Mr.
Coaker: Some important points have been made. To begin
with, allowing different home-school agreements for resident and
non-resident parents is entirely at the discretion of the head teacher.
I would think that the hon. Member for Yeovil would welcome that,
because most of his later amendments berate us for not allowing
discretion, and the clause provides for
discretion.
Mr.
Gibb: The Minister is right that proposed new subsection
(3) allows discretion:
Where
the head teacher considers it appropriate to do so, the head teacher
may provide different parents of the same pupil with different
home-school agreements.
However,
it is compulsory for the school to
provide each
registered parent of the pupil...with a home-school
agreement, which
must be tailored. Proposed new subsection (1) says that each head
teacher shall issue home-school
agreements.
Mr.
Coaker: The desire and intention behind the Bill is that a
head teacher may decide whether it is appropriate to give a home-school
agreement to the resident or non-resident parent. My right hon. Friend
the Member for Don Valley made a point about information sharing. There
is specific protection to ensure that the home-school agreement can be
tailored to prevent inappropriate sharing of information. That is why
there might be different home-school agreements for each
parent.
Caroline
Flint: Will my hon. Friend give me an example of
inappropriate
information?
Mr.
Coaker: Well, the resident parent might not want the
non-resident parent to know exactly where the child is or the various
things that they are doing with the school, but the non-resident parent
might still want to be involved in their sons or
daughters education. My right hon. Friend makes an important
point when she says that there are considerable difficulties now. There
are many different types of families. The intention of the arrangements
that we are discussing is to ensure that people with parental
responsibility and those without direct responsibility who are
non-resident can still be involved appropriately in their sons
or daughters education.
My experience
in schools shows that there are sometimes huge tensions between the
natural mother and natural father, to the extent that they will hardly
speak to each other, yet they are both devoted to their son or daughter
and want to help them with their education. That is what the measures
will allow for, and that is why we have provided
discretion.
Mr.
Purchase: That is absolutely admirable, and the many
different relationships that we see in society today make us wonder how
to gain clear consensus about who should know what, when and why. Will
my hon. Friend assure me that it need not be the head teacher who does
all the explaining, perhaps to obstreperous parents who would disagree
in any event about which direction matters should take, but that such a
task can be delegated to someone with the time to do
it?
Mr.
Coaker: In practice, the head teacher would make a
decision whether such action was a good thing but, of course, others
might work with the non-resident parents to draw up the home-school
agreements. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot expect the
head teacher to be involved in drawing up the agreements in each
circumstance, but they are in a position to decide what agreements
should be drawn up, because they understand the needs of a particular
child, while others will help in drawing up the
details.
Mr.
Purchase: I want to give my hon. Friend an example. My
youngest daughter is now in her 40s, but when she was in her final year
at primary school, she was the only child in a class of more than 30
children with two parents extant. I am sure that he can understand the
work load that could be involved with non-resident
parents.
Mr.
Coaker: I cannot agree more with my hon. Friend.
Notwithstanding the parents difficulties, most of them still
want to be involved in the education of their son or daughter, and we
frame measures with that in mind. The home-school agreement could be
difficult in such circumstances, and I absolutely accept my hon.
Friends point about the challenge that it could bring. He was
right and proper to cite such an example from his personal experience
but, from my professional experience, it was really difficult to ensure
that we involved both natural parents who could not stand the sight of
each other, but who both wanted to be part of their sons or
daughters education. It is important when framing provisions
for home-school agreements to recognise that they must be sensible and
proportionate. I take into account what my right hon. Friend the Member
for Don Valley said about the sharing of information, and that should
be allowed. That is why such matters should be
discretionary.
Tim
Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): The right
hon. Member for Don Valley referred to an important matter that I was
about to bring to the Ministers attention. Notwithstanding the
pertinent comments made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton,
North-East about spending a lot of time on the agreements, the
Government need to issue clearer guidance. I have had to write to a
school on behalf of a non-resident father to ask it to release his
childs report, to which he was entitled. There was some
confusion in the school about what it could release because of what the
resident parent had told it, which might not have been within the
confines of a court
order. Surely
the default position must be that, unless there is a protection order
set by the courts, non-resident parents should be entitled to a record
of what is going on with their child at school. Concomitant with that,
they should be involved in some form of the home-school agreement so
that they are providing their side of the bargain, particularly when
the child might occasionally be resident with that
parent.
