Committee stage in the Lords
Lords Committee debated regulation of independent schools and the Independent Schools Inspectorate, a cross-party push to bring multi-academy trusts into the Ofsted inspection framework, teacher qualification requirements for academies, and the mandatory national curriculum obligation on academy schools.
B(These are probing amendments to test the department's thinking on the Independent Schools Inspectorate. The ISI is accountable to the DfE — complaints go there — but how confident is the department in the ISI's work, and how many complaints does it receive? Inspection of independent schools matters particularly for governance: the Ofsted framework now asks governors to reflect on their own performance, not just oversee leaders, and I'd like to know whether there is any appetite for Ofsted to take on the ISI's responsibilities so that all schools are inspected to the same standard.My Lords, before we were so rudely interrupted for lunch, I was going to speak to Amendments 430 and 436 in this group. Amendment 436 is the substantive amendment relating to the Independent Schools Inspectorate and Amendment 430 is the consequential amendment. Before I begin, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Spielman, for their support for these amendments. The amendments are very much probing amendments to test the department’s thinking on the work and performance of the Independent Schools Inspectorate. The ISI is accountable to the Department for Education. If anybody—a parent, a pupil or school—were to have a complaint about the work of the ISI, they would, having exhausted other mechanisms, be able to go to the Department for Education and ask it to look into the way that an inspection has taken place, and potentially, I suppose, seek some findings or ask any other questions that they might have about the work of the Independent Schools Inspectorate. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister, if she is able, in summing up or perhaps by writing to me, how confident the Department for Education is in the work and performance of the Independent Schools Inspectorate, and how involved the Department for Education gets on an annual basis, particularly in relation to complaints about the ISI. I would be interested to know how many complaints are made and how the department handles them. School inspection, as we are going to debate in this group and the next, is extremely important and often very contentious. I am grateful, as I say, for the support of both noble Baronesses, but particularly that of the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman. As a former Ofsted chief inspector, she has experience unequalled by many in this Chamber in relation to school inspection. We have to look only at the headlines generated this week by the Government’s proposed new Ofsted handbook to see how strongly everybody involved in education feels about school inspection. Ac…
The core problem is visibility. With maintained schools and half the independent sector under Ofsted, ministers at the centre have a regional team with a real feel for what's happening — they know which schools are struggling. With ISI-inspected schools you simply don't have that. ISI is funded from within the schools it inspects; is it relationally independent from the ISC? Do DfE officials have any role in appointing ISI board members? Children harmed by safeguarding failures don't respect social class, so the rigour or otherwise of ISI inspections in that area must be visible — and right now it isn't.My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 430 and 436, to which I have added my name. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Morgan for raising this issue at Second Reading, as I have been concerned about the ISI—previously the SIS—and former inspectorates of independent schools. There are a number of queries about function, which I will probably theme as “visibility” and “responsibility” —in particular, building on what my noble friend Lady Morgan said, visibility for the Department for Education. While there is accountability, for the department itself there is a question about regulatory function. By that, I mean: do independent schools comply with the independent schools standards? The evidence on which the department is relying to perform its regulatory role, and then its potential enforcement action, in relation to schools is dependent on the information usually obtained through the ISI, which I believe my noble friend Lady Spielman will more ably outline as something that is more akin to a peer review system than to what we know through Ofsted. With the independent sector, there is less visibility. State schools and numerically half of the independent sector—I would say the trickier half that are not in the association—sit with Ofsted. Therefore, the visibility at the centre in England is Ofsted, directors of children’s services, local authorities because of maintained schools and the DfE itself. Because of the academy system, there is an excellent team of regional school staff who know what is happening on the ground in their area. They are usually incredibly well informed; they are in close contact with the local authority, particularly on safeguarding; and they often liaise with the regional Ofsted teams. They really have a feel. As you sit there at the centre, you know you have an arm reaching out across England. They know whether a school is struggling, particularly a secondary school. They know, “Oh, this one’s doing really well. This one’s probably going to…
The DfE oversight mechanism for ISI inspections was stripped away years ago — first by removing the strand that monitored a sample of inspections, then by withdrawing all remaining elements. There is no longer any oversight model to my knowledge.Perhaps I could inform my noble friend that the oversight mechanism for ISI was first reduced a good many years ago when DFE asked it to remove the strand that involved monitoring a sample of inspections, and then it subsequently withdrew all the remaining elements. So, there is no longer any oversight model to my knowledge.
That's not my understanding, but let's speak afterwards. The more important point is that ISI inspection works because inspectors know the sector — especially boarding schools, which operate very differently from anything Ofsted normally inspects. Peer review is a valid form of accountability. ISI is also self-funding, so no burden on the taxpayer. Absorbing it into Ofsted would be costly, disruptive and would almost certainly weaken inspection quality because inspectors would be unfamiliar with these schools.That is not the case, as I understand it, but perhaps we could speak about that afterwards. Most importantly, the regime is effective because inspection is best conducted by experts who know the sector. The ISI is made up of people who understand how it works. That is particularly true for boarding schools, which have a very different operational model from the vast majority of schools that Ofsted inspects. The noble Baroness rightly talked about accountability, which is an extremely important point. Peer review, in this case, is the best way to produce some form of accountability, but we will have to differ on that. ISI is also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, said, self-funding. So it is no burden on the taxpayer, which is an important point, especially in the current economic circumstances. Changing this tried, tested and effective system would be costly, placing additional burdens on Ofsted; it would be disruptive; and above all, it would almost certainly weaken standards of inspection because inspectors would be unfamiliar with the types of schools they were looking at, and therefore what issues of which to be mindful and aware. I hear what the noble Baronesses say, but I do not believe the case for such a significant and expensive change has been made; nor, indeed, is there any clamour within the sector, or from parents and teachers, as far as I know, for radical reform of this sort. I hope the Committee will reject these amendments.
- These amendments don't undermine the Bill; they make it work better for independent schools. First, guidance can acquire statutory force over time — especially if the courts get involved — so any guidance on curriculum, admissions or examinations needs proper parliamentary scrutiny. Second, when a school discovers a child has an additional condition, it should be able to act immediately without navigating a lengthy material-change process that puts the school in legal jeopardy or forces the child out.
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 429 and 433 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lexden, to which I have added my own. It is a pleasure to see my noble friend back in his place. In Bills such as this, his authoritative and powerful voice on issues related to independent education is extremely important, and we should heed his advice. I declare my interest as chairman of governors at Brentwood School, and honorary president of the Boarding Schools’ Association and Institute of Boarding. As my noble friend said, these two straightforward amendments do not in any way strike at the integrity of the Bill or seek to undermine what it is setting out to achieve. They are simply practical amendments designed to ensure that, as far as independent schools, which are a vital part of the education sector, are concerned, the legislation works as effectively as possible. As it stands, under the Bill the Secretary of State has the power unilaterally to require independent schools to have regard to guidance issued by the department. This is not an onerous requirement and, like my noble friend Lord Lexden, I have no problem with the principle. Indeed, I see much merit in it. Where I have a problem, and this is at the heart of the amendment, is the tendency of guidance, over time, to acquire statutory force, particularly if the courts become involved at any point. It is therefore vital that any guidance issued has proper scrutiny and that those affected have a chance to make their views known through Parliament. As a veteran of years of legislation impacting on the media, I know only too well that seemingly innocuous guidance can sometimes have the most profound unintended consequences, especially where regulatory creep sets in. Without being unduly bureaucratic or slowing the process down in any way, this straightforward amendment simply seeks to ensure that in three key areas of vital operational independence for schools in the sector—curriculum, admissions and examinations—the…
We need an effective grip on unregistered schools — some of them are causing real harm to children's education and well-being with impunity.My Lords, among several interesting amendments in this group, I support in particular Amendments 432A and 434 in the names of my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lady Morris of Yardley. My reasons are exactly as I set out in our discussion of the previous group, so I will just sum up to my noble friend the Minister that we need to have an effective grip on unregistered schools, because of the undoubted harm to education and well-being being done—by some of them only—with impunity.
No group in our society should have the right to exclude itself entirely from mainstream British life. As Faith Minister I had to fight yeshivas to get them to teach and speak in English, let alone offer a broad curriculum. Comparing a yeshiva running for ten hours a day, five days a week with an easy-going Sunday school is simply disingenuous.My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 432A from the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Blackstone, who spoke very well. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, is not here. He spoke very movingly, but I do not believe that any group in our society should be given the right to entirely exclude themselves from mainstream British life. I was the Faith Minister for a time. I was assiduously courted by them; they are very good at that and were charming people, but I had to fight with them to get them to speak and teach in English, let alone all the rest of a broad curriculum that allows one to function properly in our society. For the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey—I am not sure that she is here—to compare it with an easy-going Sunday school feels disingenuous. Sunday school is unlikely to be 10 hours a day, and these yeshivas are of course running for 10 hours a day, five days a week. This is an important issue and I hope the Minister will look at it carefully, because otherwise, we will be setting a very dangerous precedent.
It's a matter of balance between religious needs and the child's right to a broad curriculum broad enough that, as an adult, they can make real choices. As Academies Minister for five years I never felt I needed more powers over academies — and now we know why these powers are in the Bill: because the unions want them. The Secretary of State said so at the TUC conference yesterday. Does new subsection (2)(g) in Clause 39(5) really mean that changing a classroom to a crèche would require DfE permission? Please clarify.My Lords, I add my support to what my noble friend has just said, and the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Blackstone. It is a matter of balance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, between the needs of the religion and the needs of the child to receive a broad and balanced curriculum sufficient that, when they are adults, they can make choices. Certainly, when I was a Minister there were a number of unregistered settings where the children were attending very full-time, and the organisations were pleading home education as their defence. There was no way, frankly, that there were enough hours in the dark day, or the energy, for that to plausibly be happening. I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran. Can the Minister say why it is necessary to have these powers and these changes in relation to academies in the Bill? In five years as the Academies Minister, at no time did I feel that I needed any more powers—either those in this group or those we will discuss later—to sort out problems. Of course, we now know why these powers are in the Bill, even if we do not know why they are necessary: because the unions want them. We know that because the Secretary of State for Education told us so yesterday at the TUC conference. I must say that I admire her honesty. The unions have made a number of excellent comments recently about the dangers of smartphones and social media, because they know that they are creating considerable problems in schools for children and for their members. The fact that they have been so current on this and so strongly outspoken is very impressive, and I commend them for that. However, it is my perception that the unions are still very anti-academies, which I suggest is an out-of-date attitude. It is clear that a teacher in a good multi-academy trust has far greater career progression opportunities, far greater CPD and far more support than they could possibly have in a single school.…
- Funding agreements should remain the primary regulatory instrument for academy schools. The ISI peer review model has value for support and improvement, but peer review is not the right mechanism for landing tough regulatory messages — it is simply too hard not to pull your punches when talking to peers. ISI has only two full-time inspectors overseeing its whole programme, and DfE now routinely turns to Ofsted whenever serious concerns arise at an ISI-inspected school. The principled answer is to unbundle ISI: put its formal inspection functions with Ofsted and let the peer review and support work continue separately — as has long been settled policy for state schools.
