My Lords, I shall speak to my amendments; there is rather a long list of them. They are Amendments 154, 160, 178, 185, 187, 189, 193, 197, 205C and 218. It seems an awfully long list but they are very simple amendments, which all say more or less the same thing. I declare my interest as chairman of Forward-ME, as patron of a number of ME charities and as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on ME.
I first became interested in virtual education in 2004, when the Young ME Sufferers Trust, or Tymes Trust, developed an alliance with Nisai Virtual Academy Ltd, also known as Nisai Learning. Together, they developed an educational programme for young people who were too ill to attend school or who could attend only intermittently and who, as a result, were missing out on large chunks of their education. At a function in the House last year the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, founder-patron of the Tymes Trust, said:
“No wonder students with ME find concentration so difficult. When a student makes an effort, oxygen levels in the brain can fall instead of rising to cope with … demand. Obviously, it can be next to impossible to study effectively after struggling into school”.
He finished by saying that,
“students can be thought lazy, or just awkward when they are doing their best. Often staff do not realise why the student either can’t get to school at all or can’t concentrate on their work when they get there”.
Tymes Trust research has shown that,
“for young people with ME, the most effective form of education is home based, with interactive virtual education producing grades equivalent to, or higher than, other healthy students at school. The protocol that has been developed enables very sick students to achieve, when otherwise they are typically condemned to a recurring pattern of school attendance and subsequent relapse with little to show for it. They often feel that they are failures, when in reality it is the education system that has failed them”.
It is not just students with ME who benefit from virtual education, although ME is the biggest cause of long-term sick absence from school. There are young
people with other medical illnesses who are not able to attend school, as my noble friend just said. Those with learning difficulties and emotional and behavioural disorders, those with disaffection with school or school-refusers, those who are excluded and sufferers from bullying, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has so clearly defined, can all benefit from virtual education. Despite their myriad problems, those students, who would normally struggle to achieve any qualifications, find that a virtual environment is one in which they can flourish. This year, 91% of the students of Nisai Learning achieved GCSE and A-level qualifications, and 30.6% achieved A* to C grades. While this is below the national average, many of these students would have had no GCSE or A-levels under their belts.
The Bill focuses on provision for children with special educational needs who are in the main stream. That excludes some 100,000 children who do not have access to mainstream education, for some of the reasons that I have given. According to a BIS research paper published in January this year on the motivations and barriers to learning for NEETs—those not in employment, education or training—more than nine in 10 young people with experience of being a NEET are motivated to learn, while seven in 10 of the same young people looking for learning opportunities felt that there were barriers associated with access to education. It is intolerable that young people such as these should be left behind when we know that, with the right support at the right time, they can succeed.
Education outside the mainstream is often supplied by individual organisations that have created imaginative ways to help those who are excluded. However, the money assigned to a student while inside the mainstream system does not follow them once they are no longer on the school roll. That means that it is impossible for students to have access to alternative provision that would help them. The Bill gives us the opportunity to rectify that state.
Online and blended education mixes visual with auditory and verbal kinaesthetic modes of teaching, and ensures that children can focus on learning without the complications of external influences with which they may struggle. They are given a structure that supports them educationally and emotionally and which enables them to become economically independent. Online learning integrates a variety of learning styles, using teachers who have a comprehensive understanding of work processes and the special needs of students who have physical or emotional problems.
Students do not wake up one morning and decide that they do not want to learn any more; there are numerous factors that contribute to their lack of engagement. For children with ME with special educational needs, virtual education protects health and promotes recovery; results in better exam grades than a child with ME can otherwise achieve; costs less than home tuition; and can be accessed at any time of the day or night. The child remains on the school roll, and the school league table can include the child’s success. Very importantly, through virtual contact with other children in a similar position, children can make
many new friends whom they are able to meet when they are well enough. As a sideline, I quote a note from a former head teacher:
“the purpose of education is to educate to the best standard possible; an attendance register is not a measure of achievement or success”.
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Many children with special educational needs who cannot participate fully in mainstream education need more help from alternative education providers. It makes sense to make provision for alternative education providers in order to ensure that they are part of the process that ensures that those young people can achieve a life of economic independence and satisfaction that can be gained through a proper education.
Amendment 154 to Clause 38 would bring online and blended learning into the list of schools or institutions that are included in education and healthcare plans. Amendment 160 to Clause 41 would bring online and blended learning under the umbrella of institutions that the Secretary of State may approve for the purpose of enabling the institution to be the subject of a request for it to be named in an EHC plan. Amendment 178 to Clause 49 would correct the anomaly whereby online and blended learning do not always qualify for inclusion in provisions for personal budgets and direct payments. Amendment 185 to Clause 57 would make a special point of including online and blended learning for special education provision otherwise than in a school or post-16 institution, simply because local authorities are used to thinking about home or hospital tuition and may not consider virtual educational provision to fall within this section.
Amendment 189 to Clause 62 would include online and blended learning in the list of schools and institutions relating to the appropriate authorities’ duties to use best endeavours to secure special education provision. Amendment 193, also to Clause 62, would give “appropriate authority” to all types of alternative education providers to a member of the senior management team. Amendment 197 to Clause 64 would provide for online and blended learning to be included in the institutions in Clause 67. Amendment 205C would include the providers of online and blended learning in the list of organisations to which the code of practice needs to be issued. Amendment 218 to Clause 73 gives a list of definitions of online learning, blended learning and associated terminology.
We are living in an age of high technology, and most, if not all, young people whom we are discussing are computer literate. By including a provision of online learning and blended learning, we would enable those who could not attend school, for one reason or many, to benefit from an excellent education at their own pace.