§ Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North)I am grateful for the opportunity to air the important issue of the impact of high pupil mobility on schools. I am delighted that we have such a sound and comprehensive report as that prepared by Janet Dobson on which to base the debate and shape recommendations. I congratulate her and the Department for Education and Employment on commissioning the study.
A principal conclusion of the report is that many factors influence pupil mobility, including general social mobility of students, people moving around for work, and so forth. Given the area that I represent, my purpose is to concentrate on the issue as it affects London. I want to emphasise the joined-up nature of the problem of high pupil mobility, especially in inner-city communities. High turnover compounds and is compounded by problems caused by homelessness, which include poverty, and the dislocation and trauma experienced by many asylum seekers who do not have English as a first language. To set the context, 40,000 householders are in temporary accommodation in London, 5,000 in bed and breakfast. The total, including asylum seekers, is 55,000.
The timing of the debate is apposite, because I am aware that during the recently started second stage of research, and no doubt after the final report lands on the Minister's desk, minds were and will be concentrated on vital issues such as strategies to reduce mobility. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the issue of pupil mobility as raised in the report will be considered in the housing Green Paper, as the two issues are closely allied. Also important are the additional costs placed on schools with high mobility levels, especially where the turnover involves pupils who score highly on other indices of deprivation, and the equally serious problem of high teacher mobility, which tends to occur in exactly those schools that experience high pupil turnover. I hope that the research and the debate that it inspires will lead to a greater understanding of the costs involved and the predicament of schools and their staff. They are struggling to raise educational standards under the pressures that high mobility brings.
Some of the figures, and the human stories that they represent, are dramatic. Last week, the head teacher of a school in my constituency told me about a five-year-old boy who was inducted into school on a Monday and disappeared from it the next day, having been rehoused as a result of a shift in temporary accommodation in Portsmouth. The little boy arrived in the country in November speaking no English, and his day at Wilberforce school was a taste of the third school that he had attended since his arrival.
While I prepared for the debate, other local head teachers gave me similar examples. One school saw the equivalent of one new arrival a day between the start of term and the day three weeks later when the inspectors arrived from the Office for Standards in Education. In a year 6 class in Kensington, only one child sitting standard assessment tests at key stage 2 had been present since key stage 1. One in three children in Hackney have not been at their primary schools for the full four years of the key stage 2 curriculum.
261WH As the Dobson research suggests, mobile pupils are disproportionately likely to have lower levels of achievement at entry. For example, children in Westminster who joined primary school after key stage 1 are three times more likely than their settled peer group to have limited English. Levels of attainment at key stage 2 among pupils joining late are 19 percentage points lower for English, and 12 percentage points lower for maths, than levels achieved by pupils attending school from the start.
A lot of that can be explained by the high incidence of mobile pupils with English as an additional language. However, an extra problem arises from pupils not having resources in the home to enable them to study or to draw on the ideal level of parental support needed to help them to achieve.
There are no excuses for low achievement. All the heads to whom I spoke reiterated that each pupil should realise his or her maximum potential. However, I was struck by the close correlation between school achievement as measured by test results and levels of pupil mobility. In one of the boroughs that I represent, the combined percentage of unexpected leavers and unexpected admissions ranged from 43 per cent. to 2 per cent. I pay tribute to the excellent work done in our high-achieving schools, but it is clear from statistics that many of them do not face the pressures of schools in which almost half the pupils change schools in a year.
I hope with all my heart that that fact will be more fully appreciated by Ofsted, by the media and throughout the country because, only by recognising it, can we appreciate the level of achievement of staff and pupils in schools with a high turnover, whose efforts are little short of heroic.
§ Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney)Is my hon. Friend aware that the problems that she is describing are also evident in seaside towns? A school in Lowestoft in my constituency counted the number of pupils in one group as it moved through the four years of the school and found that only one third of them had been with the school throughout. It had a mobility rate of about two thirds. A break in education is the biggest detriment to progress. Schools need resources to support transient pupils to ensure that non-transient pupils do not suffer. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: Ofsted must take into account that factor when placing a school in a group, by which it sets the standard assessment test results.
§ Ms BuckI agree that there is a serious problem in seaside towns. My hon. Friend's point strengthens my argument.
