Jacqui
Smith: Proportionality and focus, which I promised to come
to shortly, are not what the amendments imply. Instead, they imply that
there would be quite a large number of schools without any school
improvement partner. There may well be highly performing schools in
which certain groups of pupils are under-achieving, and support in
identifying and addressing that problem will be important for such
schools. Of those secondary pupils who are in the lower two quartiles
with respect to added value, some 39 per cent. go to schools that are
in the top two quartiles. We would let down many thousands of
under-achieving pupils if we did not extend the SIP function to their
schools. There are
measures elsewhere in the Bill—in clause 47(3), for
example—relating to schools that are a cause for concern, and we
have defined what should constitute low-performing schools in both
relative and absolute terms. So there is a valuable function for SIPs
in all schools which must be carefully focused on the issues and
challenges faced by every school. We shall look in more detail at
particular types of intervention for underperforming, coasting and
failing schools when we reach the relevant part of the
Bill. Mr.
James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I am listening to what
the right hon. Lady says with some sympathy. What role does she
envisage for parents getting in touch with SIPs when they see the
problems
that she has described—when the school is coasting or when some
groups of pupils are not doing as well as they could
be?
Jacqui
Smith: I am not sure that there is a direct role for the
school improvement partner with respect to parents, although it is part
of the SIP’s role to make a report to the governing body about
the head teacher’s performance. We shall discuss later both the
ability of parents to make a complaint to Ofsted when they have
concerns about standards, and the requirement for more communication
with parents about the progress of their individual children, so that
parents may have an impact on overall standards and on their own
child’s
achievements. The
pupil attainment data, which are now much richer than previously in
relation to the achievements of individual children, and are available
to the school and the SIP, will enable analysis to take place, together
with a focus on actions to address specific issues and challenges. They
will ensure that schools make the best use of the additional resources
that we are making available for greater personalisation of
learning. The
introduction of SIPs to all schools is also about learning from others
and sharing good practice. Each SIP will be allocated to a number of
schools—maybe even in a number of different local authorities.
That will provide an important opportunity for good practice in
better-performing schools to be captured and shared in the
system. I said that I
was sympathetic to the point on proportionality. I would not expect SIP
interactions with schools to be uniform. Our policy is that each SIP
should spend five days a year in their relationship with the
school—approximately three days in the school and about two
outside the school in preparation—but that is an average for all
schools. There is sufficient flexibility in the system to allow the
days allocated to each school to reflect the needs of the school, and
that allocation will not be dictated by my Department. Local
authorities will appoint SIPs and allocate them to schools to reflect
local context and priorities.
I hope that Opposition Members
will feel both convinced by the arguments of the benefits of every
school having a SIP and reassured that I acceptthat the
scheme will need to be managed proportionately—as we have
described it, inversely proportionate to success—and to focus on
making the biggest possible difference not just to schools but to
individual
pupils. 10.45
am
Mr.
Gibb: The Minister is making an interesting point and
concession. Will she be a little more expansive and tell us what the
range of days will be? She said that five days will be the average, but
how will the range of time reflect the degree of necessity for a SIP in
a particular school? Will it be from three days to 10 days, with 10
days being for a school severely in need of advice, or does she not yet
have a feel for the range of days that will be
recommended?
Jacqui
Smith: I was careful to say that the use of SIPs will not
be dictated by the Department; it will be for the local authority to
determine the deployment of SIPs and to allocate them to schools
depending on their priorities. There will of course be different needs
for SIP contracts depending on what point a SIP is at in their
relationship with the school. At the beginning, we would expect some
familiarisation visits, but later perhaps just a quarter or half a day
a term would be needed to keep up to date with progress and ensure that
the support and challenge offered by the SIP role continued to be
available to the
school. Annette
Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I refer back to
an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East concerning
academies. Will the Minister confirm that every academy will have a
school improvement partner? Who will pay for the SIP for an
academy?
Jacqui
Smith: As I made clear when we discussed this point, the
maintaining authority, which is the Department in the case of an
academy, will ensure that academies have school improvement partners.
