Education Bill

My Lords, having sat through the previous three sessions of this Committee waiting for this amendment to be called, I will try to be as swift as I can and address my comments to the aspect of it that relates to sport. A leader in the Times a few months ago stated that it was time to make the case that sport is a vital part of education. Only 7 per cent of the population are privately educated but the highly successful British team which the British Olympic Association, which I chair, took to Beijing comprised more privately educated sports men and women than state educated ones. The question is unavoidable and distressing as to why there are fewer state educated sports men and women playing for Team GB. The Times further questioned how social mobility could decline in a sphere that naturally lent itself to meritocratic achievement. It is an indictment of the state of sport in the curriculum. While the level of investment for the Treasury and the Lottery has been targeted at school sport, the result has been one which, by any international standard of evaluation, would be deemed a failure. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, who is passionate about sport, that what focuses the interest of the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians in the meetings that I have with them when they come over here is the funding of high-performance sport. As I will argue, participation, fun and recreation, which are all embedded in the current curriculum, have their role to contribute to it but overall, and without leading to the inclusion of competitive school sport, fail to meet the aspirations of children and parents alike. It is unsurprising that the response from the private sector has been to fill this market, with independent schools massively improving their sports facilities and providing competitive school sport as a key part in their offer to prospective parents. Sport and recreation, and above all competitive school sport, bring educational values far beyond the reach recognised by many people. If we do not grab the opportunity provided by the inspiration generated through hosting the Games—both Olympic and Paralympic—we will have missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this country to address a woeful inadequacy in the maintained sector. Sport and recreation should not only be embedded into the curriculum; it should be well funded and overhauled to meet the aspirations of pupils and parents alike. I would suggest that at the initial primary school level participation, as I mentioned earlier, should be available to all children. We have rightly moved on from the traditional public school sports to engage and embrace physical activity from dance to skateboarding. For very young children, their enthusiasm can be embraced through inclusive school clubs and activities to complement physical education. Older children who dislike competition would thrive in the sheltered provision for individual and co-operative activity, which is possible in schools with well qualified coaches and teachers working together. That will be in line with the urgent research and evidence on town development. It is important to keep as many children in the system for as long as possible, rather than hothouse them into competition at too early a stage. While I support the comments of the Secretary of State this time last year about setting up a nationwide Olympic-style competition that would revive the culture of competitive sport in schools, and using the excitement of the Games to draw a generation of young people into sport, I believe that we must build from a strong base of participation, fun and engagement within the schools. All the specialist schools were set up using funds from successive government departments responsible for education. The £2.4 billion over eight years has become one of the most significant inputs to sports development ever, but it was always intended to be time-limited and a bridge to future provision. In every school I visit, the sport curriculum and agenda is best served where the head and the staff work closely with the local community, local clubs, governing bodies of sport, parents and volunteers to ensure that there is a development pathway both within and outside the school to identify talented youngsters in sport and recreation, providing the ladder for them to climb, to capture their enthusiasm and take forward their skill sets—ultimately, we hope, to the Olympic podium for the most talented. After eight years of funding, it is regrettable that there has been no exit strategy to the centralised micromanagement support system from outside schools to ensure that school links with clubs and volunteers are embedded into a system within schools which allows the heads to drive those policies. Apart from the independent sector, some commendable progress has been made in this direction by local strategic managers, notably in Devon and Kent, where they have captured other funding sources and built strong relationships with the clubs’ independent and voluntary sector. But these examples are too few if we look at a nationwide map. In responding, I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm that in line with this proposed new clause, physical education will remain a statutory subject in the national curriculum and physical education teachers will be required to deliver the subject; the Secretary of State through his rejection of the Rose review, which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, will ensure that physical education will not merely become part of a diffused learning arc; and that the Government will renew their focus on improving the delivery of physical education through competition between and within schools, and not teams and competitions built on a collective of geographically close schools. The pride that sporting success brings to an individual school is hugely important and I hope that the school games will embrace this central objective. To meet the objective set out in the proposed new clause, there must be a comprehensive review of teacher training for sport and recreation. The afPE emphasises that at least 40 per cent of all newly qualified primary teachers received six hours or less preparation to teach physical education. Unless that is addressed, it is not surprising that many of them are concerned about their ability to teach the subject or end up teaching it in a vacuum of expertise. What is required is a new, focused and clearly defined sports curriculum, built on an emerging delivery of participation between clubs, public sector, voluntary, charitable and commercial sector providers of physical activity and sport for schools and within schools. That is the way to extend curriculum delivery and to work alongside enthusiastic teachers. Within sport, clubs and schools—independent and maintained—must work far more together. Working together must be at the centre of the provision, not least because the future members of clubs are the children in today’s classrooms. Their expertise provides the ladder on which the enthusiastic and talented youngster will climb to become the Olympic champion of tomorrow. Only by pursuing this route will we move away from the current status quo; namely, the sad and unacceptable disconnect between the success delivered by 7 per cent of our independent children at the Olympic Games who win more than 50 per cent of the medals. As chairman of the British Olympic Association, that is the most saddening statistic I have in my mind. We must move forward from a position where, as I have said, just 7 per cent deliver more than 50 per cent of the medals to where 93 per cent of the children of this country deliver 93 per cent of the medals. That is the challenge, which is huge.