My Lords, I ask Members of the Committee to allow me to remain seated while I move my amendment because I am still recovering from a close encounter between my head and a paving stone in New York, and I would rather not stand.
Amendment 231 has two purposes. It seeks to guarantee for all children and young people an education, in whatever establishment the education takes place, that will equip them with the skills and knowledge to succeed both now and in the future. It also seeks a guarantee that their well-being and protection be safeguarded. Further, I put forward the view that
personal, social and health education, PSHE, is only partly a discrete subject in the curriculum. These issues form part of the whole school life; they are not just topics. Ofsted stated recently that PSHE is patchy in schools and not always of high quality. I want to try to describe how school policies, pastoral care, the school ethos, curriculum and democratic principles all contribute to enhancing opportunities for children and young people.
I believe that the Minister will agree with me on this, but I suspect that he may read out all the duties on schools and academies, and perhaps even on free schools, which are currently set out in legislation and guidance. I hope that he does not do that because we have gone through all this before. Yes, there is guidance and, yes, there is legislation, much of it couched in indirect language that is vague and aspirational. I suggest that that is not good enough. I hear a good deal from Ministers and the media about the rights and freedoms of schools, about league tables, and about what the curriculum should contain. However, I hear very little about the importance of fostering personal development and self-confidence in children, and how that often underpins the ability to learn. This is about the rights of the child.
My amendment does not prescribe what schools should teach or what might be their policies and practices. It simply requires them to state what they provide in relation to their policies, pastoral care, ethos, curriculum and democratic principles. In other words, I seek to make explicit for pupils, parents, governors and those otherwise connected to a school what that school delivers. There are no cost implications to this.
I was most interested in the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about two weeks ago, when he said that custodial institutions for young people should follow the practice in schools. I believe that the principles I have set down here would be very pertinent to young people in custody. I also maintain that in a safe and well ordered school, based on respect for self and others, learning and academic results will be improved. I have seen this happen often in schools that were at risk, which were turned around by placing an emphasis on respect, order and clarity of purpose.
I should like to speak first about school policies on bullying, behaviour, young carers and pupils’ health needs. It is reassuring that the Department for Education has recently announced that schools must have in place a policy on the long-term health needs of their pupils, but children—perhaps it is only a small minority of pupils—also suffer from the effects of bullying and bad behaviour. Pupils being bullied and those who do the bullying both need appropriate help. Expected standards of behaviour need to be clear to pupils, teachers, parents and governors. If no one knows what the school policy is on this, how do they know what to do?
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I will move on to pastoral care that focuses on the safety and well-being of pupils. Schools can often spot a child who is in difficulty: they may be physically
marked, sullen and inattentive, or absent. Schools can call on help from medical and social services, the police and so on. However, we know of examples where children attending school have slipped the net and been harmed. If no one knows what the pastoral care policy is, how does intervention for the child happen?
You can smell a school ethos when you walk into the school. How are you greeted? What does the school look like—for example, is any children’s art or poetry on the walls or displays about school visits, wildlife or achievement in sport? Do the children walk down the corridors in an orderly way? Are they confident and polite with each other and with adults? A positive school ethos does not just happen but is something the leadership and staff—all staff, teaching and non-teaching—create. That is what good schools do, in both the public and private sector. They are proud of the qualities that they encourage in staff and pupils. You only have to look at the evaluation of UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools programme to see how a whole school ethos encourages good learning and good citizens. If no one knows how to encourage a positive school ethos, how will they know that the ethos is important?
On the curriculum, we all know that structured learning is at the heart of a school and develops—or should develop—at each stage of the child’s development. For example, a child learns to read and he or she goes on to read more and more complex material. Children read simple stories, then more complex literature, before they read Shakespeare. That might be in sex and relationships education, drug education or alcohol education, which dovetails with the amendments of my noble friend Lady Hughes and Lady Jones. Young children can learn about parts of the body, friendships and respect for others before they go on, as older pupils, to discuss changes in their bodies, sexual feelings and emotions, and risk-taking. Learning is, in all subjects, a spiral. Subjects such as sport, music, drama and art all encourage teamwork and respect for others. Teachers, of course, do not do it all—I certainly never did. They invite specialists in to enhance pupil learning in areas such as drugs, alcohol or sexual health. Parents and governors have a right to know what children in a school are learning at each stage, while pupils need structure. If that structure is not there, how does anyone learn and how do they know what they have learnt?
I move on to democratic principles, which some would call citizenship. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, sitting opposite, who introduced a most excellent debate recently about the importance of citizenship in schools and in higher education. Again, young children can learn in school about participation in a group, respecting the views of others and taking responsibility. I have seen many primary and secondary schools with a school council, which contributes to the school’s thinking on, for example, discipline, school meals and so on. As the child matures, they may learn about national and local structures of decision-making. If we hope that people will vote and take part in democratic processes in this country, early introduction to the importance of democracy is surely important.
I believe that all children and young people have a right to a broad education that encourages excitement in learning and joy at being in a school community where they feel safe, respected and nurtured, and where principles of self-discipline and respect for others and self are paramount. If children grow up with these principles, they will surely be better equipped to be better citizens and parents and to enhance that most important quality, home learning. Home learning and parents are the key to confidence and success for children. Sadly, that is sometimes lacking.
The cycle of deprivation still exists: all pupils do not have the benefit of a stable, nurturing home, where expectations are clear and learning encouraged. Schools can help to counteract that, not by trying to “teach” children of two or by pouring in more so-called academic learning, but by having clear purposes on how children will be helped to be secure and motivated to learn. Most schools are proud to make public their policies and practices on personal development and learning, but some do not. If schools receive state funding, then they surely have a duty to the state to demonstrate that they provide a good, broad education for our children. That is all I seek: not to prescribe what they teach or what should be in a policy, but to advocate that schools make provisions and policies transparent and visible with regard to how they intend to develop pupils’ personal, social and health needs as well as their academic needs.
My amendment would encourage action on what schools provide for our children. I beg to move.