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Session 2009 - 10 Publications on the internet Children, Schools and Families |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Sarah
Davies, Sara Howe, Committee
Clerks attended the
Committee Witnesses
Oona Stannard, Chief Executive, Catholic Education Service
Rev. Jan Ainsworth, Chief Education Officer, Archbishops’ Council’s Education Division, General Secretary, National Society
Jan Campbell, Chair of Board of Trustees, PSHE Association
Shahanur A. Khan, Campaign Against Premature and Inappropriate Sex and Relationship Education in Schools
Gill Frances, Chair, Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group
Sir
Mark Potter, President, Family Division of the High
Court Bob
Satchwell, Executive Director, Society of
Editors Barbara
Esam, Lawyer, Strategy And Development Division, National Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children District
Judge Nick Crichton, Family Drug and Alcohol
Court Dr. Julia
Brophy, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Family Law and
Policy Public Bill CommitteeThursday 21 January 2010(Afternoon)[Janet Anderson in the Chair]Children, Schools and Families BillWritten evidence to be reported to the HouseCS
17 Childrens Commissioner for England (Dr. Julia
Brophy) CS 18 Dr. Ben
Anderson CS 19
Association of Lawyers for
Children CS 20 Tania
Berlow CS 21 Michael
Crawshaw CS 22 Tania
Berlow, Jacquie Cox and Dr. Ben Anderson
1
pm The
Committee deliberated in
private. 1.9
pm On
resuming
The
Chairman: I welcome everyone to this Committee session on
the Children, Schools and Families Bill. May I remind hon. Members and
witnesses that we are bound by the deadline agreed to on Tuesday? That
means that this part of the evidence session must end at 2.30 pm. I
hope that I do not have to interrupt hon. Members and witnesses in the
middle of their sentences, but I warn you that I will do so if need be,
as it is important that we stick to the time and ensure that everyone
who wants to has an opportunity to contribute.
We will now
hear evidence from the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group,
the Personal, Sexual, Health Education Association, the Church of
England, the Catholic Education Service and the Campaign Against
Premature and Inappropriate Sex and Relationship Education in
Schools. Welcome
to our meeting this afternoon. Would you please introduce yourselves to
the
Committee? Oona
Stannard: I am Oona Stannard, chief executive of the
Catholic Education Service for England and Wales and a former
HMI.
Rev.
Jan Ainsworth: I am Jan Ainsworth, chief education
officer for the Archbishops Councils education division
and general secretary of the National Society.
Jan
Campbell: I am Jan Campbell, and I chair the board of
trustees of the PSHE Association. I am a former teacher and
adviser. M.
Shahanur A. Khan: My name is Shahanur Khan,
chairperson of the Campaign Against Premature and Inappropriate Sex and
Relationship Education in Schools. I am a parent, school governor and
tutor. Gill
Frances: I am Gill Frances, chair of the Teenage
Pregnancy Independent Advisory
Group.
Q174Tim
Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): I think that
everyone will agree that the standard of sex education in this country,
in whatever environment, leaves a lot to be desired. We had a
headmaster this morning who said that he thinks that everything in
PSHE, including sex education, could be better taught as a
cross-cutting subject in the various other subjects that are already on
the curriculum, rather than making it a statutory curriculum subject.
Do you think that that is right? Why are schools not already teaching
the elements of PSHE? Why would they not want to have good, standard
elements of PSHE, regardless of whether it becomes a curriculum
subject? Surely it is in the interests of all their pupils to be well
versed in the whole healthy living agenda, or whatever you want to call
it? Jan
Campbell: To take your last statement on why should
everyone not do it, I would say that everyone should. Why, then, are
they not? There is a variety of reasons. It may be that its
non-statutory status can be a get-out clause when there are so many
other pressures and priorities on head teachers. However, where they
grasp the importance of a subject, it is hugely appreciated. I heard
one head teacher of a successful secondary school comment recently that
PSHE education enables young people to develop the knowledge and skills
that help them to tackle issues that might otherwise get in the way of
their learning, and I think that that was quite
powerful.
Q175Tim
Loughton: Why should it be done in isolation, rather than
how it is being done now, but
better? Jan
Campbell: Your argument is whether it should be
taught across the curriculum or as a discrete
subject
Q176Tim
Loughton: You mentioned the point that that is not the
case perhaps because of all the pressure on the curriculum. We are
adding yet another pressure on the curriculum, and something will have
to give, will it
not? Jan
Campbell: I do not think we are, because most schools
are already delivering some discrete PSHE education. What we are doing
is hopefully encouraging better quality by giving it the status and
ensuring that the teachers who deliver it are well trained and
supported.
