Clause
17Alterations
that may be made under section
18
Sarah
Teather: I beg to move amendment No. 353, in clause 17,
page 12, line 23, at end
insert— ‘(2A) Regulations
must provide that alterations falling within subsection (2)(b) may be
implemented only if the conditions in section [Conditions for new
foundations] are
satisfied.'.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: amendment No. 354, in clause 18, page 13, line 5, at end
insert— ‘(1A) But proposals
for a prescribed alteration involving the acquisition by a foundation
or foundation special school of a foundation established otherwise than
under SSFA 1998 may be published only if the conditions in section
[Conditions for new foundations] are
satisfied.'. New
clause 6—Conditions for new
foundations— ‘(1) A new
foundation may not be established unless it contains
either— (a) at least two
secondary schools within six miles of each other,
or (b) at least two primary
schools within six miles of each
other. (2) A new foundation
falling within subsection (1)(a) may also include one or more nursery
schools, primary schools, further education colleges, Academies, City
Technology Colleges, city colleges for the technology of the arts, and
other such other educational establishments and training providers
within the local area. (3) A
new foundation falling within subsection (1)(b) may also include one or
more nursery schools, secondary schools, further education colleges,
Academies, City Technology Colleges, city colleges for the technology
of the arts, and other such other educational establishments and
training providers within the local
area. (4) A new foundation
falling within subsection (1) shall be known as a “community
learning trust”.'.
Sarah
Teather: The amendments are paving amendments for new
clause 6, which we have tabled to explore further the model that the
Government have in mind for trust schools, and to offer a particular
model based on collaboration. Elements of our concerns and our reasons
for tabling the amendments have been picked up in the guidance and the
helpful document that was circulated at the end of this
morning’s sitting. However, there are other elements that we
want to probe further, and we would like to place on record why we
favour a more collaborative model.
Let me first place the issue in
context. As we have said in Committee and on the Floor of the House, we
are not opposed in principle to external partners being involved in
education provision. However, we have sought to put on record, both
here and elsewhere, details of the safeguards governing the types of
organisation that would be involved. We have also said that we would
not want an external partner to usurp the direct accountability that
parents currently enjoy through the governing body. We will discuss
some of those issues shortly when we come to the amendments in the name
of the hon. Member for Bury, North. We are also unhappy about giving
schools greater freedom on admissions, although we are happy to give
them greater financial freedom and would like all schools to have
greater freedom in dealing with the curriculum, as academies currently
do. Critically, any
model should include collaboration, and that is why we tabled the
amendments. On page 4 of the document that was circulated at the end of
our morning sitting, the Government make provision for a group of local
schools to work with a trust, and that touches on many of the issues
that we are raising, but we would like to broaden that provision. It is
important that a trust involves collaboration between schools or
between schools and colleges or other providers. In that way, the trust
will be embedded in the local community, rather than just being part of
a national chain, in which case its concerns and objectives might
relate more to the national brand and the national profile than to what
was good for the local community.
The model that we propose would
have the benefit of preventing cherry-picking. It would prevent trusts
from coming into an area and picking off the good schools, rather than
working to benefit all the schools in the
area.
Mr.
Gibb: Does that mean that the Liberals oppose the very
good work of the Mercers’ Company, which has a range of schools,
and which would benefit very much from being able to establish further
schools under its brand nationwide? The schools in the Mercers’
Company family that I have visited are fantastic and include the Thomas
Telford school, which is the best comprehensive school in
Britain.
Sarah
Teather: What I am saying is that we particularly favour a
model of collaboration. Certain people—the hon. Gentleman has
alluded to one example—have a track record of involvement in
education, and that would be a different matter. We are concerned about
particular trusts coming into an area, picking off the best schools and
moving across boroughs, rather than working in collaboration for the
benefit of all schools in the area. Given the focus on league tables
and exam results, there is a danger that chains of schools will have an
incentive to become elitist and to use their freedom on admissions to
exclude difficult or under-achieving pupils.
If trusts are to be involved in
several schools, that implies that there will be a much greater
commitment to the local area. As outlined in the guidance that the
Minister circulated, such trusts could be made up of several partners.
