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Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 112:


The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments No. 134.

The Bill introduces two new, innovative and powerful ways in which schools can work together; namely, through federation and the joint discharge of functions. Local government will wish to support schools as they develop new ways of working. The amendments will ensure that before schools develop those new structures, they will have the advice and support of an LEA.

Amendment No. 112 requires any school that intends to federate to receive the consent of the LEA. It is necessary, given the financial, legal and administrative issues involved in federation, for the LEA to be involved and supportive from the earliest possible opportunity.

Amendment No. 134 would ensure that the LEA was consulted before two governing bodies arranged to discharge any function jointly when they do not wish to federate. The purpose of the clause is to encourage joint working when government bodies do not wish to federate. The amendment provides a safeguard for local communities and community interests—that governing bodies that wish jointly to discharge functions can do so only after consultation with the local authority. The amendment will also help local authorities to encourage schools jointly to discharge functions when individually they might not be keen to do so. That could assist local authorities to raise standards because a strong governing body would be encouraged to work with a weaker one in specific circumstances. In practice, joint working and partnership has always been seen as being beneficial to both parties because even the weakest corporate body has some strengths from which lessons can be learnt.

As we said in relation to other amendments dealing with this issue, it is crucially important for the LEA to be able to assess the impact on other provisions, so as not to distort existing provisions or enhance one or two schools to the detriment of others in the authority. I shall not repeat the arguments about LEA involvement—they were well rehearsed in a previous sitting. I beg to move.

Baroness Blatch: I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 113 and 114, which are included within this

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group. I have reservations about the federations. The Minister has not yet given us examples of things that schools can do together under one governing body without the whole panoply of these clauses and rafts of regulations necessarily being imposed on them.

I am reminded of something that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said earlier, which raised alarm bells for me. That was the description of the pre-Taylor governing bodies. Large swathes of the country, in particular in county areas, had one governing body. Under those bodies, some schools were very successful, some performed indifferently and some failed badly. But, somehow or other, those situations were allowed to go unattended and unaddressed because the governing bodies simply were not geared to representing the interests of each school. The implementation of the Taylor report brought about great change, and schools gained their own governing bodies.

Having said that, some Members of the Committee will know that we fought very hard for two small Church schools—one primary and one junior—on one site to have a single governing body. However, that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the pre-Taylor days when large swathes of schools were represented by one governing body. I hope that that experience will be in the back of people's minds when these federations are formed.

Secondly, the federation idea is not new. Again, I refer to my experience in Cambridgeshire. The noble Baroness will know the area that I am talking about—the Newmarket area. In those days, there was a great deal of concern about very small schools. We put together three small schools whose total number of pupils, I believe, was fewer than 50—that is, for all three.

We believed that that was the answer to a prayer. Rather than close the schools, the children would stay put and the teachers would move around the federation. It did not quite end in tears but it failed as an experiment due to the logistics of coping in a country area with different schools and with the same teachers running around them. It is true that the schools had more teachers and that the system extended choice to the children. But, ultimately, it did not work. Eventually the schools closed and the children were amalgamated into a single school.

We should not underestimate some of the difficulties that can arise in relation to federations. It may make sense for two or more schools to come together for a particular project—perhaps a building or educational project, or perhaps to provide economies of scale and further liberate capacity. I see no inhibitions in relation to that happening at present.

However, we are talking about something very different here. The notion of federations, as incorporated within these clauses, is that schools would come together for everything that they do. A single governing body would manage all the schools within the federation. There would be no limit on the number or type of schools. I believe that we should think very carefully about whether that would work.

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I know that the noble Baroness will probably say, "But this is not an imposition. These are permissive clauses. Schools can opt, if they wish, to become federated. They will not be compelled to do so". I accept that, but I worry about the detail. As always, the devil will be in the detail, and we shall not see the detail until these dreaded sets of regulations, governing how the whole system will work, are produced.

Amendment No. 113 seeks to deal with a concern that I have at the back of my mind about the use of federation as a mechanism for doing other things. Coming together collaboratively is one thing, but it is possible that, as it pools its sovereignty, if I may use that word, a school will also lose some of its distinctive character.

Therefore, the amendment states that the action of becoming a part of a federation should not be used to change the nature or character of a school. I cite, for example, religious schools, single sex schools, co-educational schools and the legal status of a school—that is, foundation, voluntary-aided, community or academy. Having read the clauses in the Bill, I am not sure whether under a federation a school would be an academy, a nursery school, a Church of England voluntary-aided school or a Catholic voluntary-controlled school. Would it continue to enjoy that status and would that status be in any way compromised by the act of becoming part of the federation?

In relation to single sex schools, of which there are not too many, there is now a great deal of evidence to show that teaching boys and girls separately at certain stages and for certain subjects in the curriculum is educationally beneficial. I know of an experiment in Essex—it is probably now past being an experiment—in which the headmaster of a single school—not a single sex school—decided to separate the boys and girls and teach them separately. So far as I know, that worked extremely well. I believe that it is important to protect the distinctive character of schools.

It is possible that a governing body will wish to compromise its own character voluntarily. It may wish to relinquish the distinctive ethos of a school. If that is permitted under these clauses, I should like to build into the legislation some form of protection for the parents and children of a school in order to ensure that it would not happen without a procedure being in place.

