HC Deb 28 February 1996 vol 272 cc797-818

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Burns.]

9.34 am
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury)

I am grateful for this opportunity to introduce a debate on the annual report of Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools.

There is no more an important task for policy makers and education professionals than to drive up the standards of education enjoyed by our children. It is both a moral and a practical challenge: moral, because it is plain wrong that a child who gets only one chance of education should not be stretched and tested to the limits of his or her God-given talents, and practical, because in the 21st century our children will need a better grasp of language, number and scientific principle than ever before if they as individuals or our country as a nation are to prosper.

I welcome Mr. Woodhead's report and the 4,250 individual inspections on which its conclusions are based. The creation of the Office for Standards in Education and the introduction of a programme of regular school inspections increasingly appears to be one of the most important of the Government's many education reforms. Before the reforms, the average primary school could expect to be inspected roughly once every 200 years. Now each school can expect to be inspected roughly ever four years. I applaud the vigour and independence of spirit with which Mr. Woodhead and his team approached their responsibilities.

I draw the attention of the House to the fact that the chief inspector finds much to praise about British schools. There is a long list of outstanding schools in all parts of the country.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)

Does my hon. Friend accept that we in Lancaster have been exceedingly fortunate—as opposed to Lancashire, which is unfortunate—in that we struggled and kept our grammar schools? The result is that our primary schools never went what I would call mushy. They all had to aim at the 11-plus, and they were all good. One school—a village school—had 12 applicants for the 11-plus, of whom 11 passed and one was educationally sub-normal. That is probably one of the reasons why we have had such excellent results from school inspections in my constituency.

Mr. Lidington

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who, as always, is a doughty exponent of the virtues of Lancaster. As I come from a Buckinghamshire constituency, I very much share her views on selection, and am grateful that Conservative-controlled Buckinghamshire county council was able to fight successfully against the efforts of the noble Baroness Williams to impose comprehensive education on our county, despite the objections of the majority of parents.

The long list of schools to which I referred includes four in my constituency. I was delighted to write to Sir Henry Floyd school, Aylesbury grammar school, St. John's combined school in Lacey Green and Great Missenden Church of England combined school to congratulate the head teachers and all their staff on their achievement. I hope that the teaching profession will see in the list of schools published by the chief inspector a tribute to the dedication and hard work of head teachers and their staff over the previous years—

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

And parents and children.

Mr. Lidington

And parents and children, too, as my hon. Friend rightly reminds me.

The chief inspector also pays tribute to two schools—one in Durham and the other in Derbyshire—which had previously been described as failing, but which are now noted by inspectors to be well on the mend. That is another illustration of the way in which the system of inspection, to discover faults so that remedies can be set in hand, is working to the benefit of all children.

Mr. Woodhead says that Standards of pupil achievement and teaching are satisfactory or better in the majority of schools", and that teachers are meeting National Curriculum requirements more confidently". He also points out that there are nearly three times as many exceptionally good teachers as poor teachers in our schools.

I dwell on those positive remarks at some length, because I feel that the headlines in some newspapers that accompanied the publication of the report did not do justice to the praise that Mr. Woodhead rightly gave to particular schools and to the education system in general.

The quality of education depends crucially on teachers. No profession has a higher responsibility, and there is no nobler vocation. So I hope that the teaching profession will reject the rather glib view that the inspector's report is in some way an attack on teachers' professionalism. It is not; it is a challenge to them as professionals to reflect critically on what they do, and to learn not from Whitehall edicts, but from the best practice and the outstanding achievements of their fellow professionals in our schools, for the shortcomings that Mr. Woodhead describes are serious and need to be remedied.

Perhaps the inspector's critique can be summarised by saying that we are too tolerant of mediocrity and that our expectations of what pupils are capable of achieving in school are still far too low. The report concludes that standards need to be raised in about half our primary schools and in about 40 per cent. of our secondary schools. About 10 per cent. of the schools inspected had serious weaknesses.

The predictable excuses and protestations have been made—such as, that all we need do is chuck some extra money at the problem, that parents do not support schools or the authority of teachers any more, or that the problems of a difficult catchment area overwhelm the best endeavours of teachers.

I am prepared to acknowledge that those are all relevant points, and have some merit. But they avoid the central question: why can we identify schools of similar size, with similar budgets, similar catchment areas and the same sort of parents, some of which achieve the highest standards, while others fail dismally in the duty that they owe to pupils and parents?

In that regard, the inspector's report backs up the findings of the Select Committee on Education—and, frankly, the anecdotal evidence from our constituencies that we can all bring to the debate. Time and again, the report returns to the central issues of the leadership of the head teacher and the quality of classroom teaching.

On page 9 of the report, Mr. Woodhead says: Some schools serving extremely deprived areas achieve very good standards. This is because they are invariably led by men and women of exceptional ability. He tells us that such a school believes in the possibility of success and takes responsibility for its failures when they happen. Unsurprisingly, he concludes that The most successful primary schools place great emphasis on initial literacy, expect all their children to learn to read and to learn quickly, and approach teaching generally in a structured and diagnostic way. That is Mr. Woodhead's critique. What is now to be done? It is not a simple matter of passing new laws; we need a constructive partnership between the teaching profession and the Government to set right that which is wrong. I shall deal first with what I consider to be the responsibilities of the teaching profession.

The inspection evidence shows that in seven out of 10 lessons described by the inspectors as good, whole-class teaching figured strongly. Ofsted's work bears out the conclusions of other studies, notably that of the so-called three wise men, which was published in 1992, that excessive reliance on group work fritters away precious teaching and learning time. We need a better balance between whole-class, group and individual work.

We also need better planning of lessons, especially in primary schools. In one telling criticism, the inspector says that only half of primary schools have really planned how to use their teaching time to maximum effect. We must continue to question the fashion for mixed-ability teaching that took hold in the 1960s. Judging by my visits to schools in my constituency, I suspect that some commentators exaggerate the extent to which mixed-ability teaching ever became universal. Setting and streaming have always continued in some schools, and I believe that they are now growing in popularity among teachers again.