Mr.
Coaker: I agree. Is that consistent with the amendment?
Amendment 44 would remove the provision enabling head teachers to
provide different
parents of the same pupil with different home-school
agreements. That
is, if the head teacher considers it appropriate to do
so. We are trying to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman
outlined. Of course, home-school agreements should be appropriate for
resident parents as well as non-resident parents. This is about sharing
information. Of course we want to involve non-resident parents. They
have an absolute right to be involved. However, if there are protection
or child safety issues, of course information should not be shared. He
is right to make that
point. However,
I thought that the hon. Gentleman was making the pointif I am
mistaken, he can replythat provision should be made for
separate home-school agreements, because different information for the
resident and non-resident parent might be
wanted.
Tim
Loughton: There are two completely different issues. My
hon. Friends amendment seeks conformity in home-school
agreements. Children should be treated differently within the same
school. My point, which is an adjunct to that, is that there is a clear
problem about
non-resident parents involvement and entitlement to information
about their children. This debate has not clarified the matter, so my
plea to the Government, aside from the clause but relevant to it, is to
think further and give clearer instructions so that parents know
exactly what their entitlements arethat feeds into home-school
agreementsin order to avoid ding-dong battles between parents
within the school where the child is in the middle yet again, being
used as a pawn. That is the problem at the moment in too many
cases.
Mr.
Coaker: Nobody disagrees with that. Interestingly, what we
are debating is how to make home-school agreements for different
parents appropriate while ensuring that those with parental interest
and responsibility can be involved with their children. Of course we
will take on board the hon. Gentlemens comments about
clarification and guidance, but this debate is not about having
separate home-school agreements for different
people. I
was asked to justify having different home-school agreements. Maybe
resident and non-resident parents will have different agreements, but
the fundamental principle is to keep people involved in their
sons or daughters education. All the evidence points to
the fact that that is good for fathers and for the young people
themselves. It is interesting that as this debate has gone on, we have
begun to debate how to make different home-school agreements for
different people work rather than debating the
principle.
Caroline
Flint: The Minister is being open and helpful with his
answers, but I return to my earlier point. Our previous debate was
about what happens when somebody does not sign a home-school agreement
and what that might lead to in terms of further action and the courts
getting involved. What if one parent signs, whether before or after the
child starts school, and the other parent does not? Who will the head
teacher decide is primarily responsible for the delivery of the
home-school agreement?
It seems to
me that part of the home-school agreement will be
standardgetting to school on time, good behaviour and what the
school offers to the parent and pupil. The other part is personalised.
For want of a better phrase, I call it an individualised learning plan.
The agreement gives information, but there is also a responsibility to
help deliver
it. In
an ideal world it would be great for parents to come together to agree
on the personalised home-school agreement, whether or not they were
together. I am again trying to think of a scenario. The resident parent
might agree with the plan, which could include provisions to meet the
childs special educational needs, for example, but the other
parent might not, even though they are not there every day to look
after the child, check homework and ensure that they get to school on
time. That is a bit worrying.
In my wildest
imagination, we might end up in a situation where one parent has signed
and the other has not, and a head teacher could be accused of deciding
that they do not like the child, going for the parent who has not
signed and does not live with the child and commencing proceedings to
exclude the child from school. There are some issues tied up with how
the home-school agreements are made, and I hope that my hon. Friend
will deal with
them.
1.45
pm
Mr.
Coaker: Many of the points that have just been made are
reasonable. In the end, there will be issues regarding who is
responsible for signing home-school agreements, but that will be easy
to deal with when it is clear who has parental
responsibility.
Mr.
