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1.40 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) for his thoughtful speech. Despite the lateness of the hour, we always have higher quality debates when hon. Members bring the benefit of experience--as my hon. Friend does--to them, or when they represent their constituents' interests in the same hard-working, conscientious way as my hon. Friend.
We are determined to raise standards for all pupils. Children get only one chance at school, and they and their teachers have the right not to have that chance disrupted by other pupils' behaviour. I hope that the debate will send that clear message. I strongly endorse my hon. Friend's commendation of our teachers' excellent work, in sometimes difficult and challenging circumstances, with difficult children. I hope that our debate will also convey that clear message.
We have an overall strategy for tackling poor behaviour and preventing exclusion. It is backed up by generous amounts of funding. The key to avoiding disaffection and disruption is early intervention and prevention through multi-agency working and partnership with parents.
How are we helping to achieve that? The Government have provided nearly £500 million over three years through the "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" grant for preventive work. Funding in 2000-01 will be £140 million--that is 110 per cent. higher than in 1999-2000. The requirement to devolve the grant to secondary schools in 2000-01 will offer schools throughout the country a better way of tackling developing problems at their root. My hon. Friend rightly suggested that that was important.
The money will be supported by the "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" guidance, which was sent to schools and local education authorities last July. It is important to stress that the guidance is a joint publication between the Department of Health, the Home Office and the social exclusion unit. That emphasises, as my hon. Friend did, the need for a joined-up approach to poor behaviour in schools, and the realisation that such problems are often closely linked to wider problems in the home and in society. It is essential that different agencies, for example, social services departments and youth offending teams as well as local education authorities and schools, work together effectively to tackle the problems that affect a child.
Schools and teachers are not responsible for social exclusion, but they have to deal with its effects every day. That is why Government policy on crime reduction, community renewal and developing parental skills and responsibilities has a key role to play. My hon. Friend has contributed to that through his proposals on curfews.
Teachers need and deserve practical support. That is why the guidance includes case studies and examples of good practice in managing poor behaviour. It recommends a range of practical strategies that have been shown to work, including, as my hon. Friend pointed out, in-school learning support units for disruptive pupils, which have
been funded by the "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" grant. They provide separate, short-term teaching, which is tailored to the needs of difficult pupils while preventing disruption to normal classes and the need for exclusion. Research that the Department published last October shows that the units were successful in reducing exclusions and that they were also cost-effective.The guidance also recommends innovative multi- agency pastoral support programmes. The pastoral support programme is a practical intervention to focus a school, together with support agencies, on early intervention for pupils at serious risk of permanent exclusion or criminal activity. It offers designated support when pupils have failed to respond to other interventions. The pupil should be set short-term targets broken down into fortnightly tasks and the PSP should be reviewed halfway through its agreed duration. That practical support is the background to our target to reduce exclusions and truancy.
The social exclusion unit report "Truancy and School Exclusion" sets targets to reduce truancy and exclusion by a third by 2002. We believe that our goal of raising standards is achievable only if children are in school and learning. However, that does not mean that exclusion can never be an option. We have never pretended that that is the case and recently confirmed that a head teacher can exclude a pupil for a serious offence--a violent incident, for example--without first needing to implement alternative strategies. As my hon. Friend said, head teachers must make the decisions about exclusions. There was no action or practical support under the previous Government and exclusions rose, but we are providing the support and the money for schools to be able to achieve that reduction.
Successive reports by Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools have found that most schools are orderly and that violence is fortunately rare. Our teachers and school managers deserve congratulations on that. Certain schools face greater than average problems of indiscipline or bullying and their teachers need additional advice and support. I agree with my hon. Friend that such problems occur especially, although not exclusively, in deprived inner-city areas. We have recognised the wider problems facing teachers and pupils and are putting more resources than ever before into on-site units for disruptive pupils.