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s Amendments 428 and 429A to eliminate any potential confusion between two distinct regulatory regimes. I will not repeat what others have said, but I believe that academy funding agreements should continue to be the primary regulatory instrument for these schools. I also support Amendment 423 from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, to strengthen the set of offences linked to operating illegal schools beyond the somewhat narrow conception of a “proprietor”. Illegal schools often operate in the context of a wider community where they are intentionally enabled by the support and action of others besides the proprietor. Alongside that, I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for Amendment 432 and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, for her remarks. Both recognise the importance and difficulties of collecting evidence in relation to unregistered schools. I support Amendments 430 and 436, proposed by my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes, relating to independent school inspection. Again, I will endeavour not to repeat what has already been said, but I have an additional couple of points to make. Things can and do go wrong in all kinds of schools for all sorts of reasons, and always will. There needs to be an inspection model that is rigorous and thorough enough to report fairly and honestly, even when the findings are profoundly uncomfortable for the school and its leaders. Such a model has existed for Ofsted inspections—so for all state-funded schools and the half of independent schools, mostly the smaller and less well-known ones, that are inspected by Ofsted—and I hope that will continue to be the case under the new Ofsted model. However. it is hard for the ISI to provide a corresponding level of rigour when it finds real problems in a school. I think the ISI inspection model is best characterised as a form of peer review. Peer review is a wonderful way of providing support and advice on ways to improve at the margin, but i…
Clause 39 lists what counts as a material change for an independent educational institution. A 'building' includes any part of a building or permanent outdoor structure occupied even for part of a school day that will be 'routinely used by students'. Read literally, changing a bicycle shed into a locker room would constitute a material change — that is bonkers. This clause slipped through on autopilot and it is easily corrected; I'd be grateful for a reply from the Minister.I apologise, that was my fault. I rise at the end of a very interesting group and look forward to the summing-up. One amendment has rather disappeared in the context of these important issues, but I strongly support it—Amendment 432B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Until she tabled this amendment, I had not looked very carefully at Clause 39. Clause 39 sets out a whole long list of things which will constitute a material change in the nature of an independent educational institution. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to this amendment because that would generate a lot of pointless work. It is also a classic example of how, in a large Bill, things slip through on the nod, on auto drive, and have certainly slipped past MHCLG. It says that there will be a material change, among other things, if there is a change of the buildings occupied by the institution and made available for student use, which the noble Baroness’s amendment would strike. Going a little further down the page, you discover that “building” means any “building … part of a building, or … permanent outdoor structure”, that the circumstances where a building is “occupied” may be just “part of a school day”, and that it is “for student use” if it will be “routinely used by students”. I do not expect the Minister to give me a clear reply on this immediately, but it strikes me that this means that the proverbial bicycle shed, if it was changed into a building in which students kept things in lockers, would constitute a material change for that institution. That is bonkers. I draw your Lordships’ attention to this, even though it is in a group which is dealing with much more important matters. I would be very grateful for a reply on this from the Minister, because it is easily corrected. A Government who are genuinely committed to reducing regulatory burdens and to making planning processes more easily arrived at has let something slip in a way with which we are all too familiar.
It's worth going further than Amendment 434: we want this to be an effective system. I also support Amendment 433 on practicalities — when you get to know a child you discover things about them, and a decent school should be able to act immediately. The consequences need to be dealt with, but the immediate welfare response shouldn't be blocked by bureaucracy.Following what the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has just said, I want to speak to my Amendment 432 in this group and say that it is worth going that bit further than Amendment 434, which the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, is proposing. We are very much looking in the same direction. We want this to be an effective system. I also lend my support to Amendment 433. On the practicality of understanding, the nomenclature changes all the time. In getting to know a child, you find things out about them, and a decent school immediately wants to do something to provide for that child. It should not have to go through layers of bureaucracy before doing that. As my noble friend said, there should be an immediate reaction and dealing with the consequences of it afterwards. It is important to deal with the consequences. As my noble friend will remember, there was an excellent school called Stanbridge Earls School, which died because it started to take on children whose SEN it did not really understand. It did not make proper provision. The whole school collapsed as a result. It is really important that these things are properly done, but the immediate reaction to looking after one child should not get in the way of that process.
All schools must be inspected, and a consistent framework across the board will help everyone. If something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck — if it functions as a school, inspect it as a school. You'll need flexibility of approach and sector knowledge, but you need some consistency; otherwise, competing inspectorates with competing standards will chase their tails and blame each other.My Lords, second time lucky. This is a very diverse group of amendments and there are one or two that certainly caught my eye. First, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on change of use; that seems to be something the Government could quite easily make a small change on—I do not know how they would do it, but I do not think they would make many enemies if they accommodated that. Schools have to be inspected, and if you have a consistent system doing that across the board it will be helpful to all. The issue of independent schools which are substandard has been raised, and my noble friend has raised it on many occasions. We should know what we are doing: if something is defined as a school and it is functioning as a school—well, if it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Let us make sure that they are all inspected to a similar standard. You will have to have flexibility in approach and some knowledge, because if they are doing different jobs, especially in the independent sector, different approaches will be needed. The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, made a very good point about special educational needs. It is incredibly easy to miss co-occurring conditions, and then the one that comes to the fore gets labelled, although it may not be what is causing most of the problems. I say that as a dyslexic who has worked in the field for a long time; co-occurrence is almost the norm. People with dyspraxia are very often co-occurring, and the dyslexia is spotted first because they check your spelling first. They do not realise that you cannot write because you do not have the muscle memory, and your arm is breaking down in the physical movement, but it is going through. Something that allows a change to be made is sensible and practical and will save the child a great deal of distress—and the school too, although make sure you are dealing with the child first. The inspection regime has to have some consistency across it; otherwise, we will have a variety…
Clause 39 on material changes: we want the focus on buildings commonly used by pupils where risks arise — not bike sheds; officials are testing the drafting to ensure it isn't overly broad. On Amendment 433, the current threshold requiring notification for any pupil with SEN is too low; under Clause 39 what matters is whether a setting is a special institution and what SEN it caters for — not the needs of individual pupils. On Amendment 432A, the existing 'conducting' offence is already broad enough to prosecute anyone running, controlling or managing an illegal school; a new offence could inadvertently criminalise an innocent landlord or a parent who innocently helps. Amendment 434's search-without-warrant power would be too intrusive. On Amendments 428 and 429A, removing the Education and Skills Act 2008 from academy schools would require recreating those powers through funding agreements at significant cost with no benefit.My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in this group, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for moving Amendment 427BA. The group considers amendments to the clauses relating to independent educational institutions. These clauses amend the Education and Skills Act 2008 and the regulatory regime which applies to independent schools. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, eloquently made clear, it is a diverse group, so I ask noble Lords to bear with me while I go through the diverse responses. As noble Lords will be aware, academy schools are independent schools in law, which is why the regulatory regime in Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 applies to them. Among other things, this means that academy schools are regulated by the Independent School Standards guidance. Vital issues, such as safeguarding, are covered by these standards. Due to their state-funded status, academy schools differ from other independent schools by also being accountable to the Secretary of State via their contractual funding agreements. This long-standing arrangement is not intended to change. Instead, Clauses 36 to 44 are principally intended to change how privately funded schools are regulated. Amendments 428, 429A and 427BA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and to which a number of noble Lords spoke, including the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, concern the relationship between the Education and Skills Act 2008 and academy trusts and their schools. They would mean either that valuable parts of the Education and Skills Act 2008 will no longer apply to academy schools or that these powers would need to be recreated via funding agreements. This would be expensive and time-consuming, with no immediate benefits. Amendments 431A and 506D seek to require a review of the predicted impact of the powers relating to the suitability of proprietors and the requirement for proprietors to have regard to guidance. It is absolutely right that we can prevent unsuitabl…
- Will the Minister commit to running both the Blackstone and Lucas amendments — as well as her own response — past the Chief Inspector of Schools? From what I've heard him say on several occasions, I suspect he might not agree with her.
My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s answer on my amendment. Can she add to the many helpful things that she has said a commitment to drift the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and by me—as well as her own response —past the Chief Inspector of Schools to see whether he agrees with what she has said? From listening to him on several occasions, I have the impression that he might not.
The Minister's comments on Clause 39 are very reassuring and I hope this signals a new trend of accommodation. I still need to understand fully her remarks about certain elements applying only to fee-paying schools, and why 16-to-19 academies are treated differently from all-through academies. On unregistered schools, the Minister said the existing powers achieve the same ends as Amendments 432 and 434 — but as my noble friend Lady Spielman observed, gathering evidence in those settings can be extremely hard, which is why I hope the Minister will take up Lord Lucas's invitation to discuss it with the Chief Inspector.Third time lucky, my Lords. I thank the Minister for her remarks and, in particular, her encouraging comments in relation to my amendment to Clause 39; I think that people will find them very reassuring. I hope that this may be a new trend, in the Government’s response, of accommodating our amendments. I will read Hansard very carefully. To be honest, the Minister was obviously trying to be as speedy as possible. I know that the Committee appreciates that, but I did not follow fully her comments about the applicability of certain elements to the Bill to fee-paying schools only, which I know she talked about; I just need to make sure that we understand that. I also did not understand why 16-to-19 academies are still accepted institutions while wider academies, including all-through academies, are not, but I can pick up those points. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their amendments in this group. The Minister gave some reassurance to my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord Black of Brentwood in relation to their Amendment 433; I am grateful to the Minister on their behalf for that. The Minister was clear that, in relation to illegal schools, the Government’s approach achieves the same as Amendments 432 and 434 in particular; that is what I have written her down as saying. However, as my noble friend Lady Spielman said, in her experience, it can be very hard to gather evidence. I remember that, in 2022, we spent a lot of time during the passage of the then schools Bill debating the merits of being able to inspect unregistered schools without a warrant. Therefore, there are points on which I hope the Minister will accept my noble friend Lord Lucas’ invitation to explore with the chief inspector. We had a very good debate in relation to Amendments 430 and 436 in the name of my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes. Some valid questions were raised about the Independent Schools Inspectorate, both in terms of the value of having two inspectorates and the degree of independe…
Multi-academy trusts should be subject to the same inspection regime as schools and local authority children's services. Go back to 1988 and local management of schools: the head was accountable, the buck stopped there. The academy system was meant to carry that forward with a laser focus on standards. What emerged instead — as the chief inspector at the time called it — was atomisation. MATs were the natural answer: bringing schools together with support and superstructure. Some of the best MATs have shown exactly what can be done. But when a MAT controls funding, HR, appointments and curriculum, yet is not inspected, that makes no sense at all — inspection is a promise, not a threat; it will highlight the best and root out failure.In moving Amendment 435, I am grateful for the support of my noble friends and of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who quite rightly drew attention in the last debate to anomalies that have arisen over the years that I hope we will be able to put right. Mine is a simple amendment that says that multi-academy trusts should be subject to the same inspection regime as schools and local authority children’s services. I shall be as brief as possible, otherwise the Committee will be sitting very late. I want to take the Committee back to 1988, when the noble Lord, Lord Baker, brought forward the legislation which started the process of what was called local management of schools. Some local education authorities had had the wisdom to devolve much greater powers to heads and to free up schools to innovate before that date, but the Bill, along with bringing in the national curriculum, reinforced the importance of schools managing schools. The head was responsible for what took place in a school and could be held to account. Local management of schools was about accountability and where the buck stopped on standards being dramatically improved, with the support at the time of the better local authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, will remember that, when we were in the department from 1997 to 2001, we spent a lot of time trying to unlock the worst of local authorities’ iron grip on the throats of head teachers who were trying to get on with the job and innovate. Back in the 1980s, there had been experiments in a number of areas of local governance. Governing bodies were being brought into being and parents and communities were being engaged much more with their school. Many changes have taken place since. From 2001, when I was pleased and proud to be the Education and Employment Secretary, we started the process of academisation. It followed grant-maintained schools, foundation schools and the greater freedom that schools had already acquired over the previo…
- I support Amendment 435. A powerful model of autonomous academy trust operation has emerged, but regulation has not kept up: the legal entity is the trust, yet inspection is constrained to school level. School leaders are increasingly held accountable for decisions that actually sit higher up the MAT — that is unsustainable. The DfE has been extending its oversight of trusts but it relies heavily on self-reported data and lacks the insight that comes from expert scrutiny of MATs' central operations. My amendment sets out a coherent framework: clear purposes and priorities, flexibility for different trust structures, expert insight and rigorous evidence, and — crucially — transparency so the public can see what is being done and why.
