On resuming—

Mr. Gibb: I was pleased to hear the Under-Secretary say that he shares our aspiration to increase opportunities for the study of science. I was therefore surprised by some of what he said in response to the amendments. In particular, he implied that amendment No. 81 would remove the entitlement to study for a double award of science, which it would not. It would not delete anything from the Bill; it would simply add a new subsection (5A) to proposed section 85 of the Education Act 2002, creating an entitlement to study biology, chemistry and physics separately. It is therefore an addition to existing entitlements.

When the hon. Gentleman said that pupils could do either one science plus the additional science or the three GCSEs, he skipped over the fact that those options are available to students only if the governing body says that the school can provide that entitlement. My hon. Friends and I strongly believe that all pupils in secondary schools should be entitled to study three separate sciences. We will wish to press amendment No. 81 to a Division when we reach that point.

Finally, the Under-Secretary denied that creationism is in the national curriculum, but I have a copy of the OCR gateway science suite biology B syllabus. Under the heading “Assessable learning outcomes Higher Tier only: high demand” it states:

Creation is now in this country’s science curriculum.

Phil Hope: Let me make it clear that creationism is not being taught under the OCR syllabus or the awarding body as a scientific explanation of evolution or of how we all got here or how the world began. The hon. Gentleman can point to the document as much as he likes, but that is not the case; he misrepresents what is in it.

Mr. Gibb: I read from the document. It states:

It is not necessarily saying that creationism is true, but it is making it a debating point. That is all that I am saying. It means that creationism will be discussed and analysed in the science curriculum rather than in the religious education curriculum, which is where it belongs, as a result of the OCR biology B gateway science suite. That is not an appropriate place in the curriculum.

Mr. Clappison: Has my hon. Friend considered that there might be a simple misunderstanding on the part of the Under-Secretary, which could be put right if my hon. Friend were to reread the title of the document? There could then be no doubt about what appears in the OCR document.

Mr. Gibb: Yes. It is the OCR GCSE biology B gateway science suite. I am not making a big thing of it, but creationism ought to be in the religious component of the curriculum rather than thescience section. I look forward to voting on amendment No. 81.

Amendment proposed: No. 81, in clause 61, page 43, line 14, at end insert—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 13.

Clappison, Mr. James

Evennett, Mr. David

Gibb, Mr. Nick

Hayes, Mr. John

Leigh, Mr. Edward

Mulholland, Greg

Teather, Sarah

Blackman-Woods, Dr. Roberta

Cawsey, Mr. Ian

Chaytor, Mr. David

Creagh, Mary

Gwynne, Andrew

Hillier, Meg

Hope, Phil

Knight, Jim

Moffatt, Laura

Morden, Jessica

Shaw, Jonathan

Smith, Ms Angela C. (Sheffield, Hillsborough)

Snelgrove, Anne

Mr. Gibb: I beg to move amendment No. 258, in clause 61, page 43, line 24, at end insert—

The amendment provides for accelerated or enriched courses of study that are designed to stretch higher ability pupils, and courses of study for pupils of lower ability that are designed to reduce differences between attainment levels of lower and average ability pupils. The amendment was inspired by the White Paper, which stated on page 9 that there will be

and

The amendment therefore reflects commitments both parties have made to extend the use of setting. Labour’s 1997 manifesto stated:

That sentiment was also expressed in the 1997 White Paper, “Excellence in Schools”, which stated:

Despite that commitment and widespread support among parents for setting, the proportion of lessons set by ability has hardly increased since 1997—from about 37 per cent. of lessons to 40 per cent. of lessons, which means that 60 per cent. of academic lessons in comprehensive schools take place in mixed-ability classes. In English 49 per cent. and in history and geography about 65 per cent. of classes are mixed ability. Even in maths, which has the most setting of all subjects, one in 10 lessons take place in mixed-ability classes.

The resistance to setting is ideological. There is a deep strand of opinion within the education establishment that setting is anti-egalitarian. The leading academic opposed to ability grouping is the American Robert Slavin, who says that

Another argument advanced to explain why only60 per cent. of lessons take place in mixed-ability classes is that many secondary schools, particularly those in rural areas, are too small to enable setting in all subjects, but that is false. To have a minimum level of setting—set one and set two—all that is needed is a two-form entry. Although each of the sets will contain a wide range of abilities, the range will be half that of a single mixed-ability group at that school.

Most secondary schools have four or five forms in each year. Last week I visited a comprehensive school in Milton Keynes that has a five-form entry, and from next year it will have setting in every academic subject. I asked the assistant head, who is in charge of timetabling, how it was possible to do that for all subjects. I told him that some schools had told me that they could not set in, for example, the humanities, because the complexities of the timetable made that impossible unless extra teachers were employed. He said that that was nonsense—that what had to be done was to divide the timetable and all the sets into four blocks. He lost me on the mathematics of it all; suffice it to say that all the subjects will be set by ability. Therefore, if an average size comprehensive school does not set all its academic subjects by ability, it is either engaged in poor timetabling techniques or it is maintaining mixed-ability teaching for ideological reasons.

My view is that if we genuinely want to create a more equal society, we shall do so by raising the quality of education for all and one of the key ways to achieve that, particularly in schools with the most demanding challenges, is to eliminate mixed-ability teaching in academic subjects, stretching the most able and giving the least able the time and space to learn. As children develop, particularly those who are late developers or for whom the subject suddenly clicks, they can move up the sets.

The next line of argument is whether the research shows that setting raises educational attainment. I believe that it does, but the problem with so much educational research is that it is bedevilled by non-scientific methodologies and is usually agenda-driven—in other words, it is carried out by people who have already reached a conclusion and design their studies to demonstrate it. Science-based research with control group methodologies makes that much more difficult, but such research is rare in the field of education.