In addition, we are supporting more work-related learning for 14 and 15-year-olds to reduce disaffection. The Department has funded 36 work-related learning projects at key stage 4, and early evidence shows that unauthorised absence rates have been reduced from above average to below. At a project in Leicester, a student who attended 49 per cent. of year 8 attended 97 per cent. of an off-site placement in year 11. We are putting many more learning mentors in secondary schools so that pupils who need help will get it to overcome barriers to their individual learning. There are early indications of the success of that strategy. For example, a learning mentor at a school in Southwark is involved in counselling, running programmes to improve behaviour, running a sports leadership award scheme for disaffected pupils and working closely with parents.
Our aim in those strategies is to tackle the causes of the problem, not to transfer it from one school to another or out on to the streets, as the previous Government were willing to do. That is why we are funding the learning mentors as well as the additional learning support units
through the excellence in cities initiative. It currently operates in 24 local education authorities that form some of the most disadvantaged inner-city areas.On 23 March, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment announced an expansion of the initiative to 21 new local education authorities from September and among the additional cities to be included are Nottingham, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent and Hull. Aspects of the initiative will be piloted in primary schools in the existing inner-city areas. If our objective is early intervention, we should recognise that primary schools are affected as well.
Poor behaviour can also be a problem for other children. Bullying is a serious problem, and much of it goes unreported. It can seriously affect a child's emotional well-being and educational achievement. We attach a high priority to helping schools to prevent and combat bullying in all its forms, because there is no excuse for it. It is disruptive and intolerable, and should have no place in our schools. Since last September, schools have been required by law to have an anti-bullying policy. Further advice on bullying and harassment was contained in our "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" guidance.
We shall also shortly be launching a new anti-bullying initiative. We shall be updating and reissuing our anti-bullying pack for schools, and producing a video for them to use as a teaching resource to generate discussion of the problem. It will emphasise the simple but powerful message that pupils need not suffer in silence, but should speak out and let someone know. We may not be able to eliminate bullying completely, but everyone needs to work together to reduce and prevent it wherever possible. We should not allow the misery and disruption caused by bullying in our schools to go unchallenged; as my hon. Friend said, the stakes are too high in the context of our children's education and achievements.
We are also very concerned about the rate of unauthorised absence from school. My hon. Friend mentioned that as well. The 1999 Audit Commission report "Missing Out" showed very mixed approaches on the part of local education authorities to the tackling of truancy. Some performed very well, while others did less well. We need to respond to the challenge.
Schools themselves must actively discourage truancy, and they need support to be able to do that. Our guidance recommended that schools should report unauthorised absence to parents on the morning on which it occurs. That sometimes presents a practical challenge, but it has been shown to help in increasing attendance. We hope that the "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" money can be used for that purpose as well.
Following consultation on our "Tackling Truancy Together" strategy document last autumn, we recently announced that the level of fines for parents of truanting pupils would increase to level 4 of the national scale of penalties. That will, in particular, allow magistrates to require parents to attend court or risk arrest, and will give them more opportunity to emphasise the seriousness of the offence to parents. I agree with my hon. Friend that the community and parents have both a right to expect schools to deliver a high standard of education and a responsibility to ensure that children attend schools, and to support the policies implemented by them.
I do not minimise the task that teachers must perform in deciding on appropriate strategies for the management of pupils. I know my hon. Friend is aware of that, given his extensive experience in the teaching profession. Although the Department has provided detailed guidance, it is for heads and other teachers to apply it to the circumstances of their schools.
I agree with my hon. Friend that inexperienced teachers need training and help from more experienced teachers, although if experienced teachers occasionally experience difficulties they should not see that as a sign of personal failure. Initial teacher training should focus on issues of discipline, and how to tackle disaffection.
Because this is essentially a two-way process, my officials--with assistance from the National Children's Bureau, and other Government Departments--are currently involved in disseminating the key recommendations of "Social Inclusion: Pupil Support" guidance, in order to give schools and teachers the practical support and assistance that will enable them to cope with the problems.
We can lead as a Government by setting the framework, but we cannot do everything that is needed. We can provide the resources that are important, but in the end it will be for schools and local partners across the country to work together to achieve the goal of higher standards for our young people.
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