I draw the attention of the House to paragraph 166 of the report, which points out that in primary schools grouping by ability for maths and English is common and"— this is the key phrase— often results in a better match of work and in higher standards. There is much there upon which the teaching profession can usefully reflect.

The Government, too, have a tremendous responsibility. Their motto could be, "So much done, so much more to be done." They have introduced the national curriculum, national testing, regular inspections, teacher appraisal and freedom of information, through prospectuses, annual reports, test results and inspectors' reports. They have also held firmly to the principle that greater diversity in our education system will help to drive up standards, whether that is achieved through grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges, specialist magnet schools or, where it is wanted, formal processes of selection.

It is worth remembering that almost all those Government initiatives during the 1980s were bitterly opposed not only by the Labour party, but by its allies—in this debate, its absentee allies—from the Liberal Democrat party. It is a great shame that the Liberal Democrats, who frequently preach to us about their concern for quality in education, cannot be bothered to send a representative into the Chamber for a debate on the annual report of the chief inspector of schools.

What further issues should the Government now tackle? First, a real problem is caused by the minority of teachers who provide poor teaching in the classroom. The inspector concludes that the performance of a small minority of teachers is consistently weak, yet it is rare for action to be taken to deal with the problem.

I do not have an instant answer. I do not know whether we need a change in the law or simply better guidance and training for heads and governors on how to deal with the problem. Governors in my constituency tell me that it is almost impossible to sack a teacher on grounds of incompetence, even when that individual has been given chance after chance, yet has consistently failed to deliver adequate standards of teaching.

I repeat that such criticisms apply only to what the inspector describes as a small minority of teachers. None the less, it cannot be in the interests of children, nor can it be good for the reputation of the teaching profession, for that state of affairs to be allowed to continue and for that small minority of consistently poor performers to go on teaching classes in our schools.

Secondly, the Government need to focus on teacher training. I welcome the review of in-service training set in hand by the Teacher Training Agency. The Government and relevant agencies need to take a rigorous approach both to initial teacher training and to INSET, to tackle the specific weaknesses revealed by the inspectors' reports.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

I am sorry to be so greedy as to want two interventions, but again I am incredibly lucky in Lancaster, because University College of St. Martins, which used to be a teacher training college and is now a fully fledged college, has always kept to the old standards and turns out students whom I see practising in schools and who are welcome in any school in the country.

Mr. Lidington

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Again, what she says of Lancaster is true of Buckinghamshire. Her constituents will note how she again champions their achievements.

I applaud the doughty battle waged by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to gain a greater share of the Government's cake for education in the forthcoming financial year. The teaching profession and all people concerned about education should know that they have a fine champion in my right hon. Friend. Paragraph 230 of the inspector's report makes some interesting comments. It states: Few schools spend more than they should, but nearly two-fifths should be making better use of their resources … In about four schools in ten value for money is reduced because significant aspects of their work are not sufficiently cost-effective". Whatever the arguments in any year about the total sum available for education, I hope that we can agree that we need to find ways in which to encourage a rigorous approach to value for money in individual schools, to ensure that available resources—however big the sum, it will always be finite—are used to the greatest effect.

I ask the Government to think forward and perhaps to reconsider their stand up to now on the disparity between the funding of the primary and secondary sectors. In his report, the chief inspector calls many times for primary schools in particular to do much more in terms of better planning of lessons and of in-service training, to equip primary school teachers—who tend to be generalists—with a firm grasp of subject knowledge, which the national curriculum requires them to have and which they did not require during initial teacher training. One of the problems with that historic disparity is that it inevitably means that primary schools have a less flexible timetable and less staff time available to meet those demands by the chief inspector to tackle the deficiencies in in-service training and in lesson planning.

In local education authorities of all political colours, less money is given per pupil to primary schools than to secondary schools. I understand why Ministers, not just in this Government, but in previous Governments, have always believed that it is up to the local education authority to decide how much should go to primary and secondary schools respectively and that, if the LEA changes the balance, the standard spending assessment provision will follow that choice. The strength of the chief inspector's critique and the importance of the issue are such that I ask the Government to revisit that question.

Mr. David Porter (Waveney)

Before my hon. Friend leaves the question of the disparity of funding between primary and secondary schools, will he consider the problem raised by middle schools, which exist in his constituency and in mine? A middle school may be deemed secondary, but it may have many primary pupils. The disparity of funding problem is often compounded by the wide range of age groupings in a school. That has not been dealt with by either the Government or local education authorities.

Mr. Lidington

My hon. Friend makes a telling point. Although the systems in his constituency and mine are not the same, I have encountered comparable problems in considering budget allocations for schools in Buckinghamshire.

As more schools become grant-maintained, the Government will have to revisit the issue in any case and take a view, at least in relation to the grant-maintained sector, about the proper sum per pupil to be spent on primary as against secondary schools. That issue may be dealt with through tilting grants for education support and training or other specific grants from the Department more towards primary than secondary education.

I have not time to dwell at length on two other problems, but they are important. One is pupil referral units. Both the chief inspector in his report and a separate study on pupil referral units by Ofsted concludes that they are failing badly in their task. Obviously, that causes concern and I hope that the Government and the education agencies will act to deal with that.

The second problem is the under-achievement of boys at all levels of our education system, from the early key stages to GCSE. In the past couple of decades, much thought and energy has rightly gone into finding ways in which to provide equal opportunities for girls. I am becoming increasingly concerned that boys seem to be lagging behind girls at all levels of compulsory education. That is especially worrying in a world where unskilled men are most likely to end up as long-term unemployed.

My conclusion is that improving standards in schools should be one of the main priorities of any Government, and that that requires a partnership between the Government and the teaching profession. The chief inspector's report shows that serious problems still afflict our education system. Pupils are still not achieving as much as they are capable of, but, at the same time, the inspectors signal that much good is being achieved by teachers and that those achievements show us the way forward to improve the opportunities and standards of achievement for everyone.