My Lords, first, I express my support for what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has put forward in his amendment. In many respects, the amendment that I am about to speak to and the twin amendment proposed by my noble friend Lady Barran are an elaboration and development of the principle. We have a long-established regulatory model focused at school level and a much more recently established regime for academies and academy trusts. As the noble Lord said, there was a separate regime for local authority school improvement work, which was abolished some years ago—perhaps a good idea, perhaps not. The noble Lord said that the underlying model evolved in the 1980s and was one of high autonomy for schools, balanced by strong accountability. It is interesting that few in English education even recognise that this comparatively high level of autonomy continues today, relative to other countries. There has been constant pushback on accountability for decades, whatever form it takes, and there have been important changes in recent years. A powerful model of autonomous school group operation has emerged with academy trusts. In these groups, some decisions and activities can sit at the centre or in schools, depending on the model adopted. There is a wide range of models, from the very highly integrated through to the highly devolved. Much good has flowed from this model—as well as, inevitably, problems from time to time—but regulation and oversight have not quite caught up. Let us remember that, for an academy, the legal entity is the academy trust, so it is the trust that carries the legal responsibility and is properly held accountable at group level, not just at school level. On the other hand, inspection has been constrained by government policy to school level. Bizarrely, school leaders are increasingly being held accountable for decisions and actions that actually sit elsewhere in a MAT. It is unsurprising that some school leaders feel that they are bearing a disproportion…
I support Amendment 435. MAT inspection was a Labour manifesto commitment and I've been looking forward to it. But don't rush — Ofsted doesn't yet consistently understand how MATs work; it needs to build that expertise first. Once Ofsted has inspected a well-governed MAT, it should then be possible to use a risk-based approach to decide whether it needs to inspect every school in that trust — releasing capacity for more consistent school inspections generally. I'd also ask the Government to review MAT governance: at E-ACT, the five members are self-appointed for as long as they choose. It's an odd arrangement. I'd be interested in having local authorities appoint those members, so the trust board has a clear accountability route that doesn't involve the local authority operating schools.My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 435 in the name of my noble friends, led by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. In doing so, I remind the House of my interests, in particular as chair of the E-ACT multi-academy trust. I have thought for some time that it is important that we bring forward the inspection of MATs. I was therefore delighted to see it as an election commitment from the Labour Party when it went into the last election, and I have been looking forward to the Government implementing it. It is right that the Bill is being used as an opportunity to introduce powers to do that. It would then be up to the department and the Government to do the necessary work with Ofsted to get ready for that, so that Ofsted has the expertise within its inspectorate on how MATs work—something that it currently does not consistently have. We therefore should not rush at this, and I have some nervousness about some of the other amendments that are arguing for a six-month implementation timeline. We should leave the timeline to the Government until they are confident that the expertise exists to do it. I am also interested in whether we should define the proprietors of academies and local authorities as responsible bodies for schools, so that we can have a single inspection framework for both local authorities and academies in respect of their inspection and get more consistency across both forms of governance. If we are inspecting those responsible bodies—MATs in this case—it is also interesting to look at whether there is an opportunity for rationalisation around inspection. Good, well-governed, well-run MATs have good school improvement capacity and good capacity to support the schools that are in their trusts financially, in procurement and in all the various aspects of running good schools. After Ofsted has carried out an effective inspection of the MAT, it then ought to be possible to use a risk-based approach to decide whether it needs to inspect all the schools…
- It is a sign of the maturity of the academy trust system that MAT governance should now be inspected. Lord Blunkett asked who the buck stops with; I asked in the previous group who is calling the shots — we're making the same point about accountability. In every conversation I've had with MAT leaders, they're confident about the education they offer; they wouldn't be put off by inspection. But beware regulatory burden creep — any framework should avoid duplicating Companies House and other existing regulators. The key question is asking the right things about accountability.
My Lords, I support the overall principle of this group. There are three interesting amendments, which are slightly different, and I am sure that Ministers, if they are ready to agree this—and it reflects what the Government committed to in their manifesto—will want to take it away. I think it is a sign of the maturity of the academy trust system that the governance of multi-academy trusts or the way that they are working should be inspected. Whether that is done when individual schools of the trust are inspected, when questions are asked about the running of the trust, is perhaps open for discussion, but I support the overall principle. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said the buck stops here. In the last group I asked who is calling the shots. We were both making the same point about accountability. In all the conversations I have had with multi-academy trust leaders in preparation for proceedings on this Bill, they are confident about the education they are offering, the schools they are running and the standards they are setting. Whether we get to the group today or not, we will talk about school improvement, and the reality is that the capacity for school improvement in England sits with our multi-academy trusts. They know a lot about the education system and, therefore, I do not think that they would be put off by being inspected. Of course, you will not want to cut across any other regulators that the multi-academy trusts are already governed by. Many of the multi-academy trusts are set up as companies and so they are regulated by Companies House; they will be producing accounts and will be accountable in that way. There is an opportunity for this legislation to be wary of creating regulatory burden creep, but it could ask the right questions. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, just raised an interesting question about local authorities. I think he was talking about the inspection of local authorities, as many of them are in the same positions as multi-academy trust…
I've never understood a single argument against inspecting multi-academy trusts. We've been discussing this for five to ten years. They are a vital part of the school system. Thirty years of reform have tried to give schools freedom while holding them accountable through results, inspection and regulation — there is no argument for leaving a MAT out of that picture.My Lords, I also support this group of amendments, particularly Amendment 435. I am delighted to hear the support for inspection of multi-academy trusts across the Committee. I have never understood a single argument against it; we have been discussing this, probably, for five to 10 years now, and I never been even a bit persuaded by any of the arguments against it. If we have got to the point where there is cross-party agreement on this—that it needs to be done—that is to be welcomed. They are a very important part of our school system. We have tried, over 30 years of reform, to give freedoms to schools but hold them accountable through results, inspection and regulation. There is just no argument for leaving a multi-academy trust out of that picture. So, this is good.
- I've supported MAT inspection since 2017, when I first tried to make it happen as Minister — and ran straight into a turf war between Ofsted and the department. The excuse was that Ofsted lacked the financial skills to scrutinise MATs; that's nonsense. You could train a small team quickly on the basics — GAG pooling, for instance, which only about a third of MATs use. Inspecting the central MAT and then taking a deeper dive into individual schools only when needed would save enormous time: in three years as chair, I've sat through 12 school inspections giving essentially the same answers every time. Would it not be wonderful if the Committee could agree a single amendment that the Minister can work with?
My Lords, I speak strongly in defence of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and his Amendment 435, supported by my noble friends Lady Barran and Lady Spielman, which is long overdue. When I was the Minister in 2017, it was the first thing I tried to do, and I ran into a turf war between Ofsted and the department. It was as simple as that. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, asked why nothing has been done about it. It is because the bureaucrats were fighting each other. The excuse then was that there were not the sufficient financial skills in Ofsted to look at the financial framework and capability of the MAT. I think that is nonsense; I think we could train a small number of Ofsted inspectors very quickly to understand the basic principles. For example, GAG pooling, which is one of the big advantages of multi-academy trusts when they essentially have one bank account. Only about a third on MATs do that. I am a huge fan of it, although I do not think my noble friend Lord Nash is. That is fine; that is part of the flexibility that the system has created, but the Ofsted inspector would need to understand that. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, made a point about it freeing up resources, and I completely agree. In the three years since I have been back as the chairman of my trust, I have had to sit through, I think, 12 interviews with Ofsted inspectors. Some 80% of what I tell them is exactly the same every single time: we have a joined-up curriculum across the whole trust and we have GAG pooling of all the money. That is all happening; the heart and brain is at the centre. Therefore, having inspectors going round all these peripheral schools, where they will get the same answer time after time, is a tremendous waste of time. Go to the centre and, and if you are then worried about the messaging or the data you are inspecting, take a deeper dive into individual schools. If you did a single MAT inspection every three years, you would not have to go into every school. I really canno…
- My noble friend runs a good trust. But where things are not so good, there can be huge variability between schools — you can't just inspect the centre and trust that everything at the periphery is fine. If the centre isn't functioning well, the outside can be very up and down. And I'd push back on local authorities appointing anyone: the way you get good governance is to have a few excellent people who recruit other excellent people around them, then have Ofsted test whether it's working.
My noble friend of course runs a good academy trust. Where things are not so good, you can get a lot of variability between the schools that append themselves to a trust. So this has to be judged on the occasion: you cannot just say you we will inspect the middle and not the outside; if the middle is not functioning well, the outside can really be very up and down. I will add a couple of thoughts. First, I do not like the idea from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, of local authorities appointing. The way you gather good people together is by having a few excellent people in the middle who want other excellent people around them. Then you have Ofsted, or whoever, saying “Is this working?”. Local authorities just tend to appoint anybody, and those people do not turn up or know enough. Where I have seen local authorities appointing boards, it has been uniformly a disaster.
- I'm not suggesting local authorities appoint boards — I'm suggesting they appoint the members who, in effect, are the shareholders the board reports to at the annual general meeting.
I am not suggesting that local authorities appoint the boards; I am suggesting that local authorities appoint the members who, in effect, are the shareholders to whom the boards have to report on an annual basis at the annual general meeting.
- You still want responsive, interested and active people there — and that is not what you get from local authority appointment in my experience. Whatever the structure, Ofsted ought also to examine each MAT's connection with parents: some MATs do that interface very well; in others, parents' concerns just disappear into the fog.
Yes, but we still want responsive, interested and active people there—and that is not what you get in my experience. Secondly, I hope that inspection will look at the connection with parents, which can be hugely different across MATs. Some parents have a real connection with the school, and the school does that interface very well. With other, more distant MATs, anything that a parent is worried about just disappears into the fog and they never really know how to work with them. A good MAT will work well with parents, and Ofsted ought to look at that.
There is a fundamental gap in the accountability system: if schools and children's services are inspected, why not multi-academy trusts? We need transparency, consistency and fairness. Ofsted must have the power to inspect — and intervene in — MATs that are failing, and the inspection regime should recognise and spread excellence too.My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendment 435, to which I have added my name. I am also happy to signify support for Amendment 436ZZB. I am less enthusiastic about Amendment 436ZZA, because it is prolix and bureaucratic —but, if the opportunity came, I would not vote against it. What is noticeable and very welcome is the unanimity of view across the Committee on this issue, which is one of accountability. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, academies are a very important part of the school system. I have no connection with academies, unlike other noble Members who have spoken, other than as the parent of a child currently in year 10 of a school in a multi-academy trust in London. However, it is important that we have insight into what is happening within trusts to a much greater extent than we have at the moment, because there is a fundamental gap in the accountability system for school education. If schools and children’s services are inspected, why not multi-academy trusts? For that reason, we need transparency, consistency and fairness. Ofsted needs to have the power to inspect trusts’ governance, financial stewardship, curriculum content and teacher development, and how the trust-level ethos affects children across their academies. Some tales of the way in which certain trusts operate do not look good, given some of the pressures under which children are placed. I believe that good MATs should and will welcome this. I do not need to add further to what other noble Lords have said. This was a Labour manifesto commitment, as my noble friend Lord Knight said, so all I ask my noble friend the Minister is: if not now, when? I hope that the answer will be, “On Report”.
