Live webchat with Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, Thursday 18 December 11am - 12pm

[KateHMumsnet]

We're pleased to announce that Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, will be joining us for a webchat on Thursday 18 December at 11.00am.

Nicky was elected for the Loughborough seat for the Conservatives in the 2010 General Election, and was appointed was appointed Education Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities on 15 July this year. She is married and a mother of one.

Nicky will be joining us on Thursday to discuss all things education-related, and in particular will welcome discussion of behaviour and bullying, mental health, character and careers. Of course, we will welcome questions from across the education spectrum and Nicky will reply to as many as she is able to between 11am and 12pm.

Please do join us live on Thursday, or post your questions in advance on this thread.

I am concerned that music and drama has been squeezed out the primary school curriculum by the pressure for children to pass tests make progress in reading, writing and numeracy. For example my daughter's primary school only allows reception aged children to take part in a christmas play and year 6 children do their own production in the summer after SATs. Even then, only a handful of high ablity children get speaking roles. The majority of children will never get an opportunity to speak in front of a large audience as there are no longer class assemblies.

I feel that the performing arts help develop communication, confidence, empathy and interpersonal skills. Why are these subjects allowed to be squeezed out the timetable?

Given that you voted against gay marriage and wish to restrict abortions do you honestly believe that you are best placed to perform the role of minister for women and equality? Seriously? (That was rhetorical btw and was not my question.)

My question is that you have openly admitted that your Christian faith is an influencing factor in your decisions which I find disturbing. Given that some parents such as myself strongly believe that religion's place is in the home and not in our schools, how long do you think it will take before religion is finally removed from schools altogether and how can parents move to make that happen more quickly?

There has been an increase in teachers reporting children attending school hungry, depressed, unkempt and tired. Many teachers are having to buy food for their pupils or give them money for food. A result of their families being plunged further into poverty because of savage Welfare cuts, a rise in utility bills and the cost of living. There has been a 40% increase in youngsters self harming because of poverty since David Cameron came to power and CAMHS funding cut by 2/3 plus. The cuts are particularly savage in deprived areas.

Do you think children in such circumstances deserve to suffer as a result of Coalition Government destroying the Welfare State? Do you think any child could make progress given the circumstances I have mentioned and do you think as David Cameron suggest that young people who live in poverty do so because they lack aspiration?

There has been an increase in teachers reporting children attending school hungry, depressed, unkempt and tired. Many teachers are having to buy food for their pupils or give them money for food. A result of their families being plunged further into poverty because of savage Welfare cuts, a rise in utility bills and the cost of living. There has been a 40% increase in youngsters self harming because of poverty since David Cameron came to power and CAMHS funding cut by 2/3 plus. The cuts are particularly savage in deprived areas.

Do you think children in such circumstances deserve to suffer as a result of Coalition Government destroying the Welfare State? Do you think any child could make progress given the circumstances I have mentioned and do you think as David Cameron suggest that young people who live in poverty do so because they lack aspiration?

My child attended a school that ofsted rated outstanding and had no areas requiring improvement , great you would have thought , the first day he started despite having sen and being statemented , the form teacher had no idea who he was , ask him if he should really be at that school and then gave him someone else's timetable . Not one teacher noticed that he hadn't turned up to their classes , despite supposably knowing that he was attending this school.
The second day he was attacked for want of a better word at train station by a year eleven student from the school , when informed about this and other incidents that happened there after the school did nothing , until he was actually assaulted that he had to attend hospital and required nearly eighteen months of treatment and still requires counselling to help him get over the stress and trauma that attending this school has caused him. Even the police where worried about his safety and advised us to find another way of getting him to school . Rang lea to see if they would arrange transport for him , was a flat out no and if he was late then they take us to court for not making sure he attended school on time .
Yes we eventually moved schools but had the first school actually done something responsible rather than just sprouting off what I wanted to hear , his mental health might not have been affected so much , he spent two years living in a heightened state of arousal ( even our troop only spend six months at time in conflict zone , due to the affects this type of circumstance has on there mental health.)
Why do schools have these policy's in place when in reality they don't follow or actually do anything about episodes of bullying especially to children who have additional needs , they get told things like to man up , stop being so sensitive , learn to cooperate with others , and a million more of the same . Why is it always the child with additional needs fault rather than actually seeing the whole bigger picture than just one little incident .
I might like to add that although the school he's moved to isn't perfect they don't allow any of the previous type behaviour to develop and deal with issues straight away . My child is happy and settled here .