9.57 am
Mr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley)

We all owe my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) a great debt, because he has raised an extremely important issue. I find it surprising that so few Opposition Members are present. Of course, an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman is here, along with the Labour Whip, but the normal pattern of Wednesday morning debates is that hon. Members on both sides of House speak. Obviously, Conservative Members are pleased to have more opportunities to speak, but it is interesting that no other Back-Bench Labour Member is prepared to speak on this important issue. It may just be that Labour Members are totally confused by their party's education policies and would not know what to say.

The good news, as stated by the chief inspector in the Office for Standards in Education report, is that Standards of pupil achievement and teaching are satisfactory or better in the majority of schools". The bad news, however, is that it is evident that overall standards of pupil achievement need to be raised in about half of primary and two-fifths of secondary schools. The most successful secondary schools achieve GCSE results twice as good as others in similar socio-economic circumstances and six times better than those achieved by the least successful in less favoured areas … there are still too many schools which are failing to give their pupils a satisfactory education. My hon. Friend mentioned teaching methods, which are an important aspect of the debate, and to a certain extent the report concentrates on them. It states: Teaching methodology needs to be improved in nearly half of primary schools and in a little more than one-third of secondary schools … About seven-tenths of good lessons involve, for example, a balance of whole class teaching and group work. That is significant because, over the past two or three decades, there has been concentration on what people often refer to as "trendy" teaching methods that have been introduced as part of the comprehensive ideal. I was astonished to read in my newspapers this morning that the Labour party now says that comprehensive schools are a disaster. That is how the newspapers portray the speech that was made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett).

Ms Estelle Morris (Birmingham, Yardley)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Riddick

I shall be happy to give way to the hon. Lady if she wishes to tell us that the hon. Member for Brightside did not say that.

Ms Morris

My hon. Friend did not say that, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads the speech that was made last night by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment. In that speech, he praised comprehensive schools, but made it clear that a change of name on the school gate was not enough to raise standards. He said that although comprehensive schools achieved a great deal, we must strive more and aim even higher to bring high standards of education to all our children. The words used by the hon. Gentleman do a terrible injustice to last night's speech by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Riddick

It is plain that the hon. Member for Brightside needs to express himself more clearly, because just about every newspaper has interpreted his speech as an attack on comprehensive schools and mixed-ability classes.

The comprehensive system has been imposed throughout the country by the Labour party over the past two or three decades. It did that, first, when it was in government in the 1960s and 1970s and, secondly, while it was in control of local education authorities. That system has betrayed hundreds of thousands of young people in the past two or three decades, and many of those who have been betrayed are in the most unfortunate circumstances—living in poor, rundown inner-city areas. The policies were imposed throughout the 1980s and 1990s by Labour LEAs, including the one in Sheffield, in the hon. Member for Brightside's area. Someone once told me that, when the hon. Gentleman was the leader of Sheffield council, he was one of those arguing against school uniforms in Sheffield schools. If the hon. Gentleman has changed his views, that is all to the good. However, the solutions that Labour proposes do not amount to much.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris) has just confirmed that Labour wants to tinker with comprehensive schools. We hear much sweet, reassuring rhetoric, but in practice Labour's policies are fairly meaningless. It is interesting that the Secondary Heads Association refers to Labour's education policies as "naive, vague and unconvincing". It also referred to them as simplistic, bland statements with little research or policy ideas. There is no sign of how the policies will be paid for. That is a fairly damning criticism of Labour's education policies by the people who count, that is, head teachers.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said, a good head teacher who provides real leadership is crucial. Too many practitioners in education are inculcated with the comprehensive ideal. They have been sold the idea that schools are there to deliver egalitarianism. The truth is that the comprehensive system was introduced by Labour administrations as part of their social engineering approach, to try to make us all more equal in society. Of course it has not worked but, sadly, in the process many young people have been damaged.

I recently read an article by a head teacher of a good school. It was published in the wake of the Harriet Harman affair, and we all know what happened there. His argument in favour of comprehensive schools was that they were not divisive, but he put no education argument whatever, and that is regrettable.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse)

Order. The hon. Gentleman might care to tell the House about the inspector's report.

Mr. Riddick

I am happy to return to that report, which reflects the success, in some instances, of the Government's education reforms. Those can be summed up in three words—choice, diversity and standards. We have taken steps to drive up standards. We introduced the national curriculum and formal tests in schools, and Mr. Woodhead refers to those policies in his report.

The disappointing results of English and mathematics tests for 11-year-olds, which were published last month, clearly demonstrate that more work needs to be done on those fronts. I hope that, as with secondary schools, the test results achieved by primary schools will be made public.

One of the surest ways to drive up standards is to give parents more choice and more say in the schools to which they can send their children. To exercise that choice, parents want more information about local schools. Therefore, since 1979 Conservative Governments have changed the law, to make it more difficult for LEAs to veto parents' choices. We have also introduced measures to allow the publication of examination results by schools. The introduction of nursery vouchers is a radical, further step in extending parental choice.

The recent Audit Commission report into nursery education revealed that 46 per cent. of the mothers who had been surveyed were not happy with the places that they had for their four-year-olds. Vouchers will give parents a much greater feeling of involvement in the education process and will allow them to exercise real choice about nursery places for their children.

Mr. Matthew Banks (Southport)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about choice. Does he agree that it illustrates the fundamental difference between the various political parties, in that only the Conservative party is prepared to give parents more choice? Are not the other parties trying to take choice away?

Mr. Riddick

My hon. Friend is right. We introduced city technology colleges and grant-maintained schools, and we have maintained existing grammar schools. We have attempted to increase diversity in the system but, as far as I can see, in practice, Labour policies would stifle that diversity, and that would be detrimental to education.

I come to another aspect of the Ofsted report—religious education. That is an important issue, and in his report Mr. Woodhead states: Provision for RE varies widely from school to school. Pupils achieve well in RE in about two-fifths of primary and nearly half of secondary schools. Standards require considerable improvement, however, in about one-sixth of primary schools and at least one-fifth of secondary schools. That is a rather sad state of affairs.