The vision that we have laid out would allow organisations other than
just schools to be
involved in forming partnerships. For example, external partners such as
youth services providing child care or youth, social or family support
could link with learning providers. There could also be links with FE
colleges, as we discussed at considerable length during this
morning’s sitting. The key point about
collaboration is that it would ensure that the trust model provided
greater diversity in the curriculum and greater choice for young
people. The benefits would include the ability to share teaching
expertise, which will be vital if we are to work towards providing for
Tomlinson or even just the rather limited version of diplomas that are
offered in the Bill.
Mr.
Hayes: The model that the hon. Lady
outlinesis interesting. Would she include in it private organisations
that might play a role in management or education provision
itself?
5.30
pm
Sarah
Teather: Another possibility could be work-based learning
providers that were private companies. That is precisely the kind of
vision that we are trying to draw out. The point is that a trust would
be based in a local area, rather than spread throughout the country,
with favoured schools being cherry-picked. Our proposal would provide
for a model of integrated learning involving further education
colleges, work-based learning providers and any other expertise that
could be offered in an area. It would allow schools, particularly
disadvantaged ones, to overcome, for example, shortages of specialist
teachers in subjects such as science, maths and
languages. It
is notable that the shortage of specialist teachers occurs particularly
in disadvantaged areas. Let usconsider the statistics. Only
about 4 per cent. of teachers throughout the country lack specialist
status, but in many central London boroughs the figure can be as high
as 15 or 16 per cent., so the disparity is huge. It might be
interesting to consider our model for those
areas. Such
collaborations may happen already. However, we are concerned about the
rhetoric behind theBill. Admittedly, we have not heard that
rhetoric in Committee, where this Minister is leading on the Bill, but
there has been rhetoric from No. 10 about picking off different
schools—about schools operating inisolation in a
competitive model. Our concern is that there will be a disincentive to
the kind of collaborations that can happen already and that some of the
good collaborations that have happened in many areas and that are
helping to drive up standards will be
broken. Our model would
strengthen the collaborations that can already happen, but they would
happen in the context of the safeguards that we dealt with in relation
to earlier clauses and that we will come to in the next string of
amendments.
Mr.
Gibb: Let us be clear about what the new clause would do.
It states: “A
new foundation may not be established unless it contains
either...at least two secondary schools within six miles of each
other, or...at least two primary schools within six miles of each
other.”
This proposal is another example of the
position that the Liberal party has adopted on the Bill, which is deep
hostility. That position is as mistaken as the position that the
Liberal party took on the Iraqi war—a position that Lord
Ashdown, its former leader, also believes was a
mistake. The new clause
would completely destroy the central tenet of the Bill, which is trust
schools. It would confine the establishment of such schools to the
situation of a local federation and it would restrict foundations to
controlling groups of schools in a local area. It would rule out two
possibilities. First, it would rule out the possibility of a national
educational organisation trying to set up a nationwide chain of
schools, as the hon. Lady admitted. That would rule out companies such
as the Mercers’ Company, a City of London guild, which has a
fantastic track record in the provision of education in this country.
When the hon. Lady is out of Committee and has time to go to the Thomas
Telford school, as I did just before the Committee started, she will
see an example of how education in this country should be run. That
school provides all the vocational education that she and her
colleagues have talked about, but it also has very high standards of
academic
education.
Mr.
Chaytor: It is unclear why the hon. Gentleman argues that
the proposal would prevent trusts with a national reputation from
building a national chain of schools. The new clause proposed by the
hon. Member for Brent, East simply says that they should build
federations of schools. A federation is at least two schools. There
would be nothing to prevent an organisation that wished to build a
network nationally from doing so, but it would be building a network of
federations rather than individual schools. According to the arguments
that the hon. Lady has
put—
The
Chairman: Order. That is long enough for an
intervention.
Mr.
Gibb: First, the hon. Lady explicitly ruled out such
national organisations in her remarks. Secondly, the new clause
explicitly
says: “A new
foundation may not be established unless it contains either...at
least two secondary schools within six miles of each
other” and so on. A
particular company may well not have two schools, or may not want to
have two schools, within six miles of each other. The schools may be
spread nationally—throughout the country. However many it had
then, it would fall foul of the amendment. That would prevent the
establishment of such branding-type organisations, although they would
be an effective way to inject innovation and high standards into the
education system. That is a basic element of the Bill, which is why it
will be effective when it reaches the statute
book.