The two academies in areas covered by the first wave of roll-out of
SIPs will have SIPs provided for them and funded by the
Department. Amendment
No. 19 proposes that school improvement partners be replaced every two
years. I share the concern, expressed by the hon. Member for Bognor
Regis and Littlehampton, and implicit in the amendment and in amendment
No. 20, that SIPs need to take seriously their role in securing school
improvement. Our policy is that accreditation should be reserved for
SIPs who are effective. The amendment would put in the Bill detailed
requirements that would be inflexible and undesirable, and therefore
unsuitable for primary
legislation. I shall
outline the two ways in which a SIP’s appointment or allocation
to a school could change. The first relates to local accountability for
school improvement. The SIP’s role will not alter the statutory
responsibilities of a local authority, which will continue to be
responsible for standards and levels of attainment in schools. The SIP
will work to support that accountability under contract to the
school’s maintaining authority and regularly reporting to it.
Authorities will need to manage effectively the SIPs who work with
their schools, and they will use a range of approaches to that task
according to their circumstances and needs. Those approaches will
include feedback from schools on such aspects as effectiveness in
providing challenge and support, advising the governors and working
with the head teacher. Authorities will seek evidence on the impact
that advice from the SIP is having on a school’s performance.
The discontinuance of a SIP’s deployment to a school could be
one of the available management actions if it was clear that the
relationship was not having the desired
impact. Secondly,
there will be robust national quality assurance to secure high-quality
school improvement partners, and engagement with that quality assurance
could be one of the requirements under the regulations to which
subsection (3) refers. The procedurefor maintaining or
withdrawing an individual’s
accreditation is a key element of the measures to secure high-quality
challenge and support for schools. The continuing accreditation of SIPs
will depend on the quality of their performance and on their
participation in continuing professional development once they have
been accredited. It
might help the Committee if I outline briefly what is involved in the
accreditation of a school improvement partner. The current process is
run by the National College for School Leadership. Individuals with
headship experience or who are link advisors in a local authority can
apply to become a SIP. The college takes up two references for
applicants who meet the person specification published in the SIP
brief. There is then a two-stage process that includes an online
assessment of an individual’s ability to interpret a range of
school data and use them to identify improvement priorities. That is
followed by two days of residential training and face-to-face
assessment that not only builds on the use and interpretation of data,
but, importantly, tests individuals’ ability to work effectively
with a school to effect
change. In light of
all of the relevant available information, a person’s
accreditation can be removed if their conduct or competence is
unsatisfactory. As I suggested, lack of progress in the school with
which they work could be an indication of lack of competence. Concerns
about a SIP could come from a school, a local authority or a regional
co-ordinator of SIPs. After concerns have been expressed there is a
fair and transparent process that leads to a decision on whether to
remove accreditation, which would be taken by a board made up of
representatives of the National College for School Leadership, of
national strategies and of the
Department. I hope
that that reassures the hon. Gentleman that procedures for quality
assurance, accreditation, and in fact the ability to remove that
accreditation where a SIP is clearly failing, are already in place and
will play an important part in maintaining that quality assurance. In
addition to those measures, our policy on the allocation of school
improvement partners includes a requirement on local authorities not to
allocate a partner to the same school for more than three
years. In such
circumstances it is neither the role of Government nor that of primary
legislation to manage education professionals directly. However, I hope
that hon. Members are reassured that we recognise, for example, the
possibility that a relationship between a SIP and a school might become
too cosy. Provision for that has been built into the
process. Amendment No.
20 would add a requirement onthe Government to publish our
policies on the appointment of school improvement partners. I am not
unsympathetic to the objectives of the amendment, but I do not think
that that needs to be in the Bill because policies related to the
appointment of SIPs are published already by the Department, or on its
behalf. We intend to continue to do that, which will include publishing
the eligibility criteria and person specification for becoming an
accredited SIP. The condition of grant letter, which we send as part of
our arrangements for funding local authorities in order that they can
introduce and administer SIPs, includes
the main policies in relation to their appointment, such as the
proportion that we expect to be head teachers. Furthermore, there are
requirements for information collecting and sharing, and obligations on
SIPs to participate in continuing professional development. I am more
than happy to send to members of the Committee a copy of the school
improvement partner brief to which I have referred. It identifies many
of the issues that I have
mentioned. Finally, we
have issued to the Committee already a policy statement on the
regulation-making powers in the clause which sets out examples of
policies that we may want to include in regulations if the need arises.