Last year, Dr. Nicholas Tate, the chief executive of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, expressed his deep concern about religious education when he said: the key problem is a failure to take the subject seriously and a blinkered view of the world which dismisses anything to do with religion as relics from the infancy of mankind, unworthy of serious study … even in terms of basic knowledge we appear to be far advanced in becoming a religiously illiterate society. Baroness Cox in another place revealed that a recent Gallup poll found that 49 per cent. of 16 to 24-year-olds had no idea what Good Friday commemorated and 79 per cent. did not know what happened on Palm Sunday. That is very sad, and we ought to be taking more steps to try to improve matters.

I suggest that the problem is that religious education is something of a mishmash. My local authority, Kirklees, recently published its guide to RE for its schools. I would not for a moment want to criticise that document; much thought and effort clearly went into its production and it basically follows the statutory guidelines on RE.

At key stage 1, children have to study Christianity plus one other faith; at key stage 2, Christianity plus two other faiths; and at key stages 3 and 4 Christianity plus five other faiths. The law says that Christianity should be the predominant religion taught in schools. If I were to criticise the document, I would say that that predominance of Christianity does not come through. We need to consider the matter more closely. Children should learn about Christianity and the Bible, especially in the early years. It is not realistic to suggest that young children should learn about other faiths. Learning about other faiths should come later, in key stages 3 and 4.

There is an interesting debate going on in the Muslim community. Muslims want their children to be taught predominantly Islam in RE classes, and they have a very strong case. In The Daily Telegraph recently, Mr. Mukadam, who is one of those fighting for predominantly Islam RE teaching in the Birmingham area, said: Mr. Mogra"— who is the teacher— teaches our RE from an Islamic perspective. A multi-faith lesson is a confusing mishmash offering nothing to promote spiritual or moral development. Multi-faith lessons are more of a secular approach teaching that all religions are equal. We believe that Islam is the true religion. That is what our children are taught at home and it is only natural that the teaching is continued at school". It seems unrealistic, and frankly not right, to try to force Muslims to adopt the Christian faith. Muslim parents are therefore perfectly entitled to expect that their children learn predominantly about Islam at school. I would argue that case.

I would also argue the other side of the coin, that much greater emphasis should be placed on Christianity in the majority of schools where most pupils are not from a different religious background. Muslims should have more teaching of Islam in their classes and Christianity should be emphasised more in all other pupils' RE classes.

This has been a useful and timely debate. Mr. Woodhead and Ofsted are doing a very good job. They are trying to improve standards, and I wish them well in their efforts. I especially wish the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), well in his efforts. I know that Ministers are absolutely determined to give parents more choice, drive up standards and create more diversity in education. Having listened over recent years to what Labour education spokesmen have had to say, I believe that it is apparent that parents can trust only Ministers in a Conservative Government to give them choice and diversity and to drive up standards.

10.15 am
Mr. David Porter (Waveney)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) on two counts—first, on securing this debate and, secondly, on representing a constituency in the only Conservative-controlled shire county in the land.

The Office for Standards in Education has played a key part in the necessary changes that have had to be made in our education system during the past 15 or more years. No one owes this country a living and no one owes an individual in it a living. That is the economic reality of life today that we have had to learn over the past 15 years. Ensuring that schools and children reach certain standards is self-evidently a basic necessity and Ofsted has begun to deliver that.

I am glad that there is no longer a debate about whether there should be an Ofsted or an equivalent to inspect schools as Ofsted does. There was certainly criticism and some uncertainty about the idea at the outset, and even now there is no doubt that much stress is put on teachers in advance of an inspection, which Chris Woodhead has described as a "neurotic" reaction. That is not an overstatement in some instances and needs to be taken account of. Many of the teachers I have talked to in my constituency feel that, with hindsight, the inspection was worth it but that there was tremendous strain in the long run-up to it. They and the head teachers often complain about the excessive bureaucracy involved in preparing for the Ofsted inspection, which is quite expensive and time consuming, and the purpose of which they do not always appreciate. That could be addressed in future reports.

Some schools in my north Suffolk constituency have had some excellent results—a real vindication of schools, teachers and Ofsted. The critical reports are also a vindication of Ofsted and the four-yearly inspection system. None the less, the system could be improved. The very style of the inspector's report suggests that the process is evolutionary and open to development.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) said, the Secondary Heads Association has suggested that head teachers and their schools should have a direct input in the inspection process if secondary school standards are to improve. Its new document, which is based on the "sometimes traumatic" introduction of the new inspection system, says that the present round of inspections are about accountability rather than school development. Instead, it proposes a twin-track approach of external inspections running alongside a continuing process of school self-review and evaluation. Both have a place, but school evaluations need to dovetail with external inspection, not replace it.

The association also criticised the standards of some of the inspection teams and said that there are sometimes conflicts of interest when, for example, local authority teams inspect schools in their own area. There is also concern about the percentage of teams that are comprised of local education authority people who win the contracts. Although there are uneven standards of expertise, it will—perhaps—settle down as the process moves forward.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

Does not it seem especially unfortunate that a local authority team should inspect a grammar school that the authority had consistently tried to close?

Mr. Porter

That is certainly one of the unfortunate consequences of so many home-grown teams. Unfortunately, I have had no such experience in my area as it has no grammar schools.

Will the Department reconsider the system for the four-yearly visits? The whole school inspection was vital at the beginning and I accept that, in a primary school, a generation of children and perhaps several staff will have moved on within four years, but once the original whole school inspection has been carried out, the next inspection—four years later—could be devoted to particular weaknesses that were highlighted in the previous inspection. In addition, or instead, it could concentrate on particular issues that reflect current concern, such as numeracy, reading, science or whatever.