To return to
your first point about whether it should be taught across the
curriculum or as a discrete subject, I do not think it is either/or,
but both. There is evidence that where it is only taught across the
curriculum, it can disappear. It is difficult and complex for teachers
always to teach to two sets of learning objectives and ensure that
neither suffers. If you are trying to teach an aspect of relationships
in, for example, an English lesson, through exploring relationships in
some literature, you will be exploring the literature, the approach
through writing and the way that the writer is portraying those
relationships. Moving from that to the point where young people reflect
on their own relationship skills and how they can apply what they have
learnt and develop the skills that they can put into place in
friendships, families, communities and workplaces is a more complex
thing, and often gets missed
out. Gill
Frances: There is also another issue. If you had
something like maths being taught across curricula, you would have
people who are not experts in maths. What is incredibly important with
PSHE is that we need to
build a body of specialist teachers who are able to deliver on it. We
want all teachers to be able to do the basics, but being able to
deliver a good PSHE lesson is like any other subjectyou need to
be trained to do
it.
Gill
Frances: Not everybody is part of extended school. We
are saying that this is core. We are talking about children and young
people having the right to have life skills. We are talking about
parents, professionals, children and young peoplewe have this
huge consensus that children should have life skills for life as they
are living it now, in preparation for the lives that they lead as young
adults and adults. That is crucial. It would be so easy to lose it in
extended school time, in extra cross-curricular things. If it is
important enough, lets have it as a core subject, ensuring that
every child in the classroom has the opportunity to learn those
essential life skills.
Rev.
Jan Ainsworth: May I make two other points? One is
that different schools will adopt different curriculum solutions. If it
is compulsory, it will mean that they have to put it into the mix at
the start. The new secondary curriculum enables secondary schools, at
any rate, to look again at how they are delivering their statutory
obligations. That may still reflect the traditional subject-based
curriculum; however, in a number of cases, particularly in relation to
aspects of the humanities curriculum, it may take a more integrated
approach. There is ample scope for some of the aspects that fall under
the PSHE education umbrella to be delivered in that way.
That brings
me to the point that PSHE education is a bit of a portmanteau. You have
a number of separate areas of work that you are expecting children and
young people to engage with, and they do not always sit particularly
naturally together with each other.
The final
point, which relates much more to our closer concern, is that this
particular areawell-being, and sex and relationships
educationis treading on areas that are still controversial.
Teaching controversial value issues in schools, whenever they arise, is
a complex and demanding task. That is why we are entirely supportive of
better training, better resources, better equipping of
teachers.
One of our
core concerns, obviously, is religious education. There is an automatic
cross-over in a number of areas in PSHE. For instance, the guidance on
sex and relationships says that you need to be conscious and respectful
of the faith and belief background of your parental communities and
make sure that that is reflected. But that is very difficult, because
you may find yourself as a teacher saying, But there is a
conflict here. I know what the community wants me to teach, but I know
what I think and what guidance says good PSHE is. There is a
huge area where staff and governors need support.
Oona
Stannard: I agree with everything that has been said
so far. It can be built on a notion of entitlementthat is
entitlement to staff for their professional development and an
entitlement for pupilsbut we must bear in mind the caveats
about the governors responsibility for policy and for the
particular character of the school.
There is
another factor if it is to be built formally into the curriculum. That
is the added benefits for parentsthe rigour, the statements
made about it, and the rights of
parents far more overtly to engage in consultation about what is
happening, seeing resources and being advised of what is happening. It
enhances the role of parents, when its done well, if it has
that formal place.
M.
Shahanur A. Khan: Education is important. It can play
an important role in society at large. We are not against education.
There are many areas where the Government can help our children to
achieve their very best in science, English and maths. If PSHE becomes
compulsory it could put a lot of work on to our teachers. That could
have an effect on our childrens education in other subjects in
the main curriculum, which will develop their quality of life, their
employment and so on. It should be the parents responsibility
to give the right education at the right time to their
children.
Under British
law children are allowed to be taught according to their
parents wishes. Under article 2 of the first protocol of the
European convention on human rights, education must be given in
accordance with parents religious and philosophical
convictions. Ordinary parents are very naive. They do not have
a clue. They do not have authority. As far as we who live in Tower
Hamlets are concerned, people do not have a way to find out the right
way. We
believe that the Government should empower parents, governors and our
religious scholars to help our innocent young children from the age of
five. Young children from the age of five should not receive the kind
of education that will mislead them, encourage them to explore sexual
activities and even make them immoral. That could be a problem for
society in the future as sexual crime could be enhanced. Community
cohesion could be hampered. We respect religious values and, clearly
major religions say that, outside marriage, relationships are strongly
prohibited. If we have good, nice family circumstances and make our
family life stable, lively, nice and are helped by the Government, I
hope that most of the problems will be
reduced.
