Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, started CTCs in the late 1980s, I agreed to sponsor a school in Croydon and one jointly with the church, Bacon’s, in Bermondsey. The school at Croydon was one of the worst in the country, with a GCSE pass rate of only 9 per cent and only 400 pupils. Of those 400 pupils, 60 every year were expelled—that is 15 per cent. The teachers on average lasted only six months, so there were supply teachers. We were letting the children of our country down. Now the school has 1,200 pupils, and the spend on it in those 20 years has been only £2 million. This year we had 2,000 applicants for 180 places. Over the years, the school achieved "most improved" school in the country twice, and last year had 99 per cent of five A to Cs, 84 per cent including English and maths. Some 15 per cent of the children come to the school from as far as Lambeth. More importantly, 147 out of 165 children went on to university. When we took over the school, most of the teachers were replaced. There were 40 there, and we took 30 new teachers on, five of whom are now heads of our other academies. Last November, under the new Ofsted rules, the Harris City Academy Crystal Palace, as it is now known, achieved an outstanding Ofsted report of 30 grade 1s. It is one of only two schools in the country to have achieved that so far. The 15 schools that had become CTCs saw their GCSE results improve by 43 per cent, against the national average of 34 per cent. Since 2001, the CTCs that achieved five As to Cs including English and maths had seen a rise of 12.6 per cent compared with 8.6 per cent for all other schools. Remember that most of the schools were failing schools. Academies began in 1998-99, and again proved very successful. There are now 203 academies of which we—the Harris Federation—sponsor nine and one with the Church of England. Approximately 20,000 children attend our academies, six specialist schools and four primary schools. We took over a failing school in September 2008 in Bexley. A third of the school was condemned—unusable. In just one year—two terms with the children—the GCSE results for five As to Cs with English and maths have gone up from 17 per cent to 42 per cent, and we expect them to be 65 per cent this year. The rate of five As to Cs has moved from 47 per cent to 92 per cent, all in the first year. This year we expect 95 per cent. That proves that failing or unpopular schools can be turned around quickly by motivated staff and pupils, strict discipline and creating an environment to learn. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for all the help that he gave us to achieve the opening of eight more academies. It has been fantastic; no one could have done a better job for us. All those were failing schools when we took them, with 35 per cent of the schoolchildren on free meals, against the national average of 12.9 per cent. In a short time—two to three years—five of the schools have now been judged outstanding, one good, and one satisfactory with outstanding potential. We took two of them on last September, and we have our own team inspecting them; in the next 12 months, we expect them to receive at least good and probably outstanding status. Harris academies’ exam rate of five As to Cs last year was 84 per cent compared with the national average of 67 per cent. Bear in mind that five of the schools were failing badly less than three years ago. In Croydon alone we have three academies, with 4,500 applicants for just 600 places. Because we are so oversubscribed—as much as five or six times—we are always accused of taking the best pupils, but we do not. We put them into 10 bands and take 10 per cent from each band. I am dyslexic, and 10 per cent of our children are dyslexic as well. That is why our value added is pretty impressive. Bermondsey, Merton and South Norwood are all in the top 2 per cent in the country—outstanding. Crystal Palace is in the top 4 per cent—the children, who start there at 11 and finish at 16, are at a better standard than those at other schools—and is outstanding. Falconwood is in the top 6 per cent—outstanding. Peckham is in the top 15 per cent—good. East Dulwich girls’ academy is in the top 25 per cent—satisfactory with improvement. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, allowed us to operate one centre across the three academies for our sixth form, which has been very successful. It has been agreed that we can put the sixth form of all our schools together. By 2012 we will have 2,000 sixth-form students and we hope to get at least 80 per cent of them to university. I am a great admirer of and believer in academies. There should not be failing schools in the UK. If there are, we are letting our children down. I thank our head teachers, staff and support staff for making all our schools so successful. I hope that, over the next few years, the Harris Federation will have as many as 25 successful schools in south London. I support the Bill. We want to give a better education to our children in this country.