It has been suggested—in the jargon—that Ofsted inspections are hit-and-run affairs. It has been made quite clear that, after an inspection, a school must respond with an action plan designed to improve standards. The chief inspector says that there are clear signs that the processes of inspection and action planning are helping schools to improve teaching methods. However, they need further development. They should be followed up in a much more structured way to take account of feedback on the initial report from teachers and parents, who often read the reports with concern. There needs to be more direct input from teachers at the time of the inspection. The whole process needs to be seen as a professional development tool, in the same way as teacher appraisal. It also needs to be seen as a tool for developing the professional expertise of heads and deputy heads.

The Government intend to promote various ways in which the inspections can be better targeted—which I welcome—and which need emphasising at this stage. Inspectors will report examples of excellent or very poor teaching to the head. That is welcome, but it needs to be followed up to ensure that action has been taken to correct the teaching or to spread the examples of good practice around the school.

I expect that the Government will say that inspectors will pay special attention to weak schools and make return visits. Often, however, a particular department or area, not the whole school, is weak. That could slip through the net under the present system.

We take a great deal of notice of what parents and governors say, but we sometimes forget that many of our secondary school pupils are quite able to articulate what is happening in the classroom. Their views should be taken into account. I refer not only to sixth formers but to younger children, who also have a view. The children are the experts in the education system, yet the present inspection system does not take account of their views.

The changes of the past 10 years have put an incredible amount of stress and pressure on teachers, other staff, governors, local education authorities, parents and children, but the point is that the changes have been necessary because the world has changed. Further reforms are needed because the world does not stand still. There is no such thing as a vacuum in education. Currently, however, there is a need for a period of consolidation and less change. The report is a step towards a balance between consolidation and further reform.

10.22 am
Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) for initiating the debate, which is further evidence that education rides high in the political debate and that, at long last, that debate is very much on Conservative terms. For too long, despair has prevailed about our failure as a nation to provide excellent education for all. The best in British education is among the best education in the world—there can be no doubt about that. Grammar schools have survived in Kent and Buckinghamshire and they figure among the very best in the recently published league tables. It is significant that, time and again, grammar schools are at the top of the range.

Mr. Lidington

I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that among the outstanding schools listed by the chief inspector is Holmer Green upper school in Buckinghamshire—a secondary modern, in the old parlance. That shows how, in a well-managed system, not only grammar schools but non-selective schools can achieve high standards through good teaching and sound leadership.

Mr. Arnold

Indeed. There are similar examples in Kent. Well over half of our education is of a high quality, which shows that both grammar and many other schools are succeeding, but we should be concerned about the fact that some 30 per cent. of our youngsters leave education inadequately trained for the modern world. We must ask why that happens—and the answer is social engineering.

Mr. Matthew Banks

My hon. Friend is touching on a point mentioned by our hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter). I want to highlight another point about grammar schools, which our hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) touched on. More than a decade ago, I was the chairman of the Wirral schools committee. Although I now have nothing to do with that authority, in the run-up to the 1979 general election, the overwhelming majority of parents—irrespective of their political persuasion—were keen to keep the remaining grammar schools. I am sure it was the same in other areas. It was only because a Conservative Government were elected in 1979 that parents were given the option of sending their children to grammar schools.

Mr. Arnold

That is right; indeed, the same was true in Kent. It has kept its grammar schools and success has ensued.

As I was saying, 30 per cent. of our youngsters are being let down, to the detriment of the country, because of social engineering in schools—in the structure of schools and in the teaching methods employed in them. Unfortunately, the teaching establishment has made unfashionable the teaching approach taken in the past—for example, the basic principles that pupils should face the front and that there should be whole-class teaching. There needs to be a properly structured and diagnostic education system in the classroom.

We seem to have turned our backs on the very basics such as the three Rs. Surely we should be educating our youngsters through the proper teaching of phonetics and through whole-class reading. Those practices have been highly successful in the past and we should return to them. Reading and writing are important.

With arithmetic, we should revert to teaching through the use of exercises. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made an announcement on the use of calculators. Although they are marvellous—we all use them—too many young people fail to understand magnitudes in maths. If they press the wrong button, they still think that the answer is correct—whereas if they had a concept of magnitude, they would realise that the answer could not possibly be correct. It is rather like the old computer adage: garbage in, garbage out. If they put the wrong data into the calculator, they will get the wrong result. We are not giving our youngsters the necessary sense of magnitude to ensure that they recognise when the answer is wrong.

There is a weird insistence on small groups in the classroom. When we go into primary schools, we see children grouped around tables, which inevitably means that a proportion of them have their backs to the teacher. We all know that the little darlings will follow their own interests and misbehave if given half a chance. Insisting on small groups is expecting teachers to be like jugglers, keeping many plates rotating in the air. They are so busy doing that that they are unable to carry out their teaching effectively.

We all know that thousands of excellent teachers cope with those conditions and operate small groups in classrooms—I have seen many of them in my own constituency—but the fact is that that practice loads the dice against many teachers, who cannot cope with it. Too many of our youngsters idle their way through school, which is the cause of the 30 per cent. or so of youngsters who come out of schools ill educated.

The current situation has come about not least through teacher training and the impositions on teachers of local education authority inspectors. Over the years, I have heard of far too many teachers who very effectively applied old-fashioned methods of teaching being told by local education authority inspectors to desist from using them. Ultimately, teachers are human, and they will put their career high on their scale of priorities and change to a system that they do not believe in but accept because they are required to do so by the education authorities.

Extraordinary teaching methods and structure have been imposed on the teaching profession by the very Labour-controlled local education authorities that have been guided by the usual fashionable whims of the left-wing establishment. We all know that, in the past, such authorities latched on to comprehensive education out of a particularly illiterate understanding of the meaning or use of the word comprehensive in that context. For educationists, comprehensive education was meant to provide the widest possible range of education in one establishment. We all accept that there are terrible problems in trying to do that. The Labour party latched on to the idea that it would be socially comprehensive to put all children into the same schools, as that was good for its ideology.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman

Except for their own children.

