Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I welcome members of the expert panel: Professor Noel Purdy, director of research and scholarship at Stranmillis University College; Dr Jackie Redpath; Mary Montgomery; Ms Joyce Logue, principal of Long Tower Primary School in Derry; and Kathleen O'Hare, retired principal of Hazelwood Integrated College and former principal of St Cecilia's College. You are all welcome here today. We have a big panel. Obviously, there will be a lot of interest in your work from members, so, in the interests of time, perhaps not every member needs to answer every question.

I am happy to hand over to you. We really appreciate your time. We know that the panel is no longer formally constituted, so we understand that you are giving up your time independently to come and do this today for the Committee, which we really appreciate.

We will have opening remarks of up to 10 minutes, and then we will move into questions and answers. There will be around five minutes per member. We have another briefing after this session that we need to get through, but we very much look forward to hearing from you.

Professor Noel Purdy (Expert Panel on Underachievement): Good afternoon, Chair and members. Thank you very much for the invitation to us, as former members of the expert panel on educational underachievement in Northern Ireland, to come and brief you on developments since the publication of 'A Fair Start' in June 2021.

I do not think that I need to go through the list of my panel members, except to say that I am absolutely delighted to have the support of all members of the panel, who are here today with their expertise and experience. There are many new faces in the Committee, though, so I will remind members that the expert panel was formed as an Executive commitment under the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) agreement, which had set out the requirement to establish an expert group to examine the links between persistent educational underachievement and socio-economic background.

The specific objectives of the panel, as set out in the terms of reference, were to:

We duly set about our work from September 2020 to May 2021, during which time we engaged mostly online, as a result of COVID restrictions, with a wide range of stakeholders, including educationalists, parents and families, children and young people, policymakers, political and business representatives and the voluntary and community sector. During the oral evidence sessions in late 2020, we met a total of 344 individuals across 24 days. That included six regional sessions — unfortunately, they were also online because of COVID — for Ballymena, Belfast, Cookstown, Derry/Londonderry, Enniskillen and Newry.

On 2 June 2021, we published our final report and action plan, 'A Fair Start', which contains 47 costed actions across eight key areas: early years; emotional health and well-being; curriculum and assessment; promoting a whole-community approach to education; maximising boys' potential; teachers' professional learning; school leadership; and ensuring interdepartmental collaboration and delivery. Each key area included an introductory section setting out a summary of what we wanted to achieve, evidenced-based explanatory notes and, crucially, a summary of specific actions costed over the next five years.

The plan was designed to start with a modest Executive spend of £10·9 million in year 1, which was 2021-22, rising incrementally to £73·1 million in year 5, which is 2026-27.

We were very encouraged when all five Executive parties at the time endorsed the action plan in May 2021, and we are similarly encouraged that they have continued to express their support for the actions. Many specifically drew attention to 'A Fair Start' in their election manifestos. However, it is important to remind members that our formal role ended with the publication of 'A Fair Start' on 1 June 2021, after which responsibility for the implementation of the actions rested and rests with the Northern Ireland Executive, led by the Department of Education, which moved to appoint a programme board in line with one of our actions in key area 8.

Despite our formal role ending with the publication of the final report, as a panel, we wrote to Minister McIlveen in November 2021 to propose that we continue to play an informal role in championing the full implementation of 'A Fair Start', as we were naturally concerned that budgetary pressures could hinder progress against the actions. As a result, we were offered briefings from officials, which began in 2022 and have continued three times a year. Those informal briefings focus on one key area each time and allow us to keep up to date on progress against our original actions. During the briefings, we have been impressed by the genuine commitment of officials to deliver the actions and by their hard work in very challenging budgetary circumstances. We have also been heartened by the continued support for 'A Fair Start' by members of this Committee and the political parties represented here.

I will conclude my opening remarks by saying that this afternoon represents a very welcome opportunity for us to draw your attention to the delayed or partial implementation of many of the actions. This is due to the lack of funding allocated by the Northern Ireland Executive despite the cross-party endorsement.

We were encouraged to hear the Minister's commitment to facilitate the standardisation of the preschool day, which is action 4 in our plan, and by the announcement of the investment by the Shared Island unit of the Department of the Taoiseach in the RAISE programme, which was another key action in our plan — albeit we called it the reducing educational disadvantage (RED) programme. However, we note with concern that, in 2024-25, for example, the Department of Education's total budget allocation for 'A Fair Start' amounted to just £2·6 million. That is 6% of the £41·2 million that we proposed for this year in our original action plan.