High pupil mobility also places cost pressures on schools. Teachers must assess and offer support to a new child sometimes every two or three days, set up records and prepare teaching materials. That takes considerable time and energy. Induction can easily add one or two hours per pupil, which, when multiplied by 60, 70, 80 or 90 pupils in one school, quickly eats up staff time. Records need to be prepared for early leavers to be passed on to their next school, which, again, when multiplied by the number of pupils involved adds to the pressure.
262WH In the secondary sector, the number of pupils spirals. One comprehensive in my constituency dealt with 284 unexpected arrivals and leavers in one year. Mary Marsh, the head of Holland Park comprehensive school, estimates that the total processing time in her school costs the equivalent of a teacher's salary. It is not only teacher and administrative time that is involved; schools provide folders, paper, textbooks and other materials, which, in high pupil mobility schools, are unfortunately lost to a far higher degree than in schools in which the pupil population is stable.
There are even more stresses. Many London schools with high pupil mobility take in the children of asylum seekers. We are talking not about high proportions of children with English as an additional language, but about 15, 25 or 35 different languages being spoken in a school. In Holland Park school and North Westminster school, the number of different languages total 70, so the pressure is multiplied. In year 11 at Holland Park school, 47 per cent. of pupils are late entries, 45 per cent. have English as an additional language and 40 per cent. of pupils are on free school meals.
The need for additional resources for schools with large numbers of pupils with an additional language is already recognised in the system, but the additional complexity of working with pupils who come from many different countries, who speak different languages and are from different cultural traditions is not yet fully understood. In many schools, children arrive with little or no English. A child may be the only one in the school who comes from a particular country and speaks its language. That makes the teacher's job harder and adds to the sense of isolation and dislocation of the child.
Taking all the causes of high mobility together and the additional stress factors that are often linked to it—homelessness, the pressures of life in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, family breakdown, domestic violence, war trauma, the psychological damage done to parents who may have undergone torture—it is scarcely surprising if such schools find it harder than usual to build a strong identity. Greater than average behaviour problems in schools may result from such a high level of instability and turbulence.
Children who remain in a school throughout their school life are also affected, which is an important lesson that we need to learn from the research. We do not sufficiently appreciate the damaging effect that the regular fracturing of relationships that children have built up with others who move on may have. Families in temporary accommodation are often given no notice that they have to leave and are told to move overnight; the children are therefore moved from schools without having a chance to say goodbye. That can be damaging for all the children involved.
As I said, I am aware that a high level of pupil mobility is by no means only a London issue. That is supported by the Dobson research. I have not touched on the problems experienced by traveller children, excluded children, children in care and the experience of seaside towns or army bases. However, as the initial report states, London is unique in terms of the combination and concentration of factors generating high pupil mobility. It is also unusual in having a high turnover in both the primary and secondary sectors. The research shows that, in many other areas, high pupil mobility is concentrated in primary schools.
263WH I realise that the research is at too early a stage to expect firm commitments from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. However, I hope that she will give general support to the recommendations in the first stage report and to the need for greater awareness of the multiple pressures with which schools have to deal. We need more data on which to make decisions and a standard methodology: one of the report's findings is that information is collected differently in different boroughs and schools. We need more support for tracking children who often move regularly between schools. I am sympathetic to the inclusion of some form of exceptional circumstance factor in the ethnic minority and traveller achievement grant, to help meet the needs of highly mobile groups, whatever the underlying cause of their mobility, and to help promote best practice in schools. I hope that we can look forward to greater recognition of the problem, and to greater compensation for schools experiencing high mobility, from a Government who are rightly demonstrating their commitment to high standards of achievement for all.
§ Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) on securing this debate on an extremely important question. As my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) said, this is a problem that particularly affects seaside towns. I wish to say a little about that from my perspective of the Member of Parliament for Blackpool.
The situation in seaside towns is different from that in London in the sense that our populations tend to be more ethnically homogenous. We therefore do not have the problem to which my hon. Friend referred, but we have large numbers of people moving in and out, seeking seasonal employment, and that obviously makes a substantial contribution to pupil mobility. Those are often people with few skills, usually young people with families—with all the attendant problems—with low income, poor health, and drug and alcohol problems. They often live in poor conditions in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The non-routine admission pupils from that transient population often have special educational needs and behavioural difficulties, and are underachieving. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary appreciates those significant factors.