Q178Caroline
Flint (Don Valley) (Lab): During my time as Public Health
Minister, I had the opportunity to meet lots of parents from different
communities and different religious backgrounds and, most of the time,
whoever I was speaking to and whatever their religious background,
their concern as parents about drugs, alcohol and sexual relations was
common. What Oona Stannard said about opportunities to engage parents
was positive.
Currently,
the Bill does not provide for the Secretary of State to set attainment
targets or assess PSHE. Given what we all must agree is a rather patchy
delivery on all aspects of the area, do you think that, in making this
a statutory part of the curriculum, there is enough to improve delivery
and outputs? Do you think that it is right that there should not be
attainment targets or
assessments? Oona
Stannard: I freely admit that I am answering on the
basis of my previous experience as an HMI when I saw very good PSHE
education taking place. When that was the case, it was not hampered by
the lack of attainment targets. It was well evidenced in portfolios of
work and other processes that took place to assess young
peoples level of knowledge and understanding, their engagement
and reflection. There is still plenty of scope in the flexibility of
not having attainment targets, and that can be evidenced by thematic
inspections and all sorts of methods that can look into such matters. I
do not see it as a negative.
Jan
Campbell: There is a difference between assessment
and testing. Most of us are in favour of more rigorous and more
effective methods of assessing the progress of pupils, and tracking
progress. It is very important that teachers can track the progress of
children so that both teachers and the children themselves know that
they are learning and getting better at this important part of the
curriculum. Lots of work needs to be done on doing that in the most
appropriate way for the subject and in the most helpful way to
children, young people, teachers and their parents. Lots of work is
being done at the moment. Some development work is being carried out by
the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency on the assessing
pupil progress project. Although there are no attainment
targetsthere is not an eight-level scalethere are some
end-of-key-stage statements, which help to give a national standard
against which teachers can make judgments. Most of all, however, we are
encouraging teachers and young people to be able to articulate what
they have learnt, so that they can describe progress and achievements
and find good ways of doing
that. Gill
Frances: There is a stage just before that in which
it is really important to involve children, young people and their
families in what is going to be taught and how it is going to be
taught. So, you then start right from the beginning, as a partnership,
and you have processes, in which the children and young people are
telling you, through a whole range of activities, about what they think
that they are learning, what they think they ought to be learning and
why, and what they have learnt. So, it does start before that, and it
is really important that children, young people and parents should be
involved in working that out in the first place: what is going to be
taught and how it is going to be taughtthe how being extremely
important, especially when talking about various aspects of sex
education when you would want to be delivering it in a moral
framework. M.
Shahanur A. Khan: I would like to say that, again, it
is mainly dependent on the parents. Children are under a lot of
pressure with subject attainment and progress assessment, but they go
through a lot of stages. Young children must have some clear
understanding of society, but their psychological and emotional
development has to be taken into account. If the Government put a lot
of pressure on children when their learningespecially at the
age of five, six or sevenis most likely to be play-based, that
could be reflected in their educational achievement in the wrong way.
They might have to bear or feel too much, too soon. That could happen.
So, the Government should be careful about that, and consider how they
can handle matters in a light way to get good achievement while clearly
addressing the parents concerns, views, understanding and
religious beliefs. Otherwise educational performance, in some way and
in some part, could be hampered. Thank
you. Rev.
Jan Ainsworth: You have to be really careful how you
frame things. I have been listening to this. We do not have a specific
position, but you do not engage in anything in education, schools or
lessons without having some sense of where you are going with it and
what you want to come out of it for pupils. Sharing that and devising
that with pupils is good practice. You are then ensuring that they are
committed to what they are doing and engaged with it. Clearly, much of
the content that is expected to be delivered through PSHE engages
young people in particular very acutely, because it directly relates to
how they live their lives and the kinds of choices that they are going
to make. That is clearly one of its aimsto enable them to make
better
choices. The
downside is that if that becomes too formalisedthe attainment
targets and so onwill we be moving into prescribing? We have a
view about what we mean by well-being, so will we test
all children on how strong their well-being is? That takes you into
quite difficult territory. It is almost the same with drugs, alcohol
and tobacco. Are we expecting them all to come to the right view in the
end? They will know what the right answer is, regardless of what they
do in their own lives. There are some very tricky issues to weigh up in
looking at that, but the notion of explaining what it is you are aiming
for and what it is you want pupils to achieve and experience is wholly
good.
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©Parliamentary copyright 2010 | Prepared 22 January 2010 |