Amendment No. 114, again, seeks to ensure that a single governing body—I am talking now in terms of the Government getting their way and of these clauses remaining in the Bill—includes parents and teachers from each of the constituent schools. Whether it is a specialist school, a nursery school, a religious school or a school that is co-educational or single sex, the distinctive ethos of each school should be represented on the single governing body.

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These are important points. They seek to ensure that important safeguards are put in place. I look to the Minister for a number of reassurances and, ultimately, I shall look for those reassurances on the face of the Bill.

The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 116, which stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, who has an engagement in Lancashire today and cannot be here.

On these Benches, we were quite excited about the possibility of federation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, has just said, it is not a new idea. We were excited until the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, spoke about the pre-Taylor days.

I am reminded that, when I was married, my wife was the head teacher of a large infants school. I was diocesan director of education for the diocese of Durham. In the early days my wife was very surprised that I kept going out to attend governing body meetings at different schools. In the borough of Sunderland the education committee was the governing body of all the schools in that authority. My wife simply submitted a report now and again. I do not consider that that was a true governing body, and I hope that that is not in the Government's mind.

I believe that the idea of federation is to be welcomed because, in some senses, it is visionary. In some circumstances it may serve to meet the concerns that some people have about faith schools and the separation which they believe such schools should have. I do not have those concerns but some people have them. However, that will only come about if each school is allowed to make its contribution in terms of variety and diversity of approach.

As an example of that, today is Ascension Day. I was determined to get that into this debate somehow as I have to spend my time here when the rest of Church House is having a holiday. I hope that it might be possible for some schools to have a holiday on this day. However, that is a very simple illustration. It seems to me that the proposal is a sensible way forward provided that there is, as I said, a contribution from all the schools.

Real issues have been raised, and I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, has illustrated some of them. I do not want to look at the matter in a negative way; I prefer to turn it on its head and look at it in a more positive manner. But the concerns are there.

For us, perhaps the most important concerns would be twofold: the constitution of the governing body of such a federation, the number of governors to be appointed by the foundation or the Church and the powers that they would exercise; and the safeguards in the appointment of a head of a particular ethos of a Church of England school within the federation. I know that the Roman Catholic Church shares those views and does not believe that the Bill as drafted is sufficiently robust in providing the protection as would be the contribution we want to make.

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In a federation of three schools, for example, one of which is a Church or other religious voluntary-aided school, the Church or other religion should be able to appoint sufficient governors to the federating governing body to allow for the preservation of the religious character of the school concerned. I turn to the key aspects of the ethos of the school. "Ethos" is not a word I like. I spent a good deal of my time interviewing head teachers yesteryear. When asking, "What is distinctive about a Church school?", one would always receive the lovely answer, "It's the ethos, Cannon Chesters". Then one would go on, as I know the noble Lord, Lord Peston, would, to say, "Would you please tell me what that ethos is and what it means?" It includes such aspects as the practice of collective worship and the syllabus for religious education. Those should be matters for the Church-appointed foundation governors and not, perhaps, for the whole governing body. They are to do with the distinctive contribution of a particular school or schools. Likewise, the governors in question should have the responsibility of engaging in the appointment of a head and other members of the leadership team.

Further, if the federation has one head and one leadership team for several schools, some of which are voluntary-aided schools, Church schools or other faith schools, there will need to be legislation about how that head is appointed and how that leadership team is constituted so as to preserve the contribution—the religious character, or whatever it is—of such schools in the federation and vice versa. We do not want to see those federations as a takeover. That works both ways. Given the popularity of voluntary-aided schools at present, we could well see a federation going that way. I have nothing to fear. I am not paranoiac about this, nor are these Benches. However, we believe that if we are to have federation, each school should contribute. As a Church, we have a fair amount of experience of federating parishes within various groupings and schemes, which has proved beneficial both in urban and rural areas.

My amendment seeks to require the consent of the appropriate diocesan authorities before such a federation can go ahead. The schools to which I refer in my amendment are part of a family of schools. They do not exist on their own and, in the case of the Roman Catholic schools, belong to the diocese or to the bishop. I am not entirely sure about the ecclesiology of the Roman Catholic Church, but I believe that that is right. In our case, we want to work within a family and to co-operate and collaborate together. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, is right; we do not want a maverick group of governors to sell the birthright that others have gained by getting rid of what the foundation stands for. I do not believe that the federation is about that.

Those are my reasons for probing the Minister with the amendment. I am an optimistic person. Surely, she will want to give me something on Ascension day. I am not too hopeful, but we shall see. I shall listen carefully to what the noble Baroness has to say and perhaps return to this on Report if I am not satisfied.

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7 p.m.

Baroness Blatch: A question that occurred to me while the right reverend Prelate was speaking about enthusiasm for federations concerns the constitutional position of the diocese. Certainly from my experience, standing in the shoes of the Minister, some dioceses have a strong and, in some cases, even dominant relationship with a school. Sometimes the school acquiesces in the face of that and sometimes there is a tension between the diocese and the school. It occurred to me that as well as schools federating with other schools and other partners, there is the constitutional position of the diocese. I wonder what the right reverend Prelate has to say about that.


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