The educational development plan that Blackpool borough council prepared two years ago concluded that the borough's high level of pupil turnover—something in the order of 1,200 primary school pupils were non-routine admissions in 1997–98—has a destructive effect on schools, strains teachers and resources and affects teachers' ability to make a sustained impact on achievement levels. A headmaster in my constituency with a primary school with an annual pupil turnover of 48 per cent. said:
Large numbers of pupils moving in and out of the school makes target setting and tracking pupils' progress extremely difficult.That also has implications for the extent to which high mobility will, if not properly monitored, frustrate the Government's attempts to measure added values in school league tables.The final point again picks up on what my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney and for Regent's Park and Kensington, North said. I am encouraged by 264WH the Government's response so far, not only in terms of commissioning the original Dobson report which is seminal in this respect but because it indicates what they propose for the future. As a member of the Select Committee on Education and Employment which inquired into the work of Ofsted—as part of the inquiry, we raised with the chief inspector the issue of monitoring high pupil mobility—I am delighted that the chief inspector acknowledged on separate occasions that it was an important factor which he and the Government would take formally into account in future Ofsted inspections and in the inspection process. It is a key issue north and south which affects not only inner-city areas but seaside towns. I am delighted that my hon. Friend has raised it.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith)I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) on securing today's debate. I also congratulate her and my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) and for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) for their well-informed, measured and intelligent contributions. Like them, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important complex issue. As they so ably outlined, there is evidence that pupil mobility is a serious problem for schools, local education authorities and, most of all, pupils. I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North. I too, believe that in many schools with high pupil mobility, teachers and non-teaching staff do a fantastic job supporting pupils. They deserve recognition for the good work that they do.
As my hon Friend said, in January 1999 my Department provided additional funds to a Nuffield Foundation research project being undertaken by Dr. Janet Dobson and colleagues at the migration research unit of University College, London. Department for Employment and Education funding enabled a report to be produced in October 1999; the final report is not expected until June 2000. The key objectives of this research were to review current knowledge of child migration, establish what was known about the scale, nature and implications of high pupil mobility for the functioning of schools, and develop a better understanding of regional variations.
My three hon. Friends displayed a good understanding of some of the factors highlighted by the report, but it is worth reminding ourselves of what research discovered about the range of factors associated with high mobility. The report identified high-mobility groups, such as travellers, refugees, asylum seekers and the children of armed forces families. It identified circumstances of high mobility such as social deprivation, family break-up, temporary housing and seasonal work. As we heard, it also identified high-mobility areas, which tended to be concentrated around London and other cities and conurbations, and in coastal resorts and areas with a large number of armed services families. The situation is clearly complex, with no cause, and, therefore, no easy solutions. We have recognised that in the debate. Overall, the study found that family break-up was the most significant factor contributing to high pupil mobility. This has implications for our response.
265WH For the research, 66 local education authorities provided data on a high-mobility primary school. In 80 per cent of those schools, the mobility rate was 20 per cent. or more. Ten LEAs provided examples of primary schools with a rate of 70 per cent. or more. I accept what my hon. Friend said about difficulties and numbers in secondary and primary schools. However, average mobility is higher in primary schools than secondary schools, although some London LEAs have high rates in both. That highlights a problem in primary schools, which are often relatively small with little administrative support.
My hon. Friend rightly identified London as having a unique combination of factors generating pupil mobility in schools. There is a particular problem in relation to children from overseas. About 70 per cent. of children who came to schools as new pupils between the ages of five and 15 in the year preceding the 1991 census were from overseas.
Other specific factors associated with London to which my hon. Friend alluded are homelessness, temporary housing and exclusions—inner and outer London have the highest exclusion rate. Children from armed forces and traveller families also have a presence in Greater London.
Important implications for individual schools should inform our policy response. The study found that children joining schools at non-standard times are, on average, achieving less in key-stage tests and GCSEs than those who complete a whole key stage or career in the same school.
