I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for Amendment 101. As he knows, we support the principles at the heart of this amendment and agree that teaching staff and leadership in schools need to understand the important role that fundamental British values play in our society and beyond.
I think he is making two points: one about curriculum content and one about the quality of the delivery of that curriculum. The Government believe our current arrangements provide a sound basis for this. As your Lordships know, schools have a duty, as part of providing a broad and balanced curriculum, to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development. Those principles are embedded in the I ndependent S chool S tandards, teacher standards and Ofsted inspections.
As to the comments on the environment, our ambitious sustainability and climate change strategy publicly addresses the importance of teaching about the environment. This includes teaching topics related to climate change, covered within the citizenship, science and geography national curriculum.
We have prioritised helping schools to remain focused on recovery from the pandemic. This is why we undertook in the schools White Paper not to make any curriculum changes during this Parliament. The noble and right reverend Lord referred to the comments of the Chief Inspector of Schools about what she and her colleagues had seen in schools on the teaching of these subjects. We expect schools to take those comments very seriously and respond to them.
8 pm
As the House is aware, Ofsted is undertaking a review of personal development teaching in schools in England, which will include consideration of citizenship education, will involve an analysis of inspection evidence, and will end with the publication of a national report on this later in the year. As I indicated to the noble and right reverend Lord when we met, we are aware that there have been a number of curriculum changes since the current guidance on promoting fundamental British values in schools was issued, and we will consider whether and how to reflect those changes to improve and strengthen the guidance. I would be delighted to work with the noble and right reverend Lord, and those who agree with him, to ensure that we do so in the best way possible.
Turning to Amendment 118A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, I confirm that Ofsted, as a public body, is required to adhere to the public sector equality duty, including in exercising its inspection functions. Ofsted published an equality, diversity and inclusion statement in 2019 outlining the specific consideration that it had given to this duty in developing and finalising its inspection arrangements. As I said in response to the earlier amendment, inspectors are required to take account of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, and how the needs of the range of pupils are met. Through the key judgment on quality of education, inspectors assess the extent to which the
curriculum meets the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, and those who are disadvantaged.
The personal development judgment highlights the importance of the role of schools in equipping pupils to be respectful citizens. It also takes account of the school’s promotion of respect for different protected characteristics. Through the leadership judgment, inspectors consider how the school fulfils its legal duties, including those under the Equality Act. The noble Lord may be aware that in the national professional qualification for leadership there is an important section on leadership in relation to the culture and values within a school.
Turning to the second aspect of the amendment, I confirm that inspectors will take account of provision directly run by schools, provided that at least one child from those schools attends that provision. Inspectors do not, as part of a school inspection, assess the quality of the various clubs and activities that are delivered by third parties on a school’s premises. Doing so could act as a disincentive for schools to offer such services, which parents value greatly and children benefit from.
I will now respond to Amendments 118B, 118G and 118H, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Chapman, Lady Wilcox and Lady Lawrence. Turning first to the proposal to introduce a requirement for academies to follow the national curriculum, I have already emphasised that we value academy freedoms. The freedom for academies to set their own curriculum is fundamental.
The national curriculum exemplifies high-quality, good teaching practice that is well understood by teachers and provides baseline guidance from which academies can innovate. Our current model allows all state-funded schools to go above and beyond the national curriculum specifications. While maintained schools must ensure that they teach at least the content of the national curriculum, academies have more freedom to innovate across the curriculum and focus on the specific needs of their pupils. It is paramount that the Bill does not restrict curriculum freedoms, to enable schools to adapt their curricula carefully, based on the specific characteristics of their pupils, to ensure that the education delivered will be more equitable for all.
The Government feel that a review of the English curriculum of the nature suggested by the noble Baronesses is unnecessary. We are already clear that teaching subject-related diversity can be and is being achieved. The national curriculum theme at key stage 3 entitled “Ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901”, covers these topics; further, all key stages can include teaching on these topics. Black history can be taught across the curriculum. It can include the role of the countries of the former British Empire in both world wars, and the part that black, Asian and minority ethnic people played in shaping the UK in the 20th century.