This amendment has all-party support — and that is very rare in education. University technical colleges now sit within MATs; they go from 14 to 18, with 40% of time in workshops or with companies, very different from a standard secondary. My experience is that MATs have generally handled that difference well, but it shows why inspection of the MAT centre matters: someone needs to understand that variety.My Lords, I very strongly support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Blunkett. I call him a friend because we have both borne the same responsibilities in the past and it looks as if his proposal has all-party support in the Committee. I assure your Lordships that that is very rare in education—very rare indeed. Multi-academy trusts were created some years ago because of the success of academisation. So many private schools had hitherto been controlled by local authorities, which understood money, but many independent schools did not have much understanding of money until they got their budgets. There was a need for an institution to sit between the Department for Education and the educational world of schools, particularly as—as anyone who has ever served in the Department for Education as a Minister or Secretary of State knows—not many people in the department have actually run a school. It is not their particular skill; they have other skills in other matters. I have had some experience of it because of the schools for which I am responsible—university technical colleges —of which there are now 44 with over 21,000 students. Many of these are now members of multi-academy trusts —in fact, two-thirds of them. This is quite challenging for the trusts because we are not ordinary secondary schools like the other ones that they control. We go from 14 to 18 only and tend to have a longer working day and shorter holidays, but the 14 year-olds spend two days a week—that is 40% of the time—in workshops, visiting companies or learning how to use machinery. UTCs are very different from the other secondary schools in the multi-academy trust. Initially, I was quite concerned that multi-academy trusts would not recognise the differences, but in my experience they have. I think we had difficulty with only one of them, where all the other schools in the trust were primary schools, so there was not a great deal of experience of running a secondary school. I also discovered tha…
- Don't rush the implementation — Ofsted inspectors will need training on how MATs work. Focus on what actually counts: educational outcomes, support from the centre, personal development, safeguarding, careers, enrichment and value for money — not just organisational structure.
I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lady Spielman and support the sentiment behind them. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that we should not rush to this, because I think Ofsted inspectors will need some training on it. Many of them still do not really understand MATs, and I am a little worried about boasting too much about organisational structure; it is more the results that count and educational outcomes, the support from the centre, personal development, safeguarding, careers, enrichment et cetera. Of course, it is fairly easy to inspect for value for money by reference to comparable statistics, so that could certainly be done. In principle, I support this concept and welcome the very eloquent intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.
- When you have all-party agreement on education in the Lords, run with it. There's a major part of the school system we're not inspecting properly. The question I'd put to the Minister is: if not now, then when? Getting clarity on the timetable would be very helpful.
My Lords, it is said that, if you have all-party support on education in the House of Lords, you should probably run with it. We have it on this occasion. There is a major part of the education system that we are not looking at: we are not inspecting the academy trusts properly. There are some successes there, and some that are not doing as well; that is inevitable, but it is an accepted part of the system now. We should be looking at what works and what does not. My question to the Minister is as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked: if not now, then when? If we are going to do something along these lines, getting an idea of the structure and when it is coming in would be very helpful, because it is a very important part of the structure. Whether we accept that with a sigh or a smile does not matter; it is there and we should be inspecting it. I look forward to hearing the Government’s plans in this department very soon.
- Over 80% of secondary schools and over 40% of primaries are academies, across almost 1,200 multi-academy trusts. The problem is a growing misalignment: autonomy increasingly sits at the trust level while accountability remains at school level. My amendment on intervention addresses that by creating a straightforward path where sustained academic underperformance triggers action — adjusted for deprivation, excluding recently sponsored schools, and designed to avoid creating orphan schools. My noble friend Lady Spielman's amendment sets out the coherent regulatory framework to go alongside it.
My Lords, this group includes a number of probing amendments to understand the Government’s thinking about MAT inspection and intervention. Over 80% of our secondary schools and over 40% of our primaries have become academies in England, with almost 1,200 multi-academy trusts or MATs and roughly another 1,000 single-academy trusts or SATs—the latter largely being secondary schools. The amendments in this group, in the name of my noble friend Lady Spielman and I, aim to address and provide tentative answers to three main issues. The first, on which your Lordships have already touched, is that a sense of unfairness has developed, with a potential misalignment between autonomy and accountability, which are the two planks that have underpinned our school reforms over the last two decades or so. Accountability remains at the school rather than the trust level, while autonomy, particularly in more centralised trusts, rests with the trust rather than the school. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my amendments aim to address that misalignment. My Amendment 436ZZA allows for a more straight- forward path for intervention in trusts where there is sustained academic underperformance in their schools. I agree, as ever, with my noble friend Lord Nash that we need to be looking at and worrying about outcomes for children before process. The amendment excludes schools that have been recently sponsored, so that no disincentive is created for a strong trust to take on a weak school. Similarly, it adjusts for levels of deprivation—not in any way to dilute ambition, but to make sure that the approach is fair and feels fair—comparing trusts to groups of schools in their local area rather than to a national performance table. Finally, the power would aim to avoid creating so-called “orphan schools” or multi-academy trusts that were not of an economic or effective size for the purposes of education. I know from my time in office that there were a handful of…
We set it out in our manifesto: bringing multi-academy trusts into inspection will make the system fairer and more transparent, and enable direct intervention when there's failure. I'm pleased to see cross-party consensus. The Government are committed to bringing forward legislation during this Parliament to introduce MAT inspection and intervention — and the regime should also highlight excellence and spread good practice. My regret today is that I'm playing the conservative force in the face of all this urging. We've had significant changes to the Ofsted framework announced this week; we need to ensure MAT inspection works alongside that, and very soon we'll have a new Schools White Paper followed by legislation that will make progress on this.You always know that you are in for a good debate when you have a group in which four former Secretaries of State for Education contribute—in agreement with each other—accompanied by a positive bevy of Academies and Schools Ministers and a former chief inspector. I thought that my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s setting in context of the history of how we got to this point was both enormously interesting and informative in identifying how we have arrived at this cross-party consensus about the need to bring multi-academy trusts into the inspection system. That is why the Government set out in our manifesto that that was our intention, believing, as others have argued, that it will make the system fairer and more transparent and enable direct intervention to address failure when necessary. On Amendment 435, tabled by my noble friend Lord Blunkett, Amendment 436ZZB, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, which seeks to introduce Ofsted inspections for multi-academy trusts, and Amendment 436ZZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which seeks to bring in a related regime of intervention for multi-academy trusts, I am grateful to the noble Lords for tabling those amendments, as this is an important matter and, as we have heard in this debate, one on which there is a large amount of consensus. I am pleased to see that there is support on both sides of the Committee for bringing multi-academy trusts into scope for inspections. As I say, we are committed to bringing forward legislation during this Parliament to introduce the inspection of multi-academy trusts and intervention where there is failure. The inspection regime should also highlight excellence and support the spreading of good practice between trusts. Taken together, those will help to raise standards in education and support all children to achieve and thrive. I suppose my regret today is that I am playing the role of the force of conservatism in the face of the urging by noble Lords from across the Co…
- The department had done a lot of thinking on this eighteen months ago, so we are not starting from a standing start — if the Minister hasn't seen it, it'll be on a DfE shelf somewhere.
I hope it is not breaking confidences to say that the department had done a lot of thinking about this 18 months ago, so we are not starting from a standing start. If the Minister has not seen that thinking, I am sure it is sitting on a DfE shelf somewhere and could be rekindled.
- I'm sure officials have been using that earlier work, but I reiterate: we must ensure the MAT inspection work goes alongside the new Ofsted changes. The Schools White Paper and subsequent legislation will get us there — and there is clear consensus across the House.
I am sure that this will be part of what officials have been using, but I reiterate the point that there have been other, considerable changes to the Ofsted regime, many of which were announced this week. We must ensure that the work goes alongside that. We will very soon have a new White Paper on schools. That will lead to legislation that I am certain will help us to make progress on this important development, on which clearly there is consensus across the House.
- It is perfectly feasible to put in this Bill an enabling clause that lets the department bring forward implementation through the White Paper and beyond, sophisticating it with guidance or regulation as needed. Collective memory is always a problem in government — but this House can square the circle.
I am very grateful for the final intervention by the noble Baroness opposite. Collective memory has always been a problem in government. It is nice to know that there is something on a shelf somewhere, although we have had rather an experience over the last 14 months of sometimes pulling the wrong one off it. I thank the Minister for her reply. It is perfectly feasible to square this circle. It is perfectly feasible to put in the Bill an enabling clause that allows the department, through the White Paper and beyond, to bring forward implementation. As has been suggested by a number of noble Lords, one can then sophisticate it with guidance or, if it requires it, regulation. We have got into a mindset of having to put things in the order that they were first thought of. It is difficult to get legislative approval within government. We used sometimes to manage it, not least when my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Rooker were my representatives in this House, because they used to cause absolute sodding havoc. Normally they were right. One time, I had the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the phone demanding the resignation of my noble friend Lord Rooker for something that he had said in the House. I said, “Well, there is one surefire way of making sure that everybody knows about it, Gordon, and that is to fire him”. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
- Two safeguarding loopholes need closing. First, the Teaching Regulation Agency can only act on misconduct that occurs in England — so a teacher who commits an offence overseas can return to England, pass a prohibition check and be hired with no one any the wiser. My amendment simply applies the teacher misconduct regime to anyone ever qualified to teach in England. Second, prohibited individuals can legally change their names between jobs and across countries to evade scrutiny. These loopholes undermine the integrity of the profession and put pupils at risk.
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 436ZB in my name. I remind your Lordships of my education interests, particularly as the chair of the Council of British International Schools. I thank Emily Konstantas, chair of the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition and CEO of the Safeguarding Alliance, for her assistance with these amendments. She has given me ample evidence of two safeguarding loopholes that we are seeking to close with these amendments. First is the problem that under current legislation the Teaching Regulation Agency can act only where misconduct occurs in England. This means that it is not possible for a teacher qualified in England who then commits an offence overseas to have that included on the register. Indeed, our experience is that there is not even any means to report the offence to the TRA that the individual is a risk to children. International schools routinely use prohibition checks upon recruitment of teachers, so this loophole is significant for them. If an individual has committed an offence in a school in one country and then goes to another, that offence is not picked up by the prohibition check. Therefore, as it stands, prohibited individuals can exploit international mobility to avoid scrutiny and teachers dismissed abroad for misconduct can return to England or elsewhere unchecked. With pupils placed at risk in this way, the integrity of the profession is undermined. My amendment simply applies the teacher misconduct regime to anyone who has at any time been qualified to teach in England and thus closes the loophole. The second problem is the growing practice of prohibited individuals legally changing their names between organisations and across countries to evade scrutiny and justice. I am concerned about the scenario where an individual has been convicted for an offence and then changes their name. They may then train and qualify as a teacher under the new identity and with a teacher reference number attached to…
- I have considerable sympathy, but Clause 45 already captures anyone who has at any time been employed to carry out teaching work at institutions in England, and the amendment as written would not technically achieve the overseas extension. The Secretary of State should not regulate the teaching profession overseas. Schools are already legally required under Keeping Children Safe in Education to carry out pre-appointment checks including enhanced DBS certificates and, where available, criminal record checks from the country where the applicant worked. I'd be glad to meet Lord Knight and the Safeguarding Alliance to discuss further.