Chair, we are not politicians and have no desire to enter the political fray. Instead, from the very start, we set out as a panel to produce a report to maximise opportunities for all children irrespective of community background, and we are very proud to have produced a report that still has that potential.

As former members of the expert panel, we encourage you, as current MLAs and members of the Committee for Education, to join us in advocating for the full and complete implementation of the 47 actions in 'A Fair Start'. We remain convinced that, with your support, the delivery of the 47 actions can make a significant difference by promoting equity; fostering greater collaboration between schools, families and communities; closing the achievement gap; and giving all our children and young people a fair start.

My colleagues have many years of experience and expertise in school and community leadership, early years, the curriculum, professional development and much more, and, together, we will be pleased to answer your questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. We note the strong emphasis on the words "former members" of the panel. It is appropriate to note that clearly. I will start with the RAISE programme because that was what sparked the conversation about hearing from you. However, I appreciate that there is a whole range of other things around the implementation of 'A Fair Start' that will be relevant today.

Trying to ascertain how the criteria for the RAISE programme had been arrived at and how effective an approach was being taken by the Department became quite a vexed issue for the Committee. From your perspective, is the model that the Department has adopted an effective way to identify the areas that would most benefit from the intervention of the RAISE programme?

Professor Purdy: It is fair that I start by reiterating that, as former members of the expert panel, we played no role in devising the criteria. When you look at key area 4 in 'A Fair Start', you see that we proposed that the Department of Education:

It was never our job, however, to design the implementation phase of that. While we might have received an update on the criteria, we were in no way consulted on or involved in the detail of working out which seven — or five or three — criteria would be used, nor were we asked or approached about any related weighting. We certainly did not see any draft outcomes on the areas that would or would not be selected. It is important that we say that at the outset.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Again, I do not want to press you on a point that, perhaps, you do not feel that the panel is able to answer. However, the Committee had quite considerable interest in free school meals being the method by which the Department has ordinarily targeted interventions to tackle educational disadvantage or in identifying areas where the highest levels of poverty were exhibited. Was it a surprise to you that it was departed from and something else set up? Had you anticipated that that could happen when it came to the delivery of RAISE?

Professor Purdy: We had not predicted that, nor did we try to influence the Department in any way in the shaping of those criteria. However, I will say that, clearly, more factors than simply individual family income contribute to social and educational disadvantage. We were very aware of that, and many of our actions are cross-departmental because of that recognition of the importance of other issues, including health, and other issues, such as special educational needs, that are reflected in the criteria. I cannot say whether I was surprised — it is not up to me to be surprised — but I can certainly appreciate that there are other factors involved as well as free school meal entitlement.

One of our actions, in fact, was to look at the measure of free school meal entitlement, precisely because we wanted to be sure that that was a robust measure. We were aware that Ulster University had carried out some research and found that, while not perfect, it is probably as good a measure of income deprivation as we have.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Other members may want to pick up on criteria issues. Again, as that was discussed at length, I do not want to labour that point at this stage. There is one issue that, while connected, is slightly different. In key area 5, recommendation 5.7 is that "Band 3 schools" should be supported by the RED programme. It was just the phrase "Band 3 schools". The recommendation seemed to be about extracurricular inputs that should go in to support children and young people in those band 3 schools. First, what is a band 3 school? What is that measure? It is not one that I was familiar with.

I genuinely did not mean to put you on the spot. I just wanted to understand that. It appears that that is, perhaps, a measure that is used somewhere in how we identify areas of need. It seemed to anticipate that the RED programme would go into band 3 schools.

Professor Purdy: I am not sure that we can recall from five years ago what that particular reference was.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No, that is fine. I was genuinely not trying to catch anybody out; that was not my intention at all. It was because it was an action from the RED programme that would carry out interventions in band 3 schools. I was just trying to understand what that refers to, because I do not know. I just wanted to get a sense of whether that might have been something that we could look at in terms of RAISE and whether a set of schools had, perhaps, been identified as needing those sorts of interventions. You are not clear on that; that is absolutely fine.

I will ask one final question before I hand over to other members. It is about a recommendation in key area 4 to do with providing wrap-around support and a programme of mentoring and counselling for children who are experiencing educational disadvantage.