Hi Nicky

For a while now, I have expressed my concern on Mumsnet, that it appeared through the 2000’s and a periods of prosperity and jobs growth, our youth appeared to struggle to compete for UK jobs - as evidenced by the sharply upward trending unemployed 16-24 years olds – over 500,000 in 2004, over 700,000 just before the financial crash/recession, pushing it even higher to over 900,000 by 2010.

It also appeared that many of our children were leaving full time education without even basic English, Science and Maths skills, as evidenced by various international surveys/tables and anecdotal employer reports.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1990838-UK-education-what-is-the-REAL-problem

And even now, there seems to be many semi and skilled vacancies across the UK unfilled, that based on historic country economic cycles, reaching the ‘mature’ stage, if we are to create more ‘value added’ employment/jobs, it is worrying to me that we are already behind the skills curve.

Are you satisfied that the UK will be able to step up to the education challenge and our children are not just competing for jobs against those of the EU, but also the emerging nations as well.

Sedgehill school in Catford suffered a dip in results in 2014 as did many schools, resulting in a drop in the National average results.

Lewisham local authority decided to reject the recovery and improvement plan in place by the governors in favour of their own plan which is to remove governors, install an IEB and sack the head teacher.

The governors recovery and improvement plan was a new partnership with Challenge Partners called Engine of Improvement. It featured 2 executive principals from local outstanding schools along with assistance from other schools in the Challnenge Partners network.

Governors chose Challenge Partners over the Bethnal Green Academy proposal suggested by the LA and a warning notice was served in less than 24 hours. Ofsted upheld the warning notice without visiting the school to find evidence for itself as to why the Challenge Partners proposal was not good enough.

Now the school faces having an IEB made up of people handpicked by the LA who will undoubtedly bring BGA in.

Sedgehill school should not have an IEB established. It is not in crisis and has a fully functioning governing body which was judged 'good' by Ofsted last year.

My question is are you really going to let this IEB be established in a school where 65% A*-CEM is predicted and the governing body has already started a recovery and improvement plan with 2 exec principals from 2 outstanding schools with Challenge Partners? Sedgehill school needed help and the governors have got help in the form of Challenge Partners but the LA prefer BGA because they are newly approved academy sponsors.

I am a Teaching Assistant in a Primary School and we are constantly hearing that there are plans to abolish the role.

In my school, each class consists of 2 year groups and within each year group there are several ability groups. How do you expect the teachers to cope without a TA?

TAs are doing a huge amount of teaching which more often than not is with those who are really struggling and would otherwise fall through the cracks.

Do I need to mention the fact that we perform this role for only very slightly more than minimum wage?

Ms Morgan,

Given how ridiculously few specialist places there are for children with ASD and how horrifically bullied my son was in 2 separate MS schools, can you say why your govt offers no help whatsoever to parents who, in order to help their children to actually learn, decide to home school them? Luckily, my DH was in the Army, so we were able to send DS to an excellent school, where he attained good grades. If we hadn't been able to, the LEA had stated that there was no option but for him to continue in a school where he had been bitten and beaten up, because there were no more specialist places for 'children like him'. Coincidentally, this is the same area as your high school, so a very naice area.

My question... Why does your Govt care so very little for children with SEN/disabilities that it forces them to live with truly dire educational outcomes and what do you plan to do about it?

Hi. I have a child with Asd who attends nursery full time as we both work full time. We hear a lot about the importance of early intervention, yet despite a statement the maximum they'd give in ta support is 15 hrs a week. It would be 25 if my child went to school. This means hours of learning opportunities wasted every week, because my child needs that support to learn. Do you think that is fair and can you explain the rationale to me that means while other children are playing games my child was touching a mop handle for sensory seeking purposes? Thanks.