Mr. Arnold

Yes. It is not good enough for their children, but it is good enough for their constituents' children. The result has been that too many schools have been unable to cope with the burden, imposed on them, of providing a wonderful education across the full range of subjects for a full range of children, regardless of their aptitude. I am glad to see that the Labour party is at last waking up to the fact that that is not the way to deliver education to young people.

Last night, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) made a speech. He was wearing sackcloth and ashes for the way in which the Labour party has, for many years, tried to impose its education policies through local authorities. It is interesting to note that he said: Our commitment to comprehensive education cannot be a commitment to continued mediocrity, to sameness or to tolerance of failure. Who has imposed those very attributes? Labour-controlled education authorities and the Labour approach to education and teaching.

The Labour party has come out with another document, called "Excellence for Everyone". Does not that sound marvellous?

Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn)

What does that have to do with the report?

Mr. Arnold

The report is essential to education precisely because of the failures brought about by Labour party education policy, pushed through local education authorities. If the hon. Gentleman cannot see the connection, he needs to go back to school.

Let us talk about people who are in school. What has been the Secondary Heads Association's response to the latest Labour party education policy report? Its response states: The document is an uncomfortable mixture of the naive and messianic and the commendable theme of a crusade loses its impact in a welter of mini-crusades and objectives, many of which, though presented as such, are far from new". So much for the Labour party in relation to that matter.

Today, we are debating the inspection of our schools, which is highlighting the problems and the way ahead. I find it very encouraging that the Government have introduced the national curriculum, because—despite the vicissitudes caused by loads of paper and problems that the enthusiasm of the education establishment has created—it has laid down what our youngsters should achieve at different ages. It has been laid down in the face of carping, negative criticism from the Labour party all the way down the line. We have now started testing, which is highlighting the performance of pupils and schools. That policy also was introduced in the face of the votes and opposition of the Labour party.

We are receiving the results of those policies, and it is now up to parents and teachers in the schools that educate their children to improve standards. The inspectorate is vital in that process because its reports on schools give parents, teachers and, of course, governors the detail of the qualities and successes of a school—and the aspects that require considerable improvement.

This debate is very encouraging. We are talking about the quality of education, opportunities for youngsters and choice for parents, which are the very heart of Conservative education policy. The debate is now on our field and on our terms. I see the Labour party crawling on to our field to discuss education. May it learn—but we will remain in government to push through the reforms.

10.35 am
Ms Estelle Morris (Birmingham, Yardley)

First, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) on securing this debate. It is an excellent idea to have a debate on the report of the chief inspector of schools. It is, to some extent, worth considering making such a debate an annual event because there are too few occasions on which we can consider education in its broadest sense. In future years, it may be a debate that can take place in the Government's time so that we do not have to trust to an hon. Member's good luck in securing a place in the ballot.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Aylesbury on the way in which he presented his arguments. They were measured, gave due recognition to our school system's achievements and recognised some of the areas in which improvement is needed. Unlike some of his colleagues, he introduced the debate in a manner which generally opened the discussion rather than trying to score political points.

Mr. Jacques Arnold

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Morris

Not at the moment; I have just started. I shall be happy to give way when I have made some progress.

Other Conservative Members did not follow the good example set by the hon. Member for Aylesbury.

Mr. Arnold

The hon. Lady said that this is an extremely important debate, and she referred to the fact that four Conservative Back Benchers spoke in the debate. If education is so important to the Labour party, can she explain why not one Labour Back Bencher has attended this debate, let alone spoken in it?

Ms Morris

We will hear no lectures from Conservative Members on the importance of education. I am responsible for what I do in the House. I am here and I am about to answer this debate. I am not responsible for other hon. Members, on either side the House, or for how they choose to spend their parliamentary time.

The hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) made some very interesting points about the school inspection process, and I found myself agreeing with a great many of them. I should like to pick out one or two things that he said. He gave a depiction of the situation in his constituency, in which staff in schools experience almost a neurosis as the inspection starts. That is certainly one of the problems with the inspection being a one-off look—a snapshot view—of how a school is doing at a particular time. I have been to schools where the staff say that they hold up projects or develop them only to a certain extent so that they are at their best during the week of inspection. It cannot be helpful if schools and the education service regard the inspection process with that attitude.

One way round that problem would be to reach a situation in which the one-off inspection by a team of outside inspectors is just one item in the on-going process of school inspection and self-evaluation. I think that we can get rid of that neurosis if schools expect that advisers will occasionally come in—to be friends, to give support or to give criticism—and that someone from outside the local authority will give an outsider's view to check standards. Like the hon. Member for Waveney, I hope that that approach to school inspection is something that can evolve, and that we can get rid of many schools' defensive posture.

Before moving on to the report, I should like to make two or three further points about the inspection process. Inevitably, we must deal with the information as it is presented in the chief inspector's report, but the raw data on assessment tests do not give the whole picture. One of the dilemmas is that we are dealing with a set of results based on student achievement at seven and another set of results for students at 11. Under the present system, no one appears to know what is happening in between. We must move to a system of setting year-on-year targets for every child in every school. We must measure at the end of the year whether children have reached the standard that they could reasonably have been expected to reach and whether the school has helped the children to reach those standards. The one-off look and the one-off collection of raw data at seven, 11,13 and 16 do not give sufficiently high-quality information—

Mr. Jacques Arnold

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Ms Morris

Not again. It was bad enough last time.

We are not getting the right information to enable us to make reasonable judgments about the progress of individuals or the progress of schools.

It is a matter of concern that primary schools will not be inspected every four years. In an answer to a recent parliamentary question, it was revealed that £12.8 million is being taken out of the Ofsted budget for 1995–96. That will mean only that fewer schools are inspected than should be. If inspection is as important as people have said today, it is important that Ofsted is given the resources it needs to carry out the inspections that it and the Government feel appropriate.