My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for the concerns expressed through the amendments in this group, tabled by my noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth. I hope I can provide some assurance about how the system operates in order to minimise the risks that noble Lords have identified here. On Amendment 436ZA, Clause 45 captures individuals who are or have at any time been employed or engaged to carry out any teaching work at specific institutions in England. This clause ensures that those who commit serious misconduct are investigated where appropriate and prevented from carrying out teaching work. I understand the intention of this amendment to expand the regulatory regime to cover those who have worked overseas, although I understand that, on a technical basis, the amendment as written would not have that effect. The existing regulatory regime applies to teachers in England and is operated by the TRA on behalf of the Secretary of State. The department’s view is that it would be wrong for the Secretary of State to regulate the teaching profession overseas. The Keeping Children Safe in Education statutory guidance already clearly sets out the legal requirements placed on schools and colleges to carry out pre-appointment checks when employing staff from overseas. This responsibility on schools goes further than the noble Baroness suggested in her remarks. It includes obtaining an enhanced DBS certificate, even if the individual has never been to the UK. In addition, schools and colleges must make any further checks they think are appropriate, so that any relevant events that occurred outside the UK can be considered. These checks would include, where available, criminal record checks for overseas applicants—the Home Office publishes guidance on that—and obtaining a letter from the professional regulating authority where the applicant has worked confirming that it has not imposed any sanctions or restrictions and/or that it is unaware of any reason why they may be uns…
- There still appears to be a loophole for teachers returning to England — and we should be encouraging people who have taught overseas to come home, because we are short of teachers. Getting records across multiple jurisdictions is notoriously difficult. I'll take up the Minister's offer to meet on this.
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, particularly for the last sentiment in her wind-up on this small but perfectly formed debate on these amendments. My noble friend referred to the reality that the Teaching Regulation Agency does not want to regulate all teachers overseas. That is true, but the system here in England regards it as the body that regulates those who are qualified to teach in this country. There still appears to be a loophole regarding teachers returning to this country to teach—and we should be encouraging people who have been attracted by teaching overseas to come home and teach in the English maintained sector, because we are short of teachers. Part of that must include the safeguarding arrangements to do so. I understand about enhanced certificates, criminal record checks and so on, but it is notoriously difficult, when teachers have a career across multiple jurisdictions, to ensure that you have absolute certainty that the records are complete in that respect. I will willingly take up the Minister’s offer to meet her or whoever the Minister in the department is for safeguarding and the TRA. If I could bring along Emily from the Safeguarding Alliance, who has the expertise, so that we can discuss it, I would be very grateful. On that basis I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
These amendments close an important safeguarding gap for internationally mobile teachers. The current system doesn't even provide an option to report overseas misconduct to the TRA online. A teacher dismissed for serious welfare issues abroad would have a clear prohibition check result and could be hired by an English school that has no idea of their history. That is clearly unsatisfactory.My Lords, I add my support to Amendments 436ZA and 436ZB in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I declare my interest as honorary president of COBIS which, as the noble Lord said, is a member of the British International Schools Safeguarding Coalition. As the noble Lord set out, these amendments would close an important safeguarding loophole by extending the jurisdiction of the Teaching Regulation Agency to accept referrals of misconduct committed by UK-qualified teachers working overseas, and strengthening prohibition checks to ensure that individuals cannot exploit name changes to evade detection. Prohibition checks are essential to identify individuals banned from teaching due to misconduct, safeguarding concerns or professional incompetence, and yet none of these misdemeanours committed at international schools overseas can be referred to the TRA. Indeed, as the noble Lord stressed, the current system does not even provide an option for them to report such concerns to the TRA online, creating a clear gap in the information that it holds. The loopholes in the current system mean that a teacher who is returning to the UK, for instance, and should have been referred to the TRA due to potentially serious child welfare issues committed overseas cannot be reported and so no prohibition order can be made. As a result, the individual would pass the statutory check, which schools rely on as evidence that an individual is safe to work with children. In practice, that could mean a teacher dismissed for misconduct abroad would have a clear result on their prohibition check and could subsequently be hired by a school in England that had no idea of their previous behaviour and allow the teacher to resume teaching. I am sure the Minister agrees that this situation is clearly unsatisfactory and should be addressed. I hope she is able to accept these sensible amendments, which are supported by the Safeguarding Alliance and six UK Government-recognised British…
- Clause 46 is intended to have important consequences for staffing but not necessarily the ones the Government intended. Requiring teaching in all schools to be by qualified staff makes it far harder for schools and sixth-form academies to use subject specialists in vocational and technical subjects — computing, engineering, catering, design — who have deep expertise but are not interested in a full-time teaching career or a PGCE. We often can find excellent professionals willing to teach part-time who would take some classroom training, but who simply won't pursue full QTS. The Government rightly care about vocational and technical skills; this clause threatens to undermine them.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 436A. I declare an interest as a governor of King’s College London Mathematics School. Clause 46 is intended to have important consequences for the staffing of schools. As it stands, it certainly will, but I am not sure that they will be the ones that the Government expected and intended. My concern here is with the likely impact of the Bill on the teaching of vocational and technical subjects in schools and in sixth form colleges that are academies. I believe the current Government recognise vocational and technical subjects, which of course include computer science and engineering, as central to its skills agenda, and I am absolutely sure that the Minister does. However, this Bill threatens to undermine them, because it will make it far more difficult and far rarer for schools and many sixth form colleges to provide high-quality teaching by subject specialists in these disciplines. Clause 46 seeks to ensure that teaching in all schools is carried out by qualified staff, meaning staff with a teaching qualification. If you ask the general public whether they think it is a good idea for teachers to be qualified, they will, obviously enough, be inclined to say yes. However, if you ask them whether they would prefer subjects to be taught by subject specialists, they will also say yes. If you tell them that quite often this is not the case, especially in maths and science, they are rightly pretty horrified. In fact, I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that a PGCE is a great substitute for having a trained chef teach catering or an IT expert deliver computer science. In an ideal world this would not be an either/or, but that is not the world we live in. It is quite often, fortunately, possible to find highly qualified professionals who are willing and interested in part-time teaching and happy to undertake some practical, classroom-related training. But these people are mostly not interested in becoming full-time, school-based teacher…
- I come down on the side of QTS. I strongly disapproved of the previous Government removing that requirement for academy teachers. But there is a genuinely hard question about subjects where practical experience from someone without QTS can motivate children and deliver the curriculum better than a credentialled non-specialist. I'd welcome an acknowledgement that some flexibility can be brought back for those subjects — not formal exceptions, but recognition that we don't want to waste the talents of people who have something real to offer.
My Lords, I was not going to intervene in this debate, because I find it quite difficult. I have some sympathy with the amendment that has just been moved, but my position is that teachers should have qualified teacher status. I have not got involved in the fringes of the debate because I think it is genuinely difficult to draw dividing lines. If I have to come down on one side or the other, I come down on the side of people having qualified teacher status. I strongly disapproved of the actions of the previous Government in taking away that requirement for either teachers in academies or for all teachers, I cannot recall. I have always had sympathy with that range of subjects where, in my heart, I know that many people without QTS—instructor status or whatever—but with that practical experience could motivate children and deliver the curriculum, possibly to a higher standard and more effectively than other teachers. I know from experience as a teacher that very often what happens is that the teacher who is not a teacher of those subjects but who has qualified teacher status ends up teaching. I have sympathy with that and very much hope that, in the understanding that I think the Government have expressed, and in their promise to bring forward further information, some flexibility can be brought back around this arrangement of subjects. I am not talking about exceptions, because I do not want to go down that route; I am talking about an acknowledgement that we do not want to waste the talents of people who have got something to offer to our children. It would be a move that I would very much welcome.
- A note of pragmatism: the current freedom hasn't caused significant problems in practice. The question is what problem this clause is trying to solve. The pathways Lord Knight described to bring instructors into QTS are excellent and should be encouraged — but the pragmatic concern is all the people who might choose to be teachers but instead become tutors because they won't go through the full QTS process. They're lost to the state system. A purity-of-principle approach risks diluting the subject experience for millions of children.
I want to come in on this group to inject a note of pragmatism into the discussion. First, I observe that the current freedom does not seem to have created significant problems in practice. To ask that classic question, “What is the problem that the clause in the Bill is trying to solve?” Secondly, it is absolutely right that there are excellent programmes—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, described them—to encourage people to move from instructor and teaching assistant roles into qualified teacher status. Those are excellent—they should exist and people should be encouraged, of course—but the pragmatic point is to think about all the people who might choose to be teachers but choose instead, for example, to go off and be tutors, lavishing their skills and expertise in a very small subject on children whose parents can afford to pay. They are then lost to the state system because they simply will not go down that path. For that reason, I support the amendments put forward by my noble friends Lady Barran and Lord Agnew—as well as the pragmatic amendment proposed at the start of this group by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf of Dulwich—as a way of making sure that the potential impact of this clause is not the opposite of what I am sure the Government intend. It is absolutely right to want both to upskill teachers and to make sure that as much teaching as possible happens with qualified teachers, but it would be desperately sad if many subjects and a lot of the potential school experience for millions of children were diluted for that purity of principle.
- Schools are teams — if you bring in someone with deep skills but lacking classroom technique, the community rallies round to support them. The right model isn't 'go away unless you have QTS first'; it's 'we want your skills, let's bring you on'. There are people in their fifties and sixties at the end of careers in IT or other fields who'd love to work with young people but won't go through a rigid process — this Bill closes the door on them unnecessarily.
My Lords, I quite agree with my noble friend. The current system does not create a lot of problems because most schools are teams. If you really need a particular skill, so you bring in someone who has that skill but lacks the other skills that one needs to teach well, the community rallies round and makes sure both that everyone works together and that the experience for the children is good. What I would like to see is not a system that says, “Go away, we don’t want you unless you have QTS first”, but one that welcomes people in and says, “Let’s bring you on”—the sort of thing that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was describing. Such an attitude to bringing in the skills that we need seems to me to be the right one. There are lots of people out there who could contribute their skills if it were made possible for them to do that in a way that works for them. As my noble friend said, there are a lot of young people who tutor and do it really well and who, therefore, develop an interest in the idea that they might be teachers although they want to get there in a way that suits them. There are lots of older people in their fifties and sixties who are coming to the end of their career and know that they are not going to go anywhere else. They may be consultants in IT and just do not want to sit down and write another computer system. They would love to get involved with young people and help to bring them on. You have to make it easy for them and find a way in for them. Creating something as inflexible as this Bill does seems destructive.
