phase issue, but we want to strengthen the
requirement for local authorities to look more widely for providers who
are able to deliver. Certainly, we also wish to strengthen community
ownership and governance to ensure that the responsibility and power do
not lie only within the realm of the local authority, but that some of
that starts to be relayed much more through
communities.
Q
39Mrs.
Miller: And not focusing exclusively on the
under-fives?
Anne
Longfield: There should certainly be strengthened
links between the work in the Bill about children’s centres and
how that relates to work with children over the age of five, not only
to ensure a good transition, but to really play through the integrated
vision.
Clare
Tickell: The trouble about speaking after Anne is
that she says it all. This is a big Bill, and there is an awful lot in
it. Returning to your question, I echo the point about consultation
with parents but also think that it is important to ensure that there
are mechanisms to include children and young people in consultation. I
believe we should run a slide rule over the Bill to ensure that it
meets the needs of the most vulnerable children and young people,
because my organisation is essentially concerned with providing
services for the most vulnerable children and young people. They can be
the children who are missed because they have very low visibility and
can behave unpredictably, so there has to be a way of finding some
coherence and capturing those aspects
Someone
mentioned outcomes a moment ago. It is hugely important to ensure that
in everything to do with children and young people, particularly
because of the current shortage of money, we remember about
commissioning for outcomes within the context of early intervention, as
Anne said. We will not do that within the context of the Bill unless
there is coherence, simplicity and transparency in how measurement will
take place with children’s trust
boards.
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