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Lord Lucas: I do not know whether the noble Baroness intended to speak to Amendment No. 132A in this group. If she did, I should very much like to hear the Government's views on it.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right. I should have spoken to Amendment No. 132A. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, is not here and I have a brief from him. I thank the noble Lord for reminding me of that.
I shall speak briefly to Amendment No. 132A. The Special Education Consortium is concerned about the impact of schools giving priority in admission to children who show an aptitude for a particular subject. Although the Bill does not mention specialist schools, it provides the necessary framework and encouragement for other schools to join rank. The Government have set a target of 50 per cent for all secondary children being educated in specialist schools by the year 2005. Up to 10 per cent of admissions to those can be selected on the basis of ability or rather more speculatively by aptitude.
Research from both Ofsted and the Sheffield Hallam University indicates that specialist schools are not taking their fair share of pupils with special educational needs. Given the doubt that that research casts on selective admissions policies and practices, I should welcome an assurance of better things from the Minister. Specifically, I should welcome assurances that disabled children and pupils with special educational needs are not consigned to the non-specialist less favoured schools and that schools applying for specialist status will have to demonstrate high special educational needs standards, and to commit themselves to improving access and curriculum support for disabled children and pupils with special educational needs.
The new clause proposes a modest solution to the problem. It focuses on the information that schools will provide for parents. Schools would be required to publish in their information to parents what percentage of their intake they select and what percentage they do not select.
If the Minister wishes to offer assurances rather than legislation, I shall be glad to hear them. So far, the Minister has been able to give us warm assurances throughout the debate. However, I fear that such assurances may fall on deaf ears outside the House. Why will the Minister not offer assurances on the face of the Bill or promise them in regulations?
Lord Davies of Oldham: I am sure that the Committee is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for advancing the debate tonight and for reminding us that Amendment No. 132A is grouped with the amendments we are discussing. I am therefore grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for speaking to the amendment. Once again, we miss the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, who takes a keen interest in all these issues.
We want to make a parent's expression of preference for a school as meaningful as possible. I think that Members of the Committee would agree on the importance of giving parents sufficient information to ensure that they can make an informed preference for a school.
However, it is an obvious fact that no matter how much information is provided on how a previous year's places were allocated, that cannot be an accurate prediction of how places will be allocated the following year. It can only serve as an indicator. Local circumstances fluctuate and the number of children who gain admission because they fall into specified criteria—for example, siblings, worshippers in a particular parish or those living in a particular area—may vary greatly from one year to the next. I want to reassure the noble Baroness that 93 per cent of our specialist schools do not select for entry.
The current provisions under Section 92 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 already require the specific school to which this proposed new section applies to publish information about its admissions arrangements. In addition, the Education
(School Information) Regulations 1998, as amended, require local education authorities to publish composite prospectuses for their areas. These must include details of each school and its admissions policy, including how priority for places will be given to applicants if the school is oversubscribed.The prospectus must also give information on the number of places that were available the previous year and the number of applications made for them. Some authorities go further than that and already publish the information suggested by noble Lords today. Indeed, the department's Code of Practice on School Admissions encourages LEAs to publish other information about local admissions which they consider will be of interest to local parents.
Research conducted on behalf of the department by the Sheffield Hallam University and the Office of National Statistics found that, nationally, 96 per cent of children found places at a school with which their parents were happy. Although we are seeking to ensure that even more parental preferences are met, by strengthening the admissions framework, it is clear that the present requirements for provision of information are working for parents.
Both under existing legislation and the new provision proposed by the Bill, all admission authorities already are, and will continue to be, required to publish a significant amount of information which we believe assists parents in making informed choices for their children. I can see, as the noble Baroness indicated in her remarks, the warmth of commitment to the real interests that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, brings to his contribution on these issues with regard to admissions and the specific groups of children in which he takes such a keen interest. I want to emphasise once again that we are entirely with him in spirit in his objective, but we believe that we have in place the necessary structure which works to the satisfaction of the vast majority of parents. I do not believe, therefore, that Amendment No. 132A, in which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, also expressed a keen interest, is necessary. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness will consider withdrawing the amendment.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I thank the Minister for his reply. The key issue is that there is worry that these specialist schools are not at the moment taking their full share of those with special educational needs. This is clearly shown from the research undertaken by the Sheffield Hallam University. It is necessary that the Government monitor these things in order to ensure that these schools, which are offering, after all, specialist facilities which are supposedly open to the whole community, are fully serving the community and those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Lord Davies of Oldham: Perhaps I may intervene. Of course the noble Baroness is right. The research was commissioned by the department in order to inform us more fully about the provision. She is right that it was
undertaken to look at specific areas. We give the undertaking that we are looking at the findings very closely indeed in order to guide future action.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I am grateful to the Minister for giving us that undertaking. With that, and with his assurances—although I am not sure that they were assurances; rather, his acknowledgement that the procedures relating to information are perhaps somewhat over-bureaucratic—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.45 p.m.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 124:
- Page 17, line 28, at end insert—
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 133. The Bill substantially rewrites the existing arrangements for governing bodies. That affects not only the running and structure of schools, which we have discussed, but schools' special educational needs policies.
The exposition of the special educational needs policy of a particular school is given each year in the annual report. Although I argued earlier on behalf of the National Association of Head Teachers that an annual report may not always be necessary, from the point of view of parents with children with special educational needs or disabilities, it is often the one place where each year they have the necessary information written down and produced coherently. Equally, the annual parents meeting, while not always well attended, is the only occasion at which parents can discuss the school's general approach to matters such as special educational needs.
The amendment would require each school's governing body to comment to parents in its annual report on the effectiveness of its special educational needs policy in improving the educational standards of its special educational needs pupils and disabled children. It would provide parents with a method of tracking what is happening and would allay their fears that their children are not receiving the best possible education, whether they are in a mainstream, specialist or special school.
Amendment No. 133 would ensure that when schools operate jointly, they do so for the benefit of special educational needs pupils and disabled children. I do not want to detain the Committee for long with the amendments, because my concerns about the schemes are the same as with the issue of federation, which we discussed earlier. We do not object to the introduction of those innovative schemes, but there are fears that some proposals could act to the disadvantage of pupils with special educational needs or disabilities and that their needs may be forgotten. It is important both in the annual report and if there were
a federation—as is covered by Amendment No. 133—that there should be regular monitoring and reporting back to parents. I beg to move.
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