Given how many questions have been asked about the lack of concern for pupil's mental health, I'd like to echo another post about the imposition of an IEB on Sedgehill School. This school is NOT in special measures, is improving, and has an amazing record of caring for all pupils, including those who struggle with emotional and mental issues, as well as having a specialist Deaf unit. The council decided it wasn't improving quickly enough, demanded they partner with an Academy and have applied to you for an IEB to allow them to sack the Head and whole leadership team. Can you justify signing this IEB when the existing school was doing such a brilliant job of helping more vulnerable students than Academies are willing to do?

Glad you asked about mental health.

Nurseries, schools, colleges and universities all need to be supporting our children to grow up emotionally and mentally resilient, so that when they meet life's inevitable downs/challenges they are not destroyed by them. If we are going to tackle the ignorance and stigma that still surrounds mental ill-health, so that people are able to get the support they need, it needs to be embedded in education.

Do you think it is time for this to be reflected in the statutory curriculum?

I filled in your questionnaire about working hours, work/life balance and what could be done to reduce the burden on teachers.

My question is what you are going to do with that information?

I would really like to know as my whole life now revolves around school and my responsibilities at school. It is becoming completely unmanageable yet I know that my own children and home life will suffer before my job, until I have to just jack it in.

And hardly any teachers will be able to join you live as we are all teaching on a thursday at 11am!

There is currently a recruitment crisis in teaching. Maths, in particular, is a severe shortage subject, and the situation is only going to get worse with the demand for increased hours to teach the new harder, double-weighted maths GCSE and the introduction of new maths post-16 maths courses. Efforts to recruit are failing well short of targets.

With this in mind, why are there apparently no efforts being made to retain current excellent maths teachers? If I were to train now, with my maths qualifications, money would be thrown at me. However, I'm an experienced maths teacher, yet with the insane workload, reduced pension, lack of pay rises and poor working conditions, I, along with many colleagues have considered our positions.

It's all very well saying that individual head teachers have been given the power to pay selected teachers well, but that doesn't actually appear to be working as a national tactic.

So instead of just talking about recruitment, don't you think it would also be sensible to look at retention, and what national measures you could bring in to alleviate the shortage by stopping experienced, well-qualified maths teachers leaving the profession? I appreciate that I've talked about maths, as that is my subject, but the same goes for many other areas.

Hi

Another q about academicization (if that's even a word...it's really upsetting me-and my phone )

This process is not being seen as some sort of magic wand any more. I believe that a lot of parents are now viewing academies with increasing suspicion and unease, as being undemocratic, secretive and also-perhaps most importantly- not as successful as we were led to believe in the past (I've recently read that their success rates are no better than in comparable community schools; also of sponsors walking away from failing schools-sorry cant cite sources as posting on phone and on the hoof!)

As parents we have been told repeatedly that we have CHOICE over out children's schools. This being the case, why are a lot of improving schools still being forced down the academy route against the wishes of parents, teachers, pupils and the wider community?

JaneAHersey …… are you SERIOUSLY not aware of fairly recent economic history, when ranting at the Education Minister (and the Cameron led Coalition) with accusations of all sorts DIRECTLY resulting from the prolificacy, bad spending and general economic incompetence from the last Labour government – when their lax bank regulations, and high deficit spending BEFORE the crash, and failure to do anything about it AFTER 2008 when GDP/output FELL over 7% - resulted in handing over a Budget Deficit to Cameron expected to be over £160 bil a year by Mr Darling?

Are you not aware that ‘real’ earnings fell nearly 5% from 2007 to 2010, yet Mr Darling tried to PUT UP National Insurance and Fuel Duties AFTER the 2010 General Election, in budgets BEFORE the General Election, fighting ‘the cost of living crisis’ (found in most severe recessions) started on their Great Recession watch, with a another Labour N/I hike, raiding taxpayers and companies = a ‘tax on jobs’, Darling said in parliament he KNEW would cost UK jobs?

Are you not aware Labour left over 5 million people (1.5 million families) needing social housing in 2010, building just over 100,000 homes a year when the population grew 2-3 million in a short period of time – how would THAT affect cramped families and their children needing the over 800,000 empty social housing bedrooms?

