division_name: Schools White Paper
motion: <p class="indent" pid="c416.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">That this House believes that every child deserves an excellent education; notes that the Government is proposing to force all primary and secondary schools in England to become academies as part of multi-academy trusts or chains by 2022 at the latest; further notes that the vast majority of schools affected by this policy will be primary schools, over 80 per cent of which are already rated good and outstanding; notes that there are outstanding academies and excellent community schools but also poor examples of both types of such school; further notes the Fourth Report from the Education Committee, Academies and free schools, Session 2014-15, HC 258, which highlights that there is no evidence that academisation in and of itself leads to school improvement; notes that the Schools White Paper proposes the removal of parent governors from school governing bodies which will reduce the genuine involvement of parents and communities in local schools; and calls on the Government to put these proposals on hold as there is insufficient evidence that they will raise standards.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c418.5/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Current evidence does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether academies in themselves are a positive force for change&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c418.5/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;There is&#8230;no convincing evidence of the impact of academy status on attainment&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c420.5/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;We expect that most schools will form or join multi-academy trusts as they become academies.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c420.5/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;academy chains are worse than the worst performing local authorities they seek to replace&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c423.2/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;welcomes the transformation in England&#8217;s schools since 2010 where 1.4 million more children are now taught in good or outstanding schools; notes that the academies programme has been at the heart of that transformation because it trusts school leaders to run schools and empowers them with the freedom to innovate and drive up standards; further notes that there remain too many areas of underperformance and that more needs to be done to ensure that standards in England match those of its best international competitors; and therefore welcomes the Government&#8217;s proposals in its White Paper to further improve teacher quality, ensure funding is fairly distributed, tackle areas of chronic educational failure and devolve more power to heads and school leaders to ensure both they and parents have more of a voice in the running of their schools; and welcomes the commitment to achieve educational excellence everywhere.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c425.4/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The role of parents is crucial&#8230;Our approach puts parents and children first, not through symbolic representation on a governing board, but through engagement with schools.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c427.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the Schools White Paper&#8221;&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c427.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;proposes the removal of parent governors from school governing bodies&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c429.8/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;test scores are higher when schools manage their own budgets and recruit and select their own teachers&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c434.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;If schools and parents are meant to have &#8216;freedom&#8217;, then our freedom of choice is to remain within&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c434.1/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;On the evening of Tuesday <phrase class="date" code="2016-03-02">2 March</phrase> 2016, I attended a meeting with my Deputies and the Ofsted Team, to receive their detailed feedback on the Section 5 Inspection that took place on 1 and <phrase class="date" code="2016-03-02">2 March</phrase> 2016. I then experienced the proudest moment in my entire professional career when we were told that the College had received the full five &#8216;Outstanding Judgements&#8217; against the criteria of the new and challenging Ofsted Framework.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c436.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;discrediting the entire academy programme&#8221;?</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c438.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;is a matter of social justice&#8212;extending opportunity to every child&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c438.0/8" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Current evidence does not allow us to draw&#8230;conclusions on whether academies are a positive force for change.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c440.0/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Surely, the model of &#8216;headteachers know best&#8217;&#8221;&#8212;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c440.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;also applies to whether we believe academy status is right for us or not.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c440.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Hampshire has been highly regarded by Ofsted for the excellent work it has done to support children in the county and beyond.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c440.1/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Academisation is not always successful nor is it the only proven alternative for a struggling school.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c441.4/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;played a crucial role in removing barriers to the academy&#8217;s progress&#8230;the structures, mechanisms and foundations are now in place to begin to secure sustainable improvements.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c443.0/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;It means a lot of little primary schools will be forced to go into multi-academy trusts and I just feel it&#8217;s the wrong time, in the wrong place. I&#8217;m fed up with diktats from above saying you will do this and you won&#8217;t do that. This is not why I became a Conservative. It makes my blood boil. I&#8217;m put in a position where I can&#8217;t protect schools. One size does not fit all. I think they&#8217;ve gone bonkers.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c444.0/5" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;with councils to challenge coasting or poor-performing schools&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c444.0/7" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;a scandal that more than 44,000 children in London are taught in classes of more than 30&#8212;with some taught in classes of more than 40.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c444.0/9" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;I&#8217;ll play a city-wide strategic leadership role, seeking to make a big dent in the school places crisis.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c445.5/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Ensuring every child has a school place&#8230;including that there are sufficient school, special school and alternative provision places to meet demand.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c445.5/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Under these new plans, councils will remain legally responsible for making sure that all children have a school place, but it is wrong that neither they nor the Government will have any powers to force local schools to expand if they don&#8217;t want to.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c445.5/8" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;face an uphill battle with nearly 9 in 10&#8230;of Head Teachers reporting issues with recruiting staff in the past year.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c446.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;An ideology is a body of ideas, and those who agree with the main idea of something take an ideological stand to support it.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c446.0/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;too many pockets of educational underperformance&#8212;areas where too many young people miss out on the chance to benefit from the best possible education. This is deeply unfair.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c454.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The wholesale removal of democratically elected councils from all aspects of local education, to be replaced by unelected and remote civil servants, has rightly raised serious questions about local needs and accountability&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c455.1/2" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;will further weaken vital local voices in our schools.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c456.0/4" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;it trusts school leaders to run schools and empowers them with the freedom to innovate&#8221;,</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c458.0/3" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;only 15% of the largest academy chains perform above the national average&#8221;.</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c461.1/6" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;The proposed changes to schools follow a worrying trend in recent years to further centralise decisions away from local communities, which have more nuanced understanding of the issues they face daily. This adds to an ongoing ideological drift between the Party and conservative values.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c461.1/8" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;is no clear evidence that academies perform better than council maintained schools.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c461.1/10" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;the proposals present a particularly high risk to the future viability and identity of small, rural schools, nurseries and special schools.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c461.1/12" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;forcible transfer of 17,000 schools to academy status... will be a huge distraction from schools&#8217; core functions of teaching and  learning&#8230; This is not what parents want from their schools, nor was this a proposal part of the manifesto that the current government put before the electorate.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="indent" pid="c461.1/15" pwmotiontext="yes">&#8220;Given these worrying findings about the performance of disadvantaged pupils and the lack of leadership capacity and strategic oversight by trustees, salary levels for the chief executives of some of these MATs do not appear to be commensurate with the level of performance of their trusts or constituent academies. This poor use of public money is compounded by some trusts holding very large cash reserves that are not being spent on raising standards.&#8221;</p>
  
  <p class="italic" pid="c464.2/5" pwmotiontext="yes">The House divided:</p>
  
  <p pid="c464.2/6" pwmotiontext="yes">Ayes 302, Noes 204.</p>