Changing schools does not per se lead to lower than average achievement for children or schools. We must take account of other factors leading to high mobility that also affect outcomes and tend to be linked to exclusions, social deprivation and lack of fluency in English. Lower achievement by mobile pupils, compared with that of non-mobile pupils, seems to be associated with social deprivation and/or a lack of fluency in English, which is exacerbated by high mobility.
I accept my hon. Friend's contention that high mobility has an impact on school target-setting, measuring performance, using value added to reflect progress and planning teaching. Furthermore, it makes heavy demands on staff time and resources which, as has been rightly pointed out, has implications for the whole school, not just mobile pupils. I am sympathetic to the fact that high turnover affects a school budget over the course of a whole year.
The Government are addressing the problem by undertaking a range of policies. Our early-years policies will ensure that children who benefit from nursery education, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are more likely to succeed in primary school. The sure start programme, which has an emphasis on support for families, may help to address mobility at source, especially in relation to family breakdown.
Baseline assessment will be of value if records are passed on quickly between schools. We have introduced a common transfer form and new regulations on the 266WH transfer of records. Increasing investment in information and communication technology and in administrative support for schools will make that transfer smoother.
My hon. Friend rightly emphasised the importance of home-school links in high-quality education and pupil achievement. The development of such links may be extremely time consuming in a high-mobility school, even when all parents are fluent in English. The report emphasises that a positive home-school relationship is likely to be a mjor factor in helping some children to settle in and start to learn. Therefore, the Department is supporting schools by providing guidance and examples of good practice to build that important home-school relationship.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South mentioned the importance of measuring performance to raise standards and the difficulty of calculating measures of value added for schools with high pupil turnover, but nevertheless, the Government are committed to ensuring that that is done. As he said, Ofsted's work in taking account of pupil mobility will help with future developments of value-added measures, as will the Government's introduction of unique pupil numbers and the ability to track individual pupils to support their learning and provide more valid measures of achievement.
Schools with high pupil mobility often have to set targets without knowing which children will still be in school at the end of the year. Schools can set additional targets to reflect their priorities. However, many schools find setting targets a challenge. That is why the consultation on target setting, which is due to be sent to schools and LEAs later this term, will invite suggestions from schools with high mobility on how regulations might take account of such matters.
The role of Ofsted has been mentioned. It is important that, under the new Ofsted framework, inspectors will collect data on pupil mobility and comment, if appropriate, on the likely impact on performance. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North made a point about benchmarking. Detailed information about pupil mobility will be not only collected but made available to inspectors and included in the PANDA—the performance and assessment data—and the PICSI—the pre-inspection context and school indicator reports issued to schools by Ofsted.
It is worth mentioning that the excellence in cities programme, which focuses on raising achievement, will make a positive contribution to fostering stability in some of those areas of London, to which my hon. Friend referred, where it is a particular challenge. Some pupils experience the effects not only of mobility but of not having English as their first language or of coming from overseas, so it is important not only that our ethnic minority achievement grant, which replaced the education element of the Home Office section 11 grant in 1998, has been increased by 7 per cent. compared with last year, but that it will go directly to schools so that head teachers can use it where it is needed most—for 267WH example, to target pupils who need teaching or assisted support in English as an additional language, or to work with local communities. Although I recognise that that will not completely solve the financial problems, it is important as an extra support for those children, as my hon. Friend rightly said, who have language as an additional difficulty as well as mobility problems.
Pupil numbers will always fluctuate for a variety of reasons, reflecting the mobility of pupils and families. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept my assurance that the Government are sympathetic to the challenges faced by schools and pupils. We will continue to study the results of the research to find a way in which to support those schools both financially and in our work to raise standards. The research has enabled us to clarify what we mean by mobility and to identify patterns of 268WH mobility, and it will inform our policies at school, LEA and national levels. The Department will continue to note the emerging findings.
My hon. Friend is right to say that pupil mobility is an issue for schools, but it is also an issue where joined-up action across Government is extremely important. The implications are not of concern to the educaton sector alone, but I assure my hon. Friend that they are of great concern to the Department. We must highlight the impact of health improvement strategies and urban regeneration, housing and social inclusion policies. That will require collaboration across services. I assure my hon. Friend that we take the issue very seriously.
§ It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.