Jim
Knight: Short stay
schools.
Mary
Creagh: Thank you. My brain is not functioning quite as
quickly as it was this time yesterday morning. I am reassured by what
the Minister has said about introducing regulations to make sure that
they are included. I just wanted to press her on accountability and the
reporting of
crimes.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: Amendment 85 would negate the new duty on
all maintained secondary schools, academies, city technology colleges
and city technology colleges of the arts to be members of school
behaviour and attendance partnerships. As I have said, school behaviour
and attendance partnerships are designed to support and improve
outcomes for pupils with behaviour and attendance issues, who are some
of the most vulnerable pupils in our schools, so it is important that
partnership working is as effective as it can be. Partnership working
on behaviour and attendance is also designed to improve low-level
disruption across the whole school and thus has a positive impact on
all pupils.
It is
important that partnership working is made a statutory requirement in
order to reinforce the strength of partnerships and ensure that good
practice is further embedded by making a statutory requirement for
schools to have regard to the DCSF guidance on partnership working.
Such legislation is necessary, because in order for partnership working
to be truly effective, all secondary schools must be involved. Refusal
by even one school can have a detrimental impact on partnership working
locally, as the partnership then cannot represent the needs of children
across local secondary schools and the principle of collective
responsibility at the centre of partnership work is undermined. Schools
need to be confident of their partners’ commitment and confident
that partnership working is a long-term approach. The legislation shows
that the Government are committed to that approach in the long term and
ensures that schools are also
committed. Amendments
258 and 262 appear to be motivated by the same concern: a desire to
ensure that schools can choose the other schools with which to enter
into partnership. Once again, I reassure hon. Members that
that is already the case. The clause merely places a duty to make
arrangements with at least one other relevant body. The Government do
not wish to prescribe the exact composition of individual partnerships,
which should reflect and respond to local circumstances. Schools will
not be told exactly which other schools to work with, and they will
decide that in collaboration with the other schools in their area and
the local authority. Our current
guidance suggests that the local authority should play a role in
facilitating links between schools and promoting partnership working,
and we would expect the local authority to support schools having any
problems arranging who is to be in which partnership. We will continue
to recommend that the local authority plays that support role when the
guidance is redrafted, as it becomes statutory. Ofsted also assesses
schools on how well they work in partnership with other organisations,
and the new school report card will include information on partnership
working.
Mr.
Gibb: Will the Minister confirm that the local
authority’s role in facilitating and supporting the arrangements
will not, in practice, become enforcing
them?
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: We have no intention of coercing schools
into partnerships; local authorities will have other levers. They will
be able to direct funding to school partnerships and, if they feel that
such partnerships are not operating as they should, to withhold it.
Furthermore, Ofsted will have the power through inspection to see how
well schools are doing on partnership working. Local authorities have
no powers to force schools into
partnerships.
Mr.
Gibb: The Minister hinted at funding. Will a school lose
significant sums of money for dealing with behavioural problems, if it
does not enter into partnership with a school of the local
authority’s choosing?
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: We do not expect local authorities to
undertake this measure coercively. There is no point having a
partnership if both partners do not want to be partners. Local
authorities will want to collaborate with schools to encourage
them.
Mary
Creagh: Is not the point, however, that schools that do
not want to become partnered are often those with the biggest
problems—where the head teacher may be isolated, defensive and
in need of greatest help? The Bill strikes the appropriate balance
between encouragement and saying, “It’s not good enough
just to put your head in your hands, hide under your desk and say,
‘It’ll all get better with time,’ or,
‘These are difficult
children.’”
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: I agree, which is why I do not support
amendments 258 and 262, because they would allow a school to refuse to
enter into arrangements with another school, which would undermine the
clause. I must reiterate to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton that local authorities will not give funding to the
partnership, but they will continue to fund schools
individually.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Wakefield mentioned accountability, which is
really important. There are many ways in which we could strengthen the
accountability regime, and one option is an annual report to the
children’s trust. That is an interesting way of extending
accountability, and it may meet my hon. Friend’s requirements. I
shall reflect on it, and we may return to it after further
consideration. Although the
exact composition of local partnerships will be locally determined, as
I have outlined, the crucial point is that every secondary school
should be in a behaviour and attendance partnership with at least one
other school. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton to withdraw his amendment.