What progress has been made on that, particularly in the primary setting, where the Healthy Happy Minds pilot project has come to an end? Is there a gap in the provision of wrap-around supports for mental well-being to bring in health inputs? Is there a need to refocus that?

Ms Joyce Logue (Expert Panel on Underachievement): Healthy Happy Minds was an excellent initiative. We were hoping that there would be follow-on from that. It would have been be great to have counselling and the Text-a-Nurse service in every school. Counselling in schools is funded from individual school budgets, so it is down to whether a school can afford it; it may be able to afford an hour or two. I could do with a full-time counsellor in my primary school. In my school, we have a counsellor for one day a week, for which we pay. We have to rob Peter to pay Paul to get that counselling.

I am aware of the constraints in the budget. As Noel said, there were 47 actions in the plan. We hoped that all 47 would be implemented. Part of that would have included counselling, particularly in primary schools. I am sure that Mary and Kathleen can speak at greater length about secondary schools. There is such great need. One of our major focuses was early years. The more we put in during early years, the greater the benefit later on and the greater the savings. Counselling would be a great thing if we were able to get it. It is disappointing that we do not have the funding for that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful. We talk a lot at the Committee about early intervention. It feels like counselling is a really obvious early intervention to take the pressure off CAMHS. I hear a lot from post-primary principals that issues with the transition to post-primary education is often anxiety based. If we deal with some of the lower level anxiety in primary school, deal with it well and early and give children strategies to manage it, we could make progress.

Ms Logue: It is not just at the transition stage, although it very much exists at that stage. We are see children as young as P1 presenting with anxiety.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Absolutely. The point that I was making is that sometimes the inability to maintain attendance at post-primary is anxiety based and that that anxiety may be dealt with if it is tackled earlier.

Ms Kathleen O'Hare (Expert Panel on Underachievement): None of the 47 recommendations stood alone. They were part of a jigsaw that, from our years and experience, we thought would help to address underachievement and disadvantage. I spent all my working life off the Bogside in Derry and in north Belfast. From years of experience, I think that the recommendations, if accepted, would address underachievement and disadvantage in Northern Ireland. The Executive signed up to them, and we assumed at that stage that they would be put into action.

When Noel talks of "6%", I feel gutted. To spend time on the report and have its recommendations accepted by the Executive but not see them actioned only adds to the issues that we have. We have 25,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24, and over half a million people in total, who are not in education, employment or training. If we do not take united action and put the necessary money behind those actions, those numbers are not going to get smaller; they are going to get larger. There are communities that contain people who are third-generation unemployed and people are the third generation in their families to not get higher than a level 2 education. If we do not take action, there will be a fourth, fifth and sixth generation of those people, and we will have all the other problems that we heard on the news today.

With no selfish strategic interest — I am no longer involved in education in any formal manner — I say this: the recommendations were signed up to and adopted by the Executive, but they have not been funded. I feel gutted about that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Kathleen. That was expressed clearly, and will have been heard loud and clear by members.

Mr Sheehan: I welcomed the 'A Fair Start' report and its 47 recommendations when it was published; that is still our position. I am sorry about this, Noel, but I want to drag you back to the issue of RAISE. We had a presentation from officials on 23 October last year. We tried to get the genesis of the RAISE programme. In his opening remarks, the official said:

I then asked whose idea it was to depart from using free school meal entitlement as the key indicator. The answer to that was, "The expert panel". I responded:

— I am talking about a place-based and full-community approach —

The response from the other official was that it was:

I asked:

The answer was that it was:

I then asked whether the panel was:

The response from the official was:

Would you like to comment on that, Noel?

Professor Purdy: Yes, I am happy to respond. I can say categorically that, as a panel, we never discussed the criteria because that was never part of our job; that is implementation. The part of the 'A Fair Start' report that I read out at the start of the session is as far as we went with that, Pat. We were always of the mind — we were always clear about it — that our responsibility finished when the report was published. We would not have had even an informal role had we not approached the Minister. We did so because we wanted to continue to champion the implementation of the actions, not because we had any role in devising or being consulted on criteria. We were updated on the criteria, which is different — it is important to make that distinction; we are agreed on that — but we had and continue to have no formal role in determining those criteria.

Mr Sheehan: OK, fair enough. That is quite clear. I do not know why officials wanted to give the impression that responsibility for the RAISE programme somehow rests on the shoulders of the former expert panel.