No education system can exceed the quality of its teachers. Teaching is not just subject knowledge — it's effective pedagogy, behaviour, safeguarding. Initial teacher training has been transformed: most of it now takes place in schools, and routes into QTS have become much more flexible. And this is a social justice issue: DfE evidence shows that pupils in the highest-deprivation schools are the most likely to be taught by unqualified teachers and non-specialists, receive a narrower curriculum, and are less likely to be offered physics.My Lords, I will speak in particular to Amendments 436B, 436C, 437 and 437A. Before I became a union leader, doing the work of the devil, according to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, I was a teacher. I worked in university departments of education for over 10 years in York, Liverpool and London, and a big part of that job was to give teachers initial teacher training at MA level and at PhD and research level. I know that no education system can exceed the quality of its teachers and that the value of that training was essential. It is not enough that teachers just have very good subject knowledge. They also need to understand professional concerns such as effective pedagogy. They need to learn about behaviour and safeguarding. In fact, initial teacher training is now completely transformed. The majority of it takes place in schools. There are various routes into QTS. It is much easier to work towards QTS while you are training or while you are a classroom assistant. Various Governments over a period of years have made the routes into initial teacher training and qualified teacher status much better. It is an important professional qualification which underpins not only the status of the profession but the quality of the education which children are getting. I would also add that this is a social justice issue, I think, because the fact is that the children who most need teachers who are qualified in the subjects they are teaching are, at the moment, the least likely to get them. DfE evidence to the STRB in 2025 shows clearly that pupils in schools with the highest percentage of pupil premium are more likely than other pupils to be taught by unqualified teachers and non-specialists. They receive a narrower curriculum than other pupils, are less likely to be offered physics as a subject option, and are more likely to be taught by unqualified teachers and teachers teaching outside of their subject area. That is why, over the course of last year, I established and chaired th…
- What exactly is a 'qualified teacher'? A PGCE has got better under the reformed training standards, but it's not the gold standard. Between a newly qualified maths graduate with subject expertise and someone with a sociology degree who has a PGCE but wants to teach maths — I know which one I'd choose. Why is the DfE imposing this rule on 22,000 schools from Whitehall? Let heads decide. My amendment focuses on the combination that actually matters: subject expertise at degree level and demonstrable competence in the classroom.
My Lords, I would like to explain my Amendment 437A, which relates to qualified teachers, and to offer a different point of view from the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted—although we are both trying to achieve the same thing, I think. The first thing to establish, if one does not unquestioningly accept the bureaucratic definition, is what exactly a qualified teacher is. We have drifted into accepting that the postgraduate certificate in education, or PGCE, is the gold standard. With the reforms made by the previous Government to the teacher training standards, the new inspection framework and the accreditation exercise, it has got better, but it is not the be-all and end-all. Is it really the kitemark that we should use as the standard for good teachers? I put to noble Lords two hypothetical but frequently occurring sets of circumstances. A newly qualified graduate with a degree in, say, maths or one of the sciences decides that they would like to spend a year or two teaching the subject in which they have specialised. Across the corridor, a person of the same age who completed an undergraduate degree in sociology or politics but has completed their PGCE asks to teach maths. All other things being equal, who would you rather have teaching your child the specialist subject? I know which one I would choose; that is the brutal reality. Anyway, what business is it of the DfE, sitting remotely over 22,000 schools, to be imposing rules like this? I have met heads who support both sides of these arguments. Why are we not letting them be the judge? For example, in some parts of England, such as London, it is easier to recruit PGCE graduates than it is in the provinces. How can bureaucrats in the DfE possibly know how to run a school better? We touched on that earlier. We have a mixed economy at the moment—and thank goodness we do, for reasons I will come on to in a moment. I do not want noble Lords to think that I am dead against the PGCE. The coalition Government introduced th…
Primary teachers typically receive only four to six hours of PE instruction during initial teacher training — woefully inadequate. Physical literacy matters not just for finding the next Olympian but for developing active habits for life. 80% of women are not fit enough to be healthy; obesity rates in children are creeping up. We shouldn't expect children to play sport without teaching them the basics, any more than we'd expect them to do trigonometry without learning maths. A review of teacher training for sport and physical activity is needed.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 495, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and to which I have added my name. This amendment, after Clause 62, seeks to insert a new clause on teacher training reviews. I declare my interests as president of the LGA, chair of Sport Wales and chair of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which is actively looking at enrichment around the school day to help children develop more skills that will help them across the whole of their lives. It feels like we have been discussing teacher training for sport and physical activity for years. Quite often, certainly around primary-age teacher training, only about four hours of instruction are given on how to deliver physical education. It is a very difficult subject to teach because, even at the youngest age, there is a huge range of capability in children. The amendment is important because it is not just about finding a new set of Olympians and Paralympians but about developing physical activity for life. The amendment is required because of the state of inactivity in England and in the UK. Women in Sport data shows that 80% of women are not fit enough to be healthy. The organisation ukactive has published lots of research on obesity rates in children, which seem to be creeping up and up. While I acknowledge that the school cannot do everything around encouraging children to be fit, healthy and active, it can play a huge part. If we look to another subject, we do not expect children to be able to do trigonometry without teaching them the basics of maths; there is a path to follow. However, we expect children to play sport without teaching them the basics of physical literacy. It is really important that we learn from elsewhere. In Wales in 2012 and 2013, we came very close to giving physical literacy the same status as literacy and numeracy in schools; it would have been part of the teacher training and measured by Estyn. This is important because it is about a healthy mind, body and spirit and…
Generalist primary teachers typically receive as little as four to six hours of PE training in their initial teacher training — a minimum widely seen as woefully inadequate. The low professional status of PE within schools compounds this. This amendment would require a review of teacher training for sport and physical literacy at primary level.My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, whom I hope she does not mind me calling my noble friend. I will speak to Amendments 437 and 495, which are in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, who deeply regrets that he cannot be with us today. Amendment 437 speaks for itself. I have attached my name to Amendment 495; I have worked with my noble friend Lord Moynihan on it for quite some time. Our concerns are the weaknesses of the sport and physical literacy components of teacher training in the UK. They are most pronounced for generalist primary school teachers, who often lack sufficient training, confidence and practical opportunities. These issues are compounded by the low professional status for physical education within schools and it not being prioritised. There is also a minimum time allocation: generalist primary teachers typically receive very little training in physical education during their initial teacher training—ITT—programmes; one source cited an average of four to six hours. This is widely seen as woefully inadequate for preparing them to deliver high-quality PE.
- We need qualified teachers, particularly for the most disadvantaged pupils. There are already good pathways to QTS for instructors and teaching assistants — what the Tes Institute called 'Straight to Teaching', now the fifth-largest QTS route in England. Teaching apprenticeships are being opened up too. The answer isn't to lower the bar but to make the paths into qualification work for people with vocational expertise.
My Lords, I will speak briefly on this group of amendments in the same vein as have my noble friends Lady Morris and Lady Bousted, and emphasise that we need qualified teachers, particularly for the most disadvantaged pupils in our country. Some years ago, prior to the pandemic, I was for seven years a senior executive at TES—the Times Educational Supplement, as it once was. During that tenure, I set up the Tes Institute, which was a teacher training institute. It is now the fifth-largest qualifier of teachers in England. The main route that we opened up through the Tes Institute was something that we branded “straight to teaching”: in essence, it was the opportunity for people who were working as instructors, who had instructor grades of pay but had experience of teaching, to be assessed for how close to the teaching standards they would be; then a bespoke professional development programme could be devised for them so that they could reach that set of standards and get QTS. Incidentally—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Agnew—I was surprised to learn that a PGCE did not qualify you to teach; there is not an equivalence between the two. Qualified teacher status is a separate thing, but there is an assumption within the system that a PGCE equals qualified teacher status. The process of developing Straight to Teaching taught me that there are plenty of people who are working as instructors in our schools in this country, in effect, and who could be taken through to become qualified teachers on the job while carrying on being paid and using their experience. That could apply to those in vocational settings as well as in more academic settings; it says to me that there are routes. Teaching apprenticeships are now being opened up for those people who have the sorts of qualifications and experience that have been discussed in this debate to be hired by schools and then, within a reasonable time, to be taken into qualified teacher status. That is something we should grab…
As a secondary school teacher I'm genuinely conflicted. Industry experts do add real value — we use architects to teach architecture, and employers at UTCs set and review real projects. It's unrealistic to expect those employers to get teaching qualifications. But going from home-school experience straight to teaching 32 boisterous students in the last lesson on a Friday without any formal training is optimistic at best.My Lords, as a secondary school teacher, I admit that I am conflicted by this group of amendments. Noble Lords have highlighted the benefits of getting industry experts to teach in schools. At our school, we use architects to teach the architecture programme. I recently went to a UTC that gets employers to come in and set projects for students. The employers then regularly come in to look at the projects so that the students get real-world, real-industry training. It is unrealistic to expect these employers to get teaching qualifications. I am afraid that I cannot let Amendment 438 go. I have admired the optimism and creativity of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, and I acknowledge the sterling work that the elective home-schooling community is doing. Like many in this Committee, I have undertaken formal teacher training. I have QTS, which does not appear to be the gold standard any more, I am afraid. I had one disastrous attempt at home-schooling during lockdown, when I tried to teach my primary school-aged daughter maths. She is still shouting at me even now. To say that somebody who has experienced only home-schooling can go from that to teaching 32 boisterous students in the last period on a Friday, without any formal training, and impart any knowledge at all is optimistic at best. The noble Lord, who is sadly not in his place, unwittingly belittles two years of pretty intense training for mainstream teachers.
Lord Agnew is right that there is a crisis in teacher supply, but his solution isn't mine. The most important thing in a child's life is the quality of their teacher. A degree doesn't make you a good teacher — classroom management, child development, behaviour: without those skills you cannot cope with 30 children in a playground. We need to value teachers, reduce workload, and invest in continuous professional development. That's what will attract and retain people into the profession.My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, is right: there is a crisis in the supply of teachers, not just the numbers but also, as he said, in specialism. There is also the great worry that we are seeing the lowest number of people wanting to go into teaching and the highest number of teachers leaving early. But his solution is not my solution. I have said in this House on many occasions that the most important thing in a child’s life is the quality of their teacher. We do not, as a society, value teachers. Having a qualification does not make you a good teacher. We can remember that, in the 30s, 40s and maybe even the 50s, someone with a university degree would come out of university and think they could teach. You cannot always. Occasionally, they could do it. Those who could not do it at secondary modern schools quickly tried to transfer to grammar schools, where they thought it might be easier. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, rightly said, if you have in the playground or on the sports field some challenging pupils haring around and you do not have an understanding of child development or behaviour management, you cannot cope. You would not, for example, expect someone who has a law degree to suddenly step into a court; you just would not have it. We have to work out how on earth we can ensure that people want to become teachers. It is not just about training to become a teacher; we have to support them when they are in teaching. It is not just about salary, although that helps. It is about continuous professional development. It is about the campaigns about workload that many of us have constantly gone on about. I think that is a simple thing to solve. Teachers have said to me any number of times, “If I could just get on with the job of teaching without having to do all these other tasks”. That does not stop visitors coming into school. It does not stop experts who have a particular knowledge being linked to a school and coming in from time to time to talk to the…
- We remain unclear what problem the Government are trying to solve. Their own data shows the percentage of teachers without a formal teaching qualification has been stable for 10 years — about 1% in primary and 1.5–2% in secondary, roughly 6,000 out of 450,000 teachers, largely in specialist subjects. I could find no evidence that unqualified teachers provide lower-quality education. The real question is whether between a physics graduate with industry experience and an English graduate with QTS, the answer is always the latter — I don't think parents would say so. Common sense should focus on subject expertise plus demonstrable competence.