Of course, I am happy to provide further clarification in Committee. On
the basis of my arguments, I hope that Opposition Members are reassured
that we have developed a proportional yet sufficiently challenging role
for SIPs. They will have a new relationship with schools that will
remove bureaucracy and clutter and maintain the challenge and support
necessary to be confident that all children, whatever school they are
in, are given the support and ability to progress and fulfil their
potential. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for South Holland
and The Deepings will withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Hayes: It is good to be back after Easter and to welcome
you to the Chair once again, Mr. Chope, buoyed, no doubt, by a healthy
intake of buns and eggs and inspired by the risen Christ.
In that spirit I note the
Minister’s generosity in acknowledging that she sees sense in
some of the amendments. She is absolutely right to stress the
importance of the criteria by which school improvement partners will be
appointed, assessed and removed if they are not up to the job. I
acknowledge her acceptance of arguments advanced by my hon. Friend the
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton about the importance of
ensuring that the very best people do the job, that there are proper
mechanisms to ensure that they are not coasting and that they can be
replaced as and when necessary.
The Minister was less
convincing on the numbers of people who will be fit for that purpose.
In her appreciation of these matters there seemed to be a slightly
complacent view that such people will emerge from the ether and be
readily available, well equipped and entirely appropriate to perform
the demanding role that she rightly identified. I will not reprise the
very good debate that we had before Easter, but I am less certain about
that and, given the scarcity of those resources, I am convinced that
school improvement partners should be prioritised where they can make
the most difference, not only in underperforming schools—we all
acknowledge that that is where real effort needs to be made—but
in coasting schools.
I made it clear in my
intervention that I understand and support the Minister’s
argument that there is room for improvement in every school. It would
be a very bold governing body or head teacher who said that they could
not improve their school. As we know from constituency and broader
experience, some aspects could be improved even in the best schools,
but that is not where we should prioritise scarce resources. Based on
the good analysis that can now be made because of
value-added measurement, resources can and should be focused on schools
that are palpably coasting and those that are desperately
underperforming. The argument for the amendments is based not on
principle but on practice; it is about the bread and butter issue of
how many people will be found who are up to the job and how their
skills should be used to best effect. I shall draw on one or two bits
of evidence to support my argument because the Committee, in its usual
demanding fashion, will want more than my rhetoric when deciding
whether to support Conservative Members in accepting amendment No. 14.
The trial of the school improvement partners goes back some way. As the
Minister said, the context for it is the “new relationship with
schools” scheme. The trial that took place in 93 schools in
eight local authorities between September 2004 and July 2005 is of
concern to all members of the Committee in judging this aspect of the
Bill. It is true that
the overwhelming majority of schools were positive about SIPs, but a
significant number of head teachers—nearly 40 per
cent.—said that the scheme increased bureaucracy and made life
more difficult. There were also profound concerns that there would be
difficulty in recruiting heads with appropriate training, which relates
to my earlier argument. Indeed, the National Association of Education
Inspectors, Advisers and Consultants went further and warned that SIPs
could become a second Ofsted. In other words, by applying them as
broadly as the Minister wishes, she may be increasing bureaucracy even
though it is hard to defend that on the basis of proven
needas it might well be said to do in respect of
underperforming or coasting
schools. 11
am Recruiting
school improvement partners is not plain sailing. There are real
worries about getting the right people. Under another group of
amendments, we shall debate who SIPs should be. Opposition Members are
committed to ensuring that they are of the highest possible
quality—a view the Minister shares, I think. It does not make
good, practical common sense not to allocate the best people to where
they can make the most difference. For that reason, I shall invite the
Committee to vote on amendment No. 14—the amendment that I moved
just before Easter. Although the Minister has moved some way towards
our position on such matters and, in the spirit of Easter, has adopted
a generous tone in her response to my comments and those of my hon.
Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, she is not right
about where and how we should introduce such an important feature of
the Bill. Question
put, That the amendment be
made:— The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
15.
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