Purchase: I hate to be awkward, and the Minister is doing
a wonderful job of replying, but the material that he has to work with
might, in this instance, defeat even
him. I
have already referred to my youngest daughters school
experience with regard to children with only one parent extant. We all
know of many instances in which the father has managed to dodge the
column for any number of years and has not paid maintenance of any
kind, but has suddenly turned up and said that he is interested in his
child. We have to try to level that and say that there is something in
the old-fashioned idea that people stay together for the benefit of the
children. It is tough in the modern world, and the pressures are far
different from when that saying had real meaning. No one expects
people, with all the social pressures of modern life, to stay together
just for the benefit of the children, but I wonder whether we are
running a little too far away from the idea that children must come
first. We should think about that before we get to this
stage.
Mr.
Coaker: That is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. There
will be guidance alongside the provision. I appreciate the compliments
that my hon. Friend paid me, and I take his serious point. I think that
all of us agree with the point about people staying together for the
benefit of the child, whenever that is possible and it makes sense. I
am trying to articulate to the Committee that notwithstanding the
difficulties of the modern world, in which some people unfortunately
split up, there will be a parent with whom the child is resident. My
right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley makes the perfectly
reasonable point that such a parent has responsibilities, such as
getting the child to school and in relation to homework, that a
non-resident parent does not have, for obvious reasons. The parent with
whom the child resides will have a home-school agreement and will be
involved in their childs education, but that does not mean that
that does not apply to the non-resident parent. If we can find a way of
doing thisthat is why it is discretionaryall the
evidence shows that it will help with the education and growing-up of
the young child. Our attempt to meet this challenge throws up the sorts
of problems that have been articulated by Committee members. However,
the question is whether we say that we will not try to address the
matter because it is difficult and challengingeven though we
know that it is better if both parents are involved with their
children. I
take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton,
North-East that we have to live in the real worldhe is right to
remind us of that. This is not wishy-washy liberal thinking about being
nice to each other and getting involved. We are saying that having
different home-school agreements for the mother and the
fatherif that is appropriate and if it can be donewould
improve the educational entitlement of their child in school. If it is
not possible to achieve that, however, the head teacher will decide
that it is not worth doing, and it will not be done.
That
proposal represents a social policy challenge and a strategic choice.
This is difficult, but we should not make the system over-bureaucratic.
We must ensure that only the right information is shared. If we can do
that, however, we will make a significant contribution to educational
opportunity, as well as making some people face up to their
responsibilities.
Mr.
Laws: I am still grappling with how home-school agreements
might differ for the same child, and why one would make them different.
Under the old arrangements, the assumption was that the agreements just
implied a set of general rights and responsibilities. Will the Minister
give us two or three examples, leaving aside issues of privacy and
where parents may live, of why someone would want
to [Interruption.] Well, if that is the
major reason, I am pleased to have that information, but I am still
struggling to understand how a school would wish two home-school
agreements to differ.
Mr.
Coaker: The only reason I shrugged was because it is so
easy to say, I know there has been one example but can we have
some more? I would do the same in the hon. Gentlemans
place, and if he was in my place, he would have shrugged as
well.
Let me try to
explain. Imagine being a head teacher, or the person whom the head
teacher delegates to draw up a home-school agreement. Imagine a
home-school agreement that for most people would be a generic document
about the ethos of the school and the various other bits that my right
hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley talked about, alongside which is
the individual learning. The resident parent sees the child every day
of the weeksees them home from school, gets them off to school,
packs their lunch and is responsible for their uniform. Let us say that
the resident parent is the mother, while the father is 180 miles
awayI am exaggerating to make the point. The home-school
agreement drawn up for that father would be significantly different
because he might not see the child from one month to the next. However,
the important point is that we would still be trying to involve that
non-resident parent in the education of their son or daughter. I hope
that that practical example at least attempts to answer the question
that the hon. Member for Yeovil posed.
Mrs.
Ann Cryer (Keighley) (Lab): In all such cases a custody
order will have been made by a court. This might not work, but if there
is a dispute that the head teacher is unable to resolve, perhaps he
could ask for sight of the custody order to deal with the difficult
situation of one parent being 1,000 miles away yet insisting on the
same rights as the parent with custody.
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