I recognise the achievement of many pupils in the school system. The inspector says that the successes this year are many and real. He also says that there are twice as many really excellent teachers as there are poor teachers; that is the case. I congratulate not only the schools mentioned in the introduction to the report, but the schools that have also reached high standards, but which have not been inspected this year. They sometimes feel aggrieved because they have been left out of the list.

I join the hon. Member for Aylesbury in putting on record my congratulations to Brookside special school in Derbyshire and Crook primary school in County Durham. They were considered to be failing schools and faced quite inexcusable press publicity about their situation. The determination, skill and energy that the schools have put in to turn round the position is a tribute to the teachers, governors, parents, pupils and communities that they serve.

Many young people are making real progress, not only in academic terms, but in community activities, sport and cultural activities. Many of the schools listed at the beginning of the report are mentioned not necessarily for academic achievement, but for achievement in the wider area of things that we expect schools to give our children.

The big problem that comes through in the report is one that has always plagued the British education system. The report talks about unacceptably wide variations in school performance. For all the achievement and for all the youngsters who go forward with confidence, qualifications and the surety that they have something to contribute to society—doors are opening for them and opportunities beckon—there are too many students who are not getting that chance and who are not able to reach their expected level of attainment.

Some 30 per cent. of A-level students fail to complete their course; that is not a statistic mentioned in the chief inspector's report. Some 5 per cent.—one in 20—of our youngsters leave school with no GCSEs, although they are often bright children who could achieve more. There was a decline in English and mathematics results at GCSE last year. One fifth of pupils are below expected standards at the age of seven, rising to one half of pupils being below expected levels in English and mathematics at the age of 11. If that continues, we shall not reach the national targets that we as a nation have set ourselves and we shall not raise the standards of all our children.

We have a decision to make. Either we can choose to be what we have always been as a nation—giving opportunity and resources to a few and trusting the future of our country to the skills of a few—or we can set about raising standards for everybody and trying to achieve a high-skill, high-wage economy in which the future of the nation rests not in a few, but in the strengths and skills of all. We have never had an education system that has tried to do that. Historically, we gave opportunities only to the rich and to males. More recently, we gave opportunities to children who passed the 11-plus. In the past 17 years, we have seen the havoc wreaked by differential funding and by the failure to address the problems of schools that under-achieve. That is the challenge for this country and that is the challenge for all the partners in education. We must not rest on the achievements of a few. The Prime Minister was right when he said that we have always done well by 15 per cent. of our young people. The challenge is to do better by the 85 per cent. of people who have always been failed.

I now turn to a few specific areas of concern that have been raised in the report. There are many, but there is neither time nor opportunity for me to go through them all. It is of concern that children in inner-city schools are under-achieving. I taught for 18 years in an inner-city school before I came to the House, so I am always conscious that there is just as much under-achievement in the middle-class suburbs and in the comfortable areas, and by the children of the more affluent which is masked because those children get reasonably good results.

We must have a means of measuring progress so that we can identify both achievement and under-achievement. Achievement is about making progress from where people start; it is not necessarily about how many children gain five A to C grades at 16. The chief inspector says that in areas of urban disadvantage, there is more chance of children achieving less, more chance of under-achieving and more chance of the community and teachers having lower expectations of young people. That is true. If there is one kernel that teachers have to take from the report, it is that we must have an end to low expectations. Teachers and many others understand why some children find it difficult to succeed. The task must be to address the barriers to success rather than accepting them as causes of under-achievement.

One sentence in the report is crucial. The inspector says: Some schools allow their necessary and understandable preoccupation with pastoral care to distract attention from teaching focused on achievement. That is right. Teachers are trained to teach and that is what they should be doing. Every minute that is not spent teaching a child, no matter how rich or how poor, no matter how able or how much in need of special support, is a minute taken away from raising standards.

However, what do teachers do when children turn up at school who suffer from the most horrific home situations, such as overcrowded housing, abuse, ill-health caused by poverty, a lack of confidence or a lack of any one showing an interest in them? I am not pretending for a minute that that happens in the majority of areas. However, those are the children who are coming through the gates of some of our schools. Many teachers feel that they must address those issues before they can address the teaching. I ask the Minister to recognise that standards in education will be raised only if we address the wider areas of Government policy so that children can come to school in the morning ready to learn, which will enable teachers to be ready to teach.

I now look forward. The myth about which we have heard today that, somehow, things were better in the old days when there was selection makes me wonder where some hon. Members were 20 or 30 years ago. The expansion in higher education, which is welcome, has happened on the back of the comprehensive system. The children who have gone through that system and who have not been labelled failures at 11 are now going into higher education. My parents' generation and Conservative Members' parents and grandparents' generation were just as able as hon. Members who have had a university education, were just as bright and could have made just as much contribution, but they were in a system that labelled them failures at 11 and they were never given a chance. I do not know what the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) means by social engineering. Comprehensive education gives opportunity to the many and prevents doors from being closed.

It is clear what the way forward must be. It must involve top-quality nursery provision, properly resourced schools, raising the morale of the teaching profession, restoring schemes such as reading recovery schemes and reducing class sizes. It is, indeed, the biggest task that faces our nation. The word "partnership" was used earlier. What a shame it is that we have not had that for the past 17 years.

10.49 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire)

I will not be able to cover all of the matters raised by my hon. Friends in the 11 minutes available to me, but I am grateful to all of those who have taken part. The debate was kicked off by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who gave his customary excellent speech on the subject. He was nobly, trenchantly and intelligently supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), for Waveney (Mr. Porter) and for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), and there were incisive interjections from my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) and for Southport (Mr. Banks). It was a tremendous achievement.

I shall take up two points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris). First, I shall certainly consider her suggestion that we provide a debate in Government time on the chief inspector's report, if only—as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham said—to ensure the attendance of Opposition Back Benchers. Secondly, she implied that the Government have reduced Ofsted's budget. She knows—although the House may not fully be aware of it—that because of good budgeting, Ofsted has advised us that it will not be able to spend its full budget this year. The Government were advised in time, and we have made the appropriate adjustments and increased the budgets appropriately for the ensuing years.