In the most recent survey of history teachers by the Historical Association, the vast majority of schools—around 87%—reported having made substantial changes to their key stage 3 curriculum in recent years to address issues of diversity. These also include other dimensions of diversity, such as the inclusion of women’s,
disabled people’s and LGBTQ+ histories and working-class histories, as well as wider world history and the inclusion of black and Asian British history.
In relation to Amendments 118B and 118G, we outlined in our schools White Paper that our priority for this decade is to increase standards in literacy and numeracy across the country. This is vital for children to be able to access a broad and balanced curriculum. Changes to the national curriculum would create an instability that would detract teachers’ time from these priorities, at a moment following the pandemic when they have never been more important.
I turn to Amendment 105 in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. It is right that parents are able to engage with their children’s curriculum. We want to make sure that happens in all cases, but we need to take sufficient time to consider whether we might go beyond the requirements we already have in place without unintended consequences, especially for the majority of schools, which we believe have good relationships with parents. We are concerned that there could be a risk that schools will be burdened by excessive requests or will avoid teaching legitimate topics to avoid confrontation.
I was pleased to meet my noble friend Lord Sandhurst and other noble Lords recently and have set out the current legal position in a letter, which I placed in the House Library. I will not repeat the detail but we are clear that schools should engage with parents when drawing up the curriculum. More specifically, copyright does not prevent schools showing teaching materials to parents. There are also detailed requirements in relation to schools making parents aware of what is being taught in relationships and sex education. Schools should not enter into contracts with providers of teaching materials that may restrict their ability to meet those requirements.
I believe that clarifying the current position will help drive down the number of instances where schools refuse to share materials, such as those shared with me by my noble friend. We will write to all schools in the autumn, once they have reopened, to set out a clear expectation that schools respond positively to any reasonable requests from parents to view curriculum materials. We will ensure that the content of the letter is available publicly to help inform parents’ conversations with schools.
We will also consider over the summer whether further action is needed. The statutory guidance to schools on teaching relationships, sex and health education, and engaging parents in the development of curriculum materials, was published following a formal external consultation. There were over 11,000 responses, which shows the extent of public interest in the issue, so we need to give any further changes proper consideration. I plan to host a round table for parents and teachers early in the new term to ensure that we can start the conversation and get the balance right.
Beyond those early actions, we are working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to make sure that we are giving the clearest possible guidance to schools on transgender issues and will be carrying out a full public consultation on that. Given the complexity of this subject, we need to get this right, but it will take
some time to develop. We hope to be able to publish new guidance in 2023, which will sit alongside the clear and comprehensive guidance we have already published to help schools better understand their duties in relation to political impartiality.
I turn now to Amendment 118M in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We are committed to becoming a department that thinks, acts and partners much better locally. That is why we have established a new regions group which is aligned to the nine regions used elsewhere in government and will allow us to deliver a joined-up approach across departmental priorities. Regional directors already take key operational decisions delegated to them by the Secretary of State for Education, and are accountable to him for those. In doing so, they operate on the basis of a transparent decision-making framework, which is available on GOV.UK. Regional directors work closely with local authorities, including helping to facilitate school improvement support, on academy conversions and supporting and challenging them to fulfil their statutory duty to secure sufficient school places. In taking decisions, directors are advised by their advisory boards.
The noble Lord asked specifically about the role in relation to children’s social care, so, just to be clear, I say that in creating the regions group we reflected feedback we had had from stakeholders that we had worked with, which was that they were often having to talk to three different teams within the department. The idea has been to bring those teams together in what we hope will provide a single point of contact, and be more efficient and effective for those that we work with.
With that, I ask the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, to withdraw his amendment, and other noble Lords not to move theirs.