Mr.
Gibb: I am grateful to the Minister for again providing
some reassurance that schools will not have their partners chosen for
them by local authorities. It is good to have that on the record. I was
slightly alarmed when talk of funding crept into our discussion about
voluntary arrangements, and the idea that support from local
authorities would carry the stick that behaviour partnership funding
might disappear if schools did not accept the support with the alacrity
that the local authority expected. I was reassured by the
Minister’s response to my concern, however, when she said that
she does not want local authorities to engage in coercion and that any
partnership that is not entered into voluntarily will not work. In the
light of those helpful words, to which I hope all local authorities
will adhere, I shall not press the amendment. I hope that any guidance
the Minister issues will be in that spirit. I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. 10.15
am
Mr.
Laws: I beg to move amendment 288, in
clause 235, page 138, line 10, at
end insert— ‘( ) reduce
exclusion rates for pupils with special educational
needs.’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 80, in
clause 235, page 138, line 10, at
end insert— ‘(2A) In
performing their duties under this section, relevant partners must seek
to ensure that all pupils are able to work, study and learn in a safe,
secure and ordered
environment.’.
Mr.
Laws: The amendment would add to clause 235(2), which
specifies the details concerning relevant partners making arrangements
to co-operate with other relevant partners regarding specified
subjects. It adds to existing concerns about the promotion of good
behaviour and discipline by pupils and about reducing the persistent
absence of pupils. The amendment would add a new requirement to
consider the reduction of exclusion rates of pupils with special
educational needs, and would complement the other paragraphs in that
subsection.
It is a
concern in many schools in many parts of the country that we have such
high exclusion rates of youngsters with special educational needs. We
must look not only at what we can do to reduce those rates, but at how
schools can co-operate, particularly where there is good practice to
draw on or where staff have expert knowledge of particular areas of
special educational needs within partnerships to reduce exclusion
rates. With this probing amendment, we invite the Minister to consider
whether
to add this consideration to the Bill, and to explain how the existing
duties will relate to youngsters with special educational
needs. I cannot help
thinking that there is some trick to amendment 80, because it seems to
fail the test of putting a “not” in front of everything.
It
states: “In
performing their duties under this section, relevant partners must seek
to ensure that all pupils are able to work, study and learn in a safe,
secure and ordered
environment.” That
seems difficult to oppose, but I suspect that the ingenious hon. Member
for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has something lurking in there that
he will raise in a moment, so I look forward to hearing from
him.
Mr.
Gibb: The lurking element is that we want to make schools
into safe and happy places for pupils and children. We need to ensure
that when behaviour partnerships are entered into, the desire to find
new places for children who have been excluded does not jeopardise the
safety, security and orderliness of any school to which they are sent.
That must be the overriding aim when partnerships are entered into. It
is almost tautologous, as the hon. Gentleman has hinted, to have that
as an overriding aim, but I am worried that the overriding aim in some
partnerships might be to find places in mainstream schools for children
whose behavioural problems are such that they ought to be not in
mainstream schools, but in high-quality, alternative education that
will help with their behavioural problems. I shall return to those
issues when we debate the next
clause. The
behaviour partnership should not lose sight of the fact that its aim is
to produce the kind of ordered environment in schools that, I am
afraid, is increasingly the exception rather than the rule. Children
are suffering from bullying at too high a level in our schools today,
and there is too much low-level disruption across the state sector
school estate. That is increasingly becoming the single biggest problem
facing education
today. I
know that Ministers are sincere in believing that school behavioural
partnerships are an answer to the problem, which they may well be,
especially if the partnerships are voluntary. However, they might just
be a revolving-door attempt to shuffle around the system children who
have severe behavioural problems that need to be addressed by
professionals with experience and expertise in helping children tackle
and deal with behavioural problems that are almost certainly not their
fault. If a child has behavioural problems, many people are to
blame—their parents, society, the police for not patrolling the
streets and keeping order and, possibly, the school
environment. One
person who is not responsible for behaviour is the child. Children are
the creatures of us all. They are the creatures of the parents, of the
school and of society. There are children with behavioural problems who
need help. Simply shunting them off to another mainstream school that
also has behavioural problems will not help the child, and the child
being at the school will not contribute to the school’s
effectiveness. The purpose of the amendment is to make sure that it
remains the prime aim of all schools to create a safe, happy and secure
environment when dealing with
behavioural problems and not to allow other aims to supersede that. I
look forward to hearing the Minister’s
response. Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: I appreciate the sentiment behind amendment
80. It is important that all pupils can learn in a safe, secure and
well-ordered environment. However, the clause already requires schools
to co-operate to promote good behaviour and discipline on the part of
pupils, and the intended outcome of such co-operation is just
that—making schools safe and orderly places in which pupils can
learn. Schools
are already legally responsible for the safety and well-being of their
pupils. Head teachers also have a clear statutory power to exclude
pupils, when they think that it is necessary. We have repeatedly stated
that we fully support heads who make the difficult decision to exclude.