My Lords, this group has elicited another excellent debate and, like other noble Lords, on these Benches we remain unclear what problem the Government are trying to solve. The Government’s own data shows that the percentage of teachers without a formal teaching qualification has been pretty stable in both primary and secondary schools for the past 10 years. It sits at about 1% in primary and between 1.5% and 2% in secondary, which is about 6,000 teachers out of a workforce of over 450,000. We are talking about tiny numbers, largely in specialist subjects, which has not changed over a very long time. I could not find—and I did look—any evidence that suggests that teachers without a formal teaching qualification provide lower-quality education. That is not to disagree in any way with any noble Lord who has spoken already. We know that the quality of the teacher at the front of the classroom is the single biggest and most important influence on the education that a child receives. The Government have argued that one would not want to be seen by an unqualified lawyer or dentist. As other noble Lords have said, any of us, if asked, “Would you like your child to be taught by a qualified or unqualified teacher?”, would say, “A qualified teacher”. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said, if asked, “Would you like to be taught by someone with a physics degree and 10 years in the industry, or someone with a degree in English and QTS?”, I think, to be fair, the answers might be different. Amendments 437 and 437A in the names of my noble friends Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Agnew of Oulton have my support, because they just apply common sense, focusing on the combination of specific subject expertise at degree level, in the case of my noble friend Lord Agnew’s amendment, and demonstrable competence in teaching. Now, having listened to the debate, I am beginning to wonder whether, given the tiny number of unqualified teachers in the system, this whole clause is not a bit…
- Teaching is a profession and we are unapologetic about a high bar. It is what parents, head teachers and the Government rightly expect — which is why we put it in our manifesto. New teachers must have the essential training and induction they need to help children achieve.
My Lords, teaching is a profession and we are unapologetic about having a high bar for training and qualification. It is what parents, head teachers and the Government should rightly expect, which is why the Government committed to this measure in our manifesto. It will ensure that new teachers have the essential training and induction that they need to help children achieve.
- Thank you sincerely for the clarification on 16-to-19 academies — please write to noble Lords and cascade information about current flexibilities and the Government's position on their future, because there is a lot of both ignorance and uncertainty out there.
I thank the Minister very sincerely for the clarification on 16 to 19 academies, which I had so dismally failed to obtain. It would be extremely helpful if she could write to noble Lords and generally cascade the information about current flexibilities and the position of the Government on their future, because there is a lot of both ignorance and uncertainty on that out there at the moment. Given the huge challenges of recruiting people in these areas—these are people who are not planning to make a career of teaching—that would be very helpful. I have learned a great deal from this debate, which has been very helpful, especially because there was a great deal I did not know about initial teacher training as it now stands. It has been very helpful and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
- A warning from history: in 2004, subject-level curriculum scrutiny was stripped from Ofsted. The consequence was a drastic reduction in what primary and key-stage-3 schools taught outside English and maths. The DfE spent years playing whack-a-mole with gaming of performance tables. The Ofsted changes announced this week will remove the limited subject-level scrutiny reintroduced in 2019 to counteract that loss. If the national curriculum obligation for academies in this Bill cannot be effectively scrutinised because inspection doesn't check subjects, it could become a dead letter — just as before.
My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 440 and 442 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew. He tabled these amendments because of his concerns that the new national curriculum remains so uncertain. The interim report has given little indication of what might follow in the autumn or next year, and he believes that with that level of uncertainty these amendments are appropriate. I have taken this on at short notice and will listen to what the Minister has to say and respond. Before I sit down, I want to give a warning. We have been here before. In 2004, the national curriculum obligation applied to virtually all schools, as very few schools were academies at that time. At that point, inspection was stripped down to remove subject-level scrutiny from most of the curriculum. English and maths in primary schools were specifically examined, but beyond that almost all subject-level inspection was removed. What was the consequence? Over time, in primary schools and at key stage 3 there was a drastic reduction in what was taught. Various reports show that, such as Key Stage 3: The Wasted Years? from Ofsted. Primary schools, especially once the science tests were dropped in 2009, taught less and less outside English and maths. At key stage 4, this was compounded by the equivalence concept brought into performance tables at the same time. All manner of distortions and gaming emerged in the secondary curriculum, and the DfE had to play whack-a-mole for years each time a new game popped up—some people will remember things such as the European computer driving licence, equivalent qualifications that were worth four GCSEs, double entry and so on. It would be unfortunate if we went back to that world. I understand that the Ofsted changes that have been announced will remove the very limited subject-level scrutiny that was reintroduced in 2019 to counteract this loss of real curriculum. My concern is that the national curriculum obligation included in this clause could become a dead letter,…
- Clause 47 strips academies of a key freedom: the ability to tailor their curriculum to their pupils and communities. Free schools this summer outperformed other non-selective state schools at GCSE and A-level precisely because of that flexibility. High-impact free schools have drawn on everything from Teach Like a Champion to project-based learning, specialising around marine themes, arts integration, or autism. A national curriculum requirement provides a floor — but without that flexibility, innovation dies.
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Barran’s proposition that Clause 47 does not stand part of the Bill. Clause 47 as it stands strips academies of one of their key freedoms: the ability to innovate and tailor their curriculum approaches to meet the specific needs of the pupils and communities they serve. We have clear evidence that allowing schools this freedom, with clear accountability mechanisms in place, improves outcomes for pupils. This summer, free schools outperformed other non-selective state schools in both GCSE and A-level results, playing an important role in driving up standards, particularly in areas of significant deprivation and low educational attainment. One of the strengths of free schools has been their diversity, representing a varied range of educational philosophies and high-quality curricula. In a recent report, New Schools Network set out a number of principles that it had identified across high-impact free schools—those with a strong track record, outstanding Ofsted ratings, strong exam results and high levels of participation, engagement, progression and achievement. Among them was a relentless focus on the fundamentals of learning, which often drew on international and well-evidenced school and curriculum models and practices, from Teach Like a Champion to Expeditionary Learning, KIP and High Tech High. Drawing on the best evidence and proven ideas of what works, schools have used the flexibility in the current system to adapt their curriculum to suit their students. They, after all, know their pupils best. The NSN report sets out a number of examples where free schools have used their curriculum freedoms to the benefit of their pupils. Marine Academy Plymouth has developed its own curriculum around marine themes relating to the city’s coastal tradition. School 21’s curriculum is project-oriented, with curriculum and pedagogical practices allowing pupils to choose personalised opportunities for growth which fit in with their passion…
The Hackney Learning Trust transformed what was labelled the worst education district in Europe within two years by focusing on great school leaders, high academic expectations, and rigorous accountability — and for African-Caribbean boys, results reached above the national average. The factors that made that possible are precisely what this Bill puts at risk: school leader autonomy, high expectations, and freedom to innovate.My Lords, as someone who has not put down an amendment, I will give some collective memory context to what we are debating today. I support most of the amendments. I hope they will not be rejected, but we will see what happens. Yesterday, I listened to the speech made by the Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson. She rightly boasted about the legacy of Ernest Bevin and how he understood that real social mobility is about working-class people and the agency to aspire. Sadly, as she reeled off the achievements of the labour movement since Bevin, she forgot perhaps one of the most radical and important achievements from Labour: the setting up of the academies—yes, a Labour invention. It may have been this philosophy that inspired Tony Blair in 2002 to set up the Hackney Learning Trust. This became the birthplace of the academy movement. Luckily enough, I was part of the board that was tasked to transform Hackney education. Some would say that our task was impossible; we were faced with a Labour education authority that totally failed all of its students and parents. Hackney was given the label not only as the worst education district in Britain but the worst in Europe. In those days, boys from an African-Caribbean background were at the bottom of the heap. When I remember the early days, there was joy from the current education authority in handing us the power. Yes, there were some grumblings about what it knew about the new model of academies, but there was a real sense that this was the answer. Our first task was to find an iconic school which was regarded as the worst performing and transform that. We set about closing the then Hackney Downs School and built the fantastic Mossbourne Academy, led by Sir Michael Wilshaw. We were given a 10-year contract. Within two years, Hackney was on its way to moving from the worst place to educate your child to the best. For African-Caribbean boys, the results zoomed to above the national average. How did we do this? It was be…
- As a Mossbourne teacher and parent, I can only echo that — and I'll add what a multi-academy trust chair said to me a couple of days ago: 'Education is one of the few things in this country that really works. Why do they want to dismantle it?'
My Lords, as a teacher at Mossbourne, who has one child there and one who has just left, I—slightly emotionally—thank the noble Lord, Lord Sewell of Sanderstead. I cannot thank him and the Hackney Learning Trust enough. I cannot add anything to that except to quote the chair of a multi-academy trust I was talking to a couple of days ago, who said: “Education is one of the few things in this country that really works. Why do they want to dismantle it?” I can leave it at that.
The national curriculum review's final report will help develop a knowledge-rich, cutting-edge curriculum; AI and digital skills are central to that mission. But creativity also matters — GCSE arts entries have fallen 48% since 2010, and design and technology enrolments have declined too. I hope the curriculum review will recognise both the skills agenda and the cultural richness that our children need.My Lords, I apologise as I was not able to speak at Second Reading as I missed the start of the session for family reasons. So I hope noble Lords will bear with me as I make a contribution linked to this group and Amendment 497 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, who is not in his place, but I thank him for highlighting the important issue of artificial intelligence. I declare an interest as chair of Camden STEAM. One of the initiatives it has helped catalyse and launch this year is Camden Learning’s first-in-the-world trailblazing pilot: the London AI Campus. Developed in collaboration with Google, it aims to inspire, inform and educate students and teachers in AI and digital skills. If any noble Lords are interested in further information or, indeed, a visit to the centre, I ask them to please get in touch with me. The Department for Education articulates its purpose as “the department for opportunity … breaking the link between background and success”. The national curriculum review, which is nearing its conclusion, is vital to that mission for many reasons, including, as one of its terms of reference states, in developing “a cutting-edge curriculum, equipping children and young people with the essential knowledge and skills which will enable them to adapt and thrive in the world and workplace of the future”. I hope the contributions in this Committee session will be helpful to Becky Francis, the chair, as she focuses on this area in the second stage of her work. She has rightly talked about the review pragmatically following a path of “evolution, not revolution”, recognising what has been working successfully, such as the advances the previous Government made in reading and maths. However, while I support that approach, we are also in a revolution in the world of work, brought on by rapid advances in technology, with the attendant need to effectively support growth and productivity, particularly in the key sectors of the industrial strategy and in our re…
- Financial education habits form as early as age seven, yet England has no statutory requirement for it in primary schools — unlike the rest of the UK. Only 26% of 18-to-21 year-olds report having received any financial education at school. With children now encountering digital payments, targeted advertising and online scams before secondary school, this gap is simply unacceptable.
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502D, which stands in my name. I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for his support. This amendment seeks to make financial education a mandatory part of the primary school curriculum from year 1. Why do we need it? Its aims are simple but important: to ensure that children begin to develop the knowledge and skills needed to understand and manage money from an early age. In a world of increasing financial complexity, where our children encounter such things as targeted advertising, digital payments and online scams, often before they have even reached secondary school, it is more important than ever that financial literacy should not be left to chance. While financial education is a statutory part of the secondary school curriculum in England, it is not a requirement in primary schools. This creates a gap at precisely the stage when children begin forming lifelong money habits, and it stands in stark contrast to the rest of the United Kingdom, where such education is embedded in the national curriculum at an earlier age than in England. The Money and Pensions Service has found that these habits develop as early as age seven, yet we wait until secondary school to introduce compulsory learning. Without embedding financial education from year 1, we risk missing the most formative opportunity to equip our children with the tools that they need to manage money with confidence and make good financial decisions throughout their lives. According to a research report from Santander UK, at the beginning of this year, out of 2,000 pupils aged 18 to 21, only 26% reported receiving any financial education at school. Without a fundamental understanding of money management, our young people are increasingly turning to online sources for financial guidance and information, especially social media—that comes with its own risks—as they step into an age of financial independence. This cannot be right. RedSTART Educate, a charity for primary school ch…
- What is the Government's attitude to assistive technology as a tool for supporting pupils with special educational needs through the curriculum? A pupil with dyslexia cannot access modern language learning or produce written work without it. Getting that thinking on the record in this part of the Bill would help the debates ahead.
