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"(g) the behaviour and discipline of pupils and levels of truancy in those schools."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 14 and 23, in England, and Amendment No. 49, in relation to Wales, will introduce a new category to the inspection regime on which the chief inspector would report and be expected to keep the Secretary of State informed; namely, on the behaviour and discipline of pupils and the levels of truancy in each school. Similar amendments were moved in Committee. However, we have returned with a slightly refined amendment which will incorporate the level of truancy in each school which Ofsted will be expected to report on and assess.
As was argued in Committee, in recent years we have seen a very real and genuine concern about the growing levels of indiscipline and classroom violence in our schools. Such a development is simply unacceptable. Pupils have the right to expect to be taught in an environment free from intimidation and fear, while teachers deserve the right to get on and do their crucial jobs without a similar threat. It is indeed one of the key worries consistently identified by teachers. It is one of the main reasons—along with red tape—why teachers leave the profession.
Furthermore, we know that school standards and behaviour in the classroom are closely linked. Children learn best in a safe, secure and structured environment. They cannot learn in classes where loutish behaviour and disrespect for others is the norm.
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In recent weeks we have seen further concern about the inability to contain the levels of truancy. The report published by the National Audit Office on 4 February concluded that truancy in England had not fallen despite numerous government schemes and that nearly £1 billion had been spent on attempting to redress the problem. The report concluded that the school truancy rate is exactly the same as in 1997: 0.7 per cent.
Truancy, as we all know, is linked to crime and general disorder. Clearly, it is a serious problem and one which governments have failed to address. It is hoped that by incorporating this new Ofsted category, we will at least be attempting to bring a better understanding and knowledge of the issue. Indeed, in establishing it as a category, it will be possible for parents to identify which of their local schools have concerns relating to particular problems of discipline and truancy and will allow the relevant education authorities to identify the schools that are particularly affected and to target resources more effectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, commented in Committee that he reckoned that discipline and truancy rated virtually as highly as academic standards when parents choose a school for their children. Clearly there is a need for such information to be assessed and made public if necessary. At present there is no category within the inspection regime that deals specifically with the concerns about school discipline and truancy. As concerns about the problem evolve, so must the inspection regime.
These are amendments that the vast majority of parents would support and welcome. I beg to move.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I rise to support the amendment. We on these Benches would like to be tough not just on bad behaviour and truancy but on the causes of bad behaviour and truancy. We believe that there are two major causes of bad behaviour. The one stems from situations within the school, but the other very often stems from situations outside the school.
On the latter, we have today tabled an amendment, which will be published tomorrow and your Lordships will see, about support, help and information for parents, which we believe is a terribly important factor in helping children to learn how to behave well and helping parents to teach them how to behave well and to reinforce the messages that they are getting from within the school.
But the first of those two causes is something that happens within the school. Very often, bad behaviour is an indicator that teachers do not have good classroom management skills and/or that the curriculum is not relevant and suitable and interesting to some of the children who then become bored and do badly. The inspectors should be inspecting both of those two things anyway. However, where schools identify that they have a problem with bad behaviour, it is important that they look carefully at what they are or are not doing themselves that causes the situation to arise, and that
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they then do something about it. We think it perfectly reasonable that the inspectors should hold schools to account for what they do in that respect.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. Bad behaviour and truancy have certainly been a problem during the 50 years or so that I have been involved with schools and juvenile courts. There does not seem to have been enough effort over a consistent period of time to deal with it sufficiently. We know that in schools some of the truant children tend to have parents with little belief in the value of schooling. Equally, it can be shown that where teachers and the school take a consistent attitude the schemes are beginning to have an effect—there are a number of examples in the National Audit Office report. What is worrying is the lack of any consistent pattern throughout schools, or throughout local education authorities. Sometimes a school complains that it does not get the backing of the local authority, and sometimes it is the other way round and due to the quality of the teachers.
The final paragraph of the executive summary of the National Audit Office indicates why it is essential that this should be on the face of the Bill. Being on the face of the Bill reaffirms the importance of a particular issue, even though, as the noble Lord will tell us, it is is happening already. The National Audit Office comments that Ofsted inspection teams have a unique insight into how schools are run, yet attendance plays a very small part in most inspections. We have a unique opportunity to put it on the face of the Bill, among the issues being considered by inspectors when they conduct their inspections. I hope we are not going to be put off by the fact that it is already covered and already happening. We know the Government have already taken a lot of steps, and the new Secretary of State for Education is clearly very concerned and firm about the things that have to be done. So why not reinforce the good work already undertaken by writing it into the Bill?
Lord Dearing: My Lords, I have no idea whether the Government will accept this amendment. If they do, so be it, but I have some comments.
I supported the proposal on self-evaluation by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, because it is new and central to the whole new approach to inspection. There is no track record and therefore it seemed to make sense to get it on the face of the Bill in Clause 2, not Clause 5. When we come to behaviour, we are not talking about something new. As has been said, it has been a problem for a long time and has not been getting any better. The issue is, specifically, do we need to tell the inspectors, "Hey! Behaviour: get into it", as opposed to other policies to deal with the issue?
I have said it before, but as far as the inspectors are concerned, since I think 1999—but over the past few years—there have been three special reports by the inspectorate on the issue of behaviour. It is dealt with in the annual reports. For example, the last report—
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which caught the national headlines—drew attention to the fact that there had been no improvement on that figure of around 10 per cent of schools where behaviour is not satisfactory, and pointed out that the percentage of schools that could be graded good or better in behaviour had fallen from about 75 per cent to two-thirds. Clearly, there is no need to tell the inspectors that this is important or that they need to look at it. They are indeed looking at it. The issue is not whether the inspectors are doing their job, but whether the policies are adequate to deal with the problem.
I have said before that if you are going to address the problem effectively it is through the teachers. I have been glad to see that the Government have inserted into the clause—is it Clause 72? I forget—that this is to be the specific job of the newly defined Teacher Training Agency, along with the moral, social and cultural—not physical—behavioural development of pupils. The Government have gone to where it really matters. As for policy, they are spending money—£250 million over the past three years, which is real money.
We also have the speech by the Secretary of State on 1 February in Blackpool. I cannot recall a Secretary of State devoting so much of a major speech to one issue, nailing her colours to the mast and acknowledging that there needs to be a new look at this problem:
So I am seeing a realisation by a Secretary of State that there is a major issue, that we have not got it right yet. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, spoke some time ago about the findings by Professor Elliott, then of Newcastle University, that, by world standards, our standards of behaviour in schools are not good enough. I will not say exactly what he said because he may have gone a touch too far in relation to the evidence.
If the Government want to accept the amendment, fine. However, I do not think it is the issue. The inspectorate are doing the business.
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