Behaviour and attendance partnerships aim to support head teachers in
developing strategies that reduce the need for exclusion. When there is
still a need, we fully support the right of the head to
exclude. School
behaviour and attendance partnerships help schools to support those
pupils who have behaviour or attendance issues, including through early
intervention, to address problems before they escalate. The intended
outcome of behaviour and attendance partnership working is that, both
as a consequence of targeted work, and as a result of other wider
strategies of partnership working, low-level disruption and behaviour
issues throughout schools are
reduced. Amendment
288 would make a reduction in exclusions among pupils with special
educational needs one of the key areas with which schools must
co-operate. I am sympathetic to its aim, but it is not necessary. In
our current guidance on school behaviour and attendance partnerships,
we make it clear that we expect a reduction in the need for permanent
exclusions to be a key outcome of partnership working. That is an
expected outcome of co-operating with a view to promoting good
behaviour and discipline on the part of
pupils.
Mr.
Gibb: Does the Minister understand that we cannot have in
guidance the ruling that there shall be fewer permanent exclusions? If
we make that a policy, it will be achieved, but it will not necessarily
improve behaviour in a school. It will simply be the case that head
teachers are deterred by such guidance from excluding permanently
children, who should be excluded permanently and receiving help for
their problems. It is no good expecting such guidance to be effective.
It will simply compound the problem both for the child by their not
receiving help and the school by having a disruptive child in the
school and not receiving the help that they
need.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: The whole point of the partnership is to
enable the strategy to get the early intervention work in place and to
learn from good practice in other schools, so that permanent exclusion
is not the first resort, but the last resort. We also state in guidance
that we expect schools to place emphasis on reducing the differential
rate for exclusions among black or minority ethnic pupils and pupils
with special educational
needs.
Mr.
Laws: Does the Minister agree that there are reasons to be
concerned by what the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
has said about targets
to drive down exclusions, regardless of whether that is a good thing or
a bad thing? However, many schools are using new practices, such as
keeping children who are misbehaving in the school but teaching them on
Saturdays and in the evenings until they are ready to come back.
Sometimes that is a better alternative than excluding permanently. The
Government should be encouraging that, without getting into the sort of
rigid approach that the hon. Gentleman is worried
about.
Sarah
McCarthy-Fry: There are many examples of good practice, as
the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. Working in a partnership, those
examples of good practice can be shared, particularly on outcomes. On
another point, for the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton,
I did not say that we expect a reduction in permanent exclusions to be
the outcome; I said that we expect a reduction in the need
for permanent exclusions to be a key outcome of partnership
working. I
reiterate that our guidance expects schools to place emphasis on
reducing the differential rate for exclusions among black and minority
ethnic pupils and pupils with special educational needs. The current
guidance will be redrafted, as it becomes statutory, but it will
continue to include those expectations. Reducing exclusions among
pupils with special educational needs will therefore be a key focus of
partnership working. It is not necessary to state that in the Bill, as
it would give a message that SEN exclusions are more of a priority than
other issues, and would suggest that the issue has to be a priority
even for partnerships that have a low rate of SEN exclusions.
Therefore, I ask the hon. Gentleman not to press the
amendment.
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