Mr.
Hayes: Will my hon. Friend make it absolutely clear that
it is perverse to suggest that the Mercersor the
Leathersellers—another guild involved in education—could
be competent and proper people to establish two schools but not one?
Perhaps my hon.
Friend will explore why people say it. Might it be a slightly
disingenuous policy on the part of the Liberal Democrats and
others?
Mr.
Gibb: My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I had not
mentioned: there is a requirement in the new clause for two schools,
which would rule out foundation status for individual schools. That
would be a huge disappointment. It would also rule out the possibility
of individual schools acquiring a bespoke trust design to meet their
specific needs. The amendments would hinder the main objective of the
Bill, which is to raise the quality of education available to
children.
Annette
Brooke: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the thrust
of the amendment is to promote collaboration rather than competition?
Cannot collaboration raise standards
effectively?
Mr.
Gibb: I am in favour of collaboration, and other
provisions in the Bill encourage it. We debated earlier a clause
imported from previous legislation that is all about federations of
schools—clause 11. However, I understood from the remarks of the
hon. Member for Brent, East that the new clause specifically rules out
the Mercers’ Company approach to education, which is, I think, a
basic principle of the Bill. I think that that will be very successful
when it is up and running in the years ahead. I rest my case there, and
urge the Liberal Democrats to withdraw their amendment; if they do not,
I urge hon. Members to vote against the new
clause.
Greg
Mulholland (Leeds, North-West) (LD): I find some of the
hon. Gentleman’s comments a little extraordinary. His tangential
remarks about the Iraq war were more to be expected from the hon.
Member for South Holland and The Deepings; perhaps some influence is
being exerted. We are clear that the amendments and new clause are
setting a challenge to us all. We consider that there is not sufficient
collaboration at this stage and that competition will prevent
collaboration. We also feel that the foundation idea does not involve
enough in the way of local connection. That is what we are trying to
explore. I look forward to the Minister’s
comments. Part of our
reason for tabling the amendments and new clause relates to the
academies that we have discussed already. Academies are supposed to
replace failing schools. The Government insist that the sponsors
involved in academies are philanthropic. However, the Committee has
agreed, from the evidence of the handful that are up and running so
far, that admissions and exclusion policies are being used to weed out
the more difficult, ill-disciplined and hard-to-teach
children. With the
educational climate as it is, focusing on exam results, league tables,
Ofsted reports and nationwide comparisons, it is natural that those who
run schools will focus on improving their standing in those areas on
which they are publicly judged. The key point is that, by contrast to
what applies to academies, trust sponsors are not even obliged to
sponsor a failing or coasting school. Where is the incentive to get
involved with a school that is failing? For those reasons we believe
that there should be collaboration, and in the community learning trust
model, with groups of schools, the problem is
avoided. At the moment,
we rely on the good will of those setting up foundations. Surely it is
better to have some safeguards to protect against such cherry-picking.
The Secretary of State said on Second
Reading: “The
Bill will help us to raise standards in our schools, especially the
under-performing schools in our most challenging
communities.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2006; Vol.
443,c. 1474.] That is
unlikely to happen if foundations are able to cherry-pick the best
schools with which to work. That would merely solidify a two-tier
system, with foundation schools at the top and LEA community schools at
the bottom. A further
potential problem is one that we have seen with academies, which is
that an LEA has a vested interest not in a particular school but in
promoting the achievements of all schools in its area, whereas a trust,
even one set up in a poorly performing school, may be tempted to
improve its results at the expense of other schools in the area by
cherry-picking
pupils. Why are we so
afraid of federation and collaboration? As my hon. Friend the Member
for Brent, East said, sharing teaching expertise wouldhelp
failing schools. We could also share school management. In my
constituency, the excellently performing school Prince Henry’s
grammar school, a comprehensive school, has lent its head teacher to a
famous school in Bradford, yet the school’s leadership remains
excellent. Both schools have therefore benefited. There is a shortage
of head teachers, so why not use that model of
collaboration?
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