I shall refer to the other main points of the debate as time allows. First, I wish to pay tribute to the work done by Ofsted in raising education standards. The chief inspector's annual report is one of the key education documents produced during the year. It provides a thorough review of the state of the nation's schools, and shows both success and failure in the classroom. It is based on evidence from actual inspection reports, and therefore has an authority that is difficult to challenge.

A number of key points in the report have been raised this morning. In particular, the report provides evidence that all types of school can achieve excellence. More than 200 successful schools were picked out for special commendation, some of which—as has been made clear—are in the constituencies of my hon. Friends. The schools range from inner-city primaries to shire county secondary schools. The report records that the majority of schools have satisfactory or better standards of pupil achievement and teaching, and adds that there is generally good behaviour in all but a few schools and a growing confidence among teachers about meeting national curriculum requirements. These are the positive points, and the teachers in the schools concerned deserve our warmest congratulations.

The report does not seek to disguise the fact that there are still areas that require major improvement. These include the need to raise standards of pupil achievement in half of our primary schools and two fifths of our secondary schools, and the need to improve standards of teaching—one lesson in five remains unsatisfactory. The report has given clear messages about what needs to be done, and the Government have already put a wide range of measures into effect to secure improvement. I shall spend a few moments on those.

The inspection system introduced by the Government means that schools are now inspected on a regular basis. Some 6,000 schools have already been inspected. All have had reports published and all have had to draw up action plans which have addressed any areas of weakness identified in the inspection report. That is crucial information in helping schools to improve, and is the sort of independent expert analysis that schools did not routinely receive in the past.

The report observes that there are already clear indications that the process of inspection and action planning is helping schools to improve their teaching methods. We know that inspecting all schools is a massive undertaking, but it is one that we are determined to achieve. Ofsted has taken decisive action through the recruitment of a large group of additional inspectors to ensure that the four-year inspection target is met.

For our part, the Government have introduced the new post-inspection grant for education support and training to help schools with their action plans after inspection. The grant enables LEAs to target help on schools with serious weaknesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney helpfully raised the subject of the nature of future inspections. We are considering carefully how we should proceed once the current initial cycle of inspections has been completed. More than half of all secondary schools have already been inspected and all schools will have been inspected by July 1998. Now is a good time to take stock and to consider what our permanent inspection arrangements should be.

There is already a fair degree of consensus that any new arrangements should ensure that all schools are regularly inspected, but perhaps with more targeting towards schools with serious weaknesses. The Secretary of State and the chief inspector are giving thought to the matter, and we hope to announce further details on our thinking by Easter.

The key to high achievement is good teaching, and the report makes it clear that while there are many excellent teachers, there are still a small minority whose performance is consistently weak. This problem must be tackled. We in the Government can help, but ultimately only the school itself can secure a lasting improvement. Some hon. Members already know that, from April, Ofsted inspectors will be working to a new and more sharply focused inspection framework that is the product of extensive consultation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney said, from the same date, the inspectors will be reporting to the head when they find examples of excellent or very poor teaching. That will not diminish the role of the head and senior staff, but should be a valuable management tool. It will also provide useful feedback to the teacher concerned.

On the wider front, the Teacher Training Agency is also actively involved and is working to improve the quality of initial teacher training by drawing on inspection reports from Ofsted that are also now being published. It has also undertaken work to target in-service training priorities—for example, subject knowledge at key stage 2; improving behaviour; and discipline and school leadership.

In recognition of the very important role of head teachers—this is highlighted by the report—the TTA is working to establish a new national professional qualification for aspiring head teachers that will set a rigorous national standard for headships. The qualification will be in addition to the head teachers' Headlamp training scheme that is already well under way.

The chief inspector's report shows that there is a need to tackle mediocre and poor standards of literacy in many schools. It recommends that schools should review the quality and consistency of teaching to set and achieve higher targets. Similarly, there is much that could be done to improve the progress and attainment of pupils in terms of number work. It is because we share the chief inspector's wish to see such an improvement that we have announced the establishment of up to 20 literacy and numeracy centres, aimed particularly at improving teaching in primary schools. There are also new rules for training primary teachers, with at least 50 hours to be spent on training in the teaching of reading and 50 hours on arithmetic.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury made several comments, and in particular highlighted what he saw as the difficulty of dismissing bad teachers. No one denies that in schools, as elsewhere, there can be difficulties in dismissing inadequate staff. I must stress that teachers have the same rights under employment protection law as any other employee but, because of our legislation on the local management of schools, any well-run school now has powers to take the necessary action either to improve performance where a teacher has been identified as being currently deficient, or, if necessary, to dismiss.

I await clarification from the Opposition of their recent comments about hastening the process. It seems at first sight, however, that their proposals will lead either to the weakening of the employment position of teachers—which seems unlikely—or to the Opposition in some way taking back the powers that we have given to school governors. I would personally deplore either of those options.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury also referred to primary and secondary funding but, with precisely two minutes remaining to me, he will not expect me to go into that subject at great length. He will know that powers do lie with LEAs to vary their local management of schools schemes, and to ensure that greater assistance is given by those schemes to primary schools relative to secondary schools on the per-pupil funding basis.

In conclusion, I have outlined some of the steps that the Government have taken to improve school performance. Many of our other measures—such as the national curriculum, assessment and testing, local management and the publication of performance tables—are already well in place. Indeed, we have recently announced our plan to publish next spring school performance tables showing the 1996 national curriculum assessment results for 11-year-olds.

We in government can do only so much. We cannot ultimately impose improvement on a school; that must come from within it. We know that schools can improve. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury and the hon. Member for Yardley said, two former failing schools—Brookside special school and Crook primary school—have improved so significantly that the chief inspector singled them out for specific commendation. Six schools, including those two, have come off special measures because the inspectorate recognises that they are delivering good-quality education. They and other schools throughout the country show what can be done with good teaching, effective leadership and strong support. Those qualities, more than Government exhortation—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. We must move to the next debate.

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