Are you not aware that Labour, after 13-years in government, with the national books they knew so well in front of them, was either still in Deficit denial, or through total 2010 electoral cowardice, REFUSED (as now) to tell the UK what spending they would cut, or taxes on the masses would be raised - when from 1997 in the first parliament, taxes were raised around 80 times, NONE of which were mentioned before hand?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2766413/Gordon-Brown-gave-Chuka-Umunna-hairdryer-treatment-blistering-phone-call-interview-criticising-former-PM-s-record.html

”The former Prime Minister told Mr Umunna that he should not accept Tory claims that Labour was spending too much before the last general election, a senior Labour source revealed.”

”The source said: ‘He still cannot accept Labour was running a structural deficit. Even after all this time he won’t accept that he was wrong – it’s unbelievable.”

“The deficit – the difference between Government spending and how much it raises in taxes each year – was more than £160 billion in 2010.”

If the mums were never told by Labour what cuts they were going to make to the Welfare State (that would affect children) and Rachel Reeve has said she’d cut MORE from Welfare from 2015 than the coalition, how can anyone accuse Cameron inheriting this overspend/budget nightmare, of “destroying the welfare state”?

P.S. Linking your theme of food and education, maybe the coalition policies of helping poor children through education rather than for 13-years overseeing UK grade deflation, the importing of unskilled labour and therefore condemning them to the future of unemployment/welfare - is starting to bear fruit.

“Poor pupils narrow achievement gap, league tables show”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30413263

“More disadvantaged pupils in England's primary schools are moving on to secondary school able to read, write and add up, official data shows.”

“Two-thirds of pupils (67%) on free school meals gained a Level 4 in reading, writing and maths this year - up four percentage points on 2013.”

“This compares with 83% for non-disadvantaged pupils, reducing the attainment gap to 16 percentage points.”

“The data is based on tests taken by 11-year-olds in 16,000 schools.”

Do you think it is acceptable that the uk government is publicly funding Steiner schools (Bristol, Exeter, Frome and Hereford) and is currently considering at least one more in Stroud?
Steiner education is based on the belief system called anthroposophy dreamed up by Rudolf Steiner a century ago, whereby he claimed to converse with higher beings about how to educate children. Central to anthroposophy is the idea that the human race is evolving from dark skinned negroes to white skinned aryans. Most people, including those in authority are unaware of this fact, and the Steiner movement is adept at presenting a warm, cuddly, child-friendly image, and evading questions from prospective parents about exactly how anthroposophy is used in the classroom.
As a parent, and member of the wider society, I feel that this is a completely unacceptable basis for any education system, let alone a publicly funded one. Consequently I feel it is important to raise public awareness of what Steiner education is and to invite people to sign an epetition to demand that the government STOP PUBLICLY FUNDING STEINER SCHOOLS
epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/72879

The coalition increased University tuition fees from £3,000pa to £9,000pa. That has meant an extra cost of £24,000 for our family. That is a huge amount of money by anyone's standards.
Do you seriously expect me to vote for your party next year?

Didn't Labour start to put tuition fees up, and the Labour commission to report on how the country (with the largest budget deficit in Europe) was going to afford further education, was scheduled to report AFTER the 2010 General Election - and most of the recommendations of the Labour commission were implemented?

One more 'tough decision' or electoral trap left by Labour for the coalition as damage limitation in 2010.

Whilst girls' achievement continues to improve the same can not be said be for boys, especially the most able. Clearly this is an issue of major concern for teachers and parents alike.

How is the government planning to tackle this problem from a national perspective and what advice would you offer to the parents of able boys who are reluctant learners?

Why has all of our taxpayers money been wasted on this fast train H2 via Birmingham /london when it should be spend building more schools for our children who are the future of this country?

As you can see from the " get Reading campaign " an absurd amount of people cannot read and leave school without the basics in this country!!!!
How much will you be investing in education and our children in the future?

My question: Why can't the webchat be at a time when teachers and other Mumsnetters working in education can take part?

My daughter was born in July. She's three, and in nursery school, and I'm already acutely aware of the differences in ability between her peers who are 11.5 months older than her and the July/August-born kids. We're going through the application for starting school at the moment. It seems that the local schools have stopped offering a staggered start for younger children -or certainly aren't encouraging it.

Could you please clarify exactly what the options for July/August-born children are, and what, in your opinion, works best? Thanks