My Lords, I draw the Committee’s attention to Amendment 441, which is tabled in my name. It is not the most elegant amendment that I have ever tabled, but it is designed to get the Government to set out their thinking on supporting those with special educational needs through the use of assistive technology. I have a couple of obvious interests. The one I should declare is that I am chairman of Microlink PC, which makes adaptive technology for the workplace and education. More importantly—I show off how bad a dyslexic I am—I cannot function or deliver a letter without using it. Let us take English and somebody who is dyslexic. If you are bad enough, you will not achieve in English without having someone to dictate to unless you use assistive technology. You will fail at learning a language using the modern processes because the language-processing parts of your brain and your short-term memory do not work that way. You may have a choice of failing dramatically or just simply failing, but you are not going to achieve. Using assistive technology means that you can access that part of the curriculum, get through and possibly hand in work without having somebody else there. You have your independence. I was trying to get the Government to set out their attitude towards this, which is a great way of addressing some of the problems of special educational needs. Get in early and get them away; they can maintain themselves and will be adaptive. If we could know about this in this part of the Bill, it would help us in the future. I hope that the Government are friendly to it. There are all sorts of things attached to this. For instance, there are great things about not having mobile phones in school, but they are a very good platform on which to carry some of this technology. This may not be the only way forward—there may be other ways—but getting some idea of the Government’s thinking on this would probably help the forthcoming debates. It may not be a silver bullet, but it…
Any order or regulations under this Bill that would amend primary legislation should not apply to academy schools. Academies' success rests on their freedom to depart from the national curriculum. The Bill allows the Government to control academy curriculum content via secondary legislation that amends primary legislation — Henry VIII powers that raise serious rule-of-law concerns.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 443 in my name. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for supporting it. The amendment would provide that an order or regulations made under or by virtue of any provision of the Bill that would amend primary legislation shall not apply to an academy school. Academies’ proven success has been based on their freedom to depart from the national curriculum and to apply a curriculum tailored to their pupils’ needs. This Bill, however, is making a far-reaching change to the way that academies work, because the Government will, in future, be able to control the content and application of the national curriculum to academies. As I pointed out at Second Reading, this will be done not by primary legislation, as one would expect, but by secondary legislation that amends primary legislation. Yes, it is our old friend Henry VIII who lives on in these draconian powers, which raise real questions as regards compliance with the rule of law.
The Bill forces all schools to follow the national curriculum, yet there is no agreed national curriculum — the Government's own review hasn't reported. We are being asked to vote blind. Curriculum is the raison d'être of schools: the mechanism by which one generation passes knowledge to the next and our greatest tool for social mobility. It is not an afterthought, and it should not be legislated for before we know what it contains.My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sewell of Sanderstead, gave us an inspiring scene-setter for the next groups of amendments that we are discussing. It was a taster of why the decisions that we make on this Bill matter to so many pupils and young people. This is why I urge the Government not to throw the baby out with the bath-water and, in many instances, to think again. I have my Amendment 506A in this group, which simply says that, before the Bill is passed or enacted, the Government’s own curriculum review needs to be published and consulted on. The legislation before us requires that all schools follow the national curriculum, yet there is no agreed national curriculum. Instead, the Government want to review that curriculum, which is fair enough, but that review will not even be published before we are asked to vote “blind”. It is simply wrong for a Bill to force schools to follow a particular curriculum when we have not been told what is in it: cart before horse and all that. More broadly, we have spent a long, long time on this Bill so far. Outside of here, the Bill is informally known as the Schools Bill, yet we have managed not to discuss the whole reason for schools—to educate children into the world of knowledge—until this point. Educating children requires us to agree on what the content of that education consists of. The curriculum is not, or should not be, an afterthought. It is key: the raison d’être for schools as vehicles used by one generation to pass on to the next the canonical knowledge of humanity. When taught well, it is our greatest tool for social mobility. It is neither a fixed body of knowledge nor frozen in aspic. It changes over time. It is often contested and can be challenged, but it is a key component of educating the young. The argument epitomised by this group of amendments asks whether every school needs to follow the same curriculum that every school must follow, yet we do not know what curriculum we are talking about, despite how im…
25% of five-year-olds start primary school overweight or obese; 40–45% leave it that way. All children must eat — they need to understand the food system. Children growing even a few potatoes in a school garden learn maths, wonder, patience and teamwork in one go. Schools with 43 home languages have used gardening to bridge cultures and teach numeracy. Yet there is no requirement for schools to cook or grow food, so it falls by the wayside. Healthier food is more expensive and parents are poor — the school has to be one place where children learn to eat well.My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 502X, to which I have added my name and which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. This is what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, just described as a hobby-horse. I suspect that, into that description, she would put the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, with which I could not agree more. What is education for if not to equip our children to deal with the world in the best possible way? Money certainly should be part of it. My short amendment addresses food. Currently, 25% of five year-old kids are going into primary school overweight or obese, and the figure is between 40% and 45% for those coming out of primary school. We all have to eat and we all have to deal with the food system. A previous Government said many years ago that part of the education system would include children learning to cook five savoury dishes by the time they are 15. That barely happens in schools because they do not have kitchens and there is no requirement on them to do it, and therefore it falls by the wayside. For 10 years, I ran the London Food Board. We set up a project called Capital Growth, which was linked to the Olympics. In that time, we created 2,500 community gardens in London, of which about 500 were in schools. They were in super weird places in schools—one was in a shopping trolley round the back of the sports hut. Nevertheless, people were growing potatoes, and the kids were amazed by it, because in one bang they got a sense of nature, wonder and growing, as well as a sense of patience, effort and doing something together. I went to one particularly inspirational school, where they had 43 basic first languages, and the headmaster explained how he used beans to teach people to do maths. He had nine beans, for example, and he said, “Make three rows”, and the children would say, “That’s three times three”. A whole range of things was possible in being able to swap cultures. This could be described as a hobby-horse, in…
- Academy curriculum freedoms have allowed schools to innovate and share high-quality curricula freely — innovations that a prescriptive national curriculum could stifle. A future Secretary of State could use these powers not just to set the content but to dictate how it's taught, which previous governments explicitly avoided. And the clause doesn't solve a real problem: some academies did narrow the curriculum too much, but that was addressed under the previous Ofsted framework's subject-level scrutiny — which is now being removed. We just don't see what problem this clause solves.
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments in my name in this group and make the case that Clause 47 should not stand part of the Bill. There are three main reasons for our objection to Clause 47. The first is the wider point, which we have discussed in our debates on other groups, about the value of autonomy at a school or trust level combined with clear accountability. This clause removes the autonomy that academies have had over the curriculum while disregarding the safeguards that exist via both the public exam system and the 2019 Ofsted inspection framework. Without this autonomy, we risk stifling the innovation and creativity that we have seen in recent years, where leading trusts have developed high-quality curricula and shared them freely with other schools. My noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park gave some fantastic examples, including among some of our wonderful free schools. I am not suggesting that the Government want to see the stifling of creativity—I am sure that they want quite the reverse—but they need to explain how things will work in practice if this clause is to become law. I thank my noble friend Lord Sewell for his powerful intervention and for the extraordinary impact that he and others had on schools in Hackney; that is still being ably implemented by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Secondly, the Secretary of State has tremendous powers over the curriculum, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. A future Secretary of State could use those powers to be much more prescriptive in terms of not just what needs to be in the main elements of the national curriculum—English, maths and science, in particular—but how those elements are taught, which the previously Government intentionally avoided doing. Indeed, we wanted to give all schools space outside the core subjects of the national curriculum so that they could exercise their discretion. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, that I have definitely visited schools that are…
- An up-to-date, knowledge-rich curriculum sets a clear minimum expectation of breadth for every pupil regardless of background. Academies now teach more than half of all pupils — a national curriculum that applies only to a dwindling minority is not a national curriculum. This requirement provides a floor, not a ceiling: teachers keep the flexibility to adapt, and schools keep the ability to innovate.
My Lords, an up-to-date, knowledge-rich curriculum is key to ensuring high and rising standards in schools, setting a clear minimum expectation of breadth for pupils. Parents have the right to expect that their child, regardless of their background, can access a consistent, high-quality core education that builds the knowledge and skills they need to thrive without the worry that some subjects may be dropped for ease. The independent curriculum and assessment review is evaluating the existing national curriculum and statutory assessment system. Its final report will help us develop a rich, cutting-edge curriculum that secures a strong foundation in reading, writing and maths while providing breadth to give children a culturally rich education that prepares them for life, work and the future. We want all children to benefit from that, which is why Clause 47 will require academies, which now teach more than half of all pupils, to teach that reformed curriculum alongside maintained schools. The point about the prevalence of academies is important for not just this debate but the debates that we will have on the coming groups. In this legislation, we are talking about the basic and appropriate requirements for a vast and growing majority of our schools. I have to say, a national curriculum that applies to a dwindling minority of schools is not a national curriculum. This requirement provides a floor, but no ceiling. It will not force schools to teach in a certain way or prevent them innovating. Teachers will continue to have the flexibility to adapt to best meet the needs of their pupils.
- I've heard much about good intentions and hope placed in the curriculum review, but not much acknowledgement of the warning signs: design and technology GCSEs have been declining since the late 1990s because schools used their autonomy to quietly drop it — and the safeguards weren't there. If this clause encourages lip-service to the new curriculum at the expense of the intellectual energy and dynamism of recent years, English education will slide inexorably backwards — and in a few years we may find ourselves alongside Scotland and Wales in the international league tables, wondering what on earth we have done.
I thank the noble Baroness for her comprehensive answer. I have heard much about good intentions and a great deal of hope being hung on the curriculum and assessment review, but not much acknowledgement of how a number of noble Lords have pointed out that this clause could backfire, especially without better controls and guards. My noble friend Lady Evans laid out particularly lucidly how academy freedoms have enriched and strengthened education. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, echoed my noble friend Lord Agnew’s concerns about the undetermined curriculum and reminded us about the essence and purposes of education and the risks of limiting the scrutiny of what is taught. We had a good case study from my noble friend Lord Sewell. There are a couple of interesting points. Design and technology GCSE entries started dropping off in the late 1990s. Most of the decline has been the result of schools using their autonomy to structure timetables to teach less of it and to have fewer people taking those GCSEs. The safeguards were not there around design and technology for a very long period, so thinking about those controls and incentives really matters. My fear remains that this clause may encourage lip service to the detail of the new curriculum, whatever it is. But if that comes at the expense of the intellectual energy and dynamism that have been generated in the school sector in recent years, it will drag English education inexorably backwards and, in a few years’ time, we might find ourselves languishing with Scotland and Wales in the international league tables, wondering what on earth we have done and why we ever thought that it was a good idea. Nevertheless, I understand where we are and that the curriculum and assessment review needs to report. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.