Professor Purdy: What I certainly can say — I am happy to say more about this — is where the idea of a place-based programme came from. We are happy to talk about that, and I know that Jackie will want to come in on that. We heard through our consultation process of the value of place-based community approaches. There is a small number of such approaches in Northern Ireland. We also heard about international examples such as the Harlem Children's Zone. We were convinced by the potential of that approach. The genesis of the idea certainly came from us, and we would not want to walk away from that — we are clear on that — because it was close to our hearts. Jackie knows much more about it — I do not know whether you want to come in on that now, Jackie — than I do.

Mr Jackie Redpath (Expert Panel on Underachievement): Sure.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We have about a minute left on this question, so pack as much as you want into that.

Mr Redpath: I missed that. How long did you say that we had? [Laughter.]

The RAISE programme, if it can happen as intended, is a bit of a dream. We proposed the equivalent of the RAISE programme, though not any particular criteria, in the report. On the use of free school meals as a proxy, Noel alluded to work that went on in Ulster University. Work also went on in Queen's that said that that proxy is crude. It is what we have and what can be, and often is, worked to, but, for example, some of the work at Queen's showed that a mother's qualifications are a much better indicator of advantage or disadvantage than anything else. Obviously, the Department cannot such data and use it in that way, but, as Noel said, other criteria can come into play.

Mr Sheehan: If you do not mind my interrupting, Jackie, everybody agrees that free school meals entitlement is a fairly crude indicator. The Department scoped out alternatives and came back to free school meals.

I do not have much time left, so I will move on quickly to the weighting of the indicators. It is well known that poverty is the greatest indicator of educational underachievement. Are you disappointed that that has not been given more weight than the other indicators that are used in the RAISE programme?

Mr Redpath: One of the interesting things that might be worth looking at is the allocation of funding and whether it is weighted. There are 15 areas, or 18 if you divide Belfast into four, that will benefit from RAISE. The difficulty in people's heads was that, if you go purely on the levels of underachievement, it is difficult to get beyond Belfast or Derry/Londonderry, yet there is serious underachievement in Portadown, Strabane, Ballymena and wherever you go. It becomes a question of how you address the issue where it is and not just where it is most concentrated. The place-based approach is very important, however. I fear that a programme that can achieve something significant, which is what we are talking about, might not be able to do so. That worries us at the moment.

The other big issue, Pat, is that other streams of work in the 'A Fair Start' report that had Executive approval have not been implemented, or the money is not there to implement them. Apparently, they are not in the draft Programme for Government, and I am not sure why that is, because the report was adopted by the Executive. If the Programme for Government is not finalised yet, it may be worth looking at whether that could be put into it. Our call is for you, across the Executive parties, to champion the whole 'A Fair Start' report, including RAISE, which has the potential to make a difference if it is done right.

Mr Baker: I will follow on a bit from Pat, if you do not mind, on the RAISE programme. I support 'A Fair Start'. Its recommendations need to be implemented and funded. I will not rehash the difficulties that we have due to being funded below need by the British Government. When we have funding, it is frustrating that officials come in front of us and mislead us. I may be being a bit harsh in saying that, but it sounds like they did in this case. One of my concerns is that you can talk about the geography of the funding and say that we need to share it out, which is fair enough, but two thirds grammar schools will want to tap into the funding. That is what we are frustrated about. If we are to tackle underachievement —. There must be something wrong in the grammar schools if they are worried about their GCSE results. For the schools in the area that I represent and the school leaders I talk to, school attendance is a huge pressure. In some schools in west Belfast, attendances have dropped as low as 75%.

Then, there was the announcement this week that the Minister does not want to look, or cannot look, at extending funding and is telling primary schools to look at their own budgets for early intervention counselling. That is another growing concern of mine. If we really want to tackle underachievement, we need to have early intervention. If we have the money to do the RAISE programme right, the current situation is really frustrating. The expert panel members were the ones who were labelled as having come up with a change in the formula. It was really frustrating to hear from you that that was really not the case. Is the Minister misguided? When we have money, could we do better stuff with it to make sure that we tackle underachievement rather than go down this route?

Mr Redpath: It is unfortunate that it got tagged like that. It was never about money for schools. It was about putting in a resource to build authentic partnerships around the child who is underachieving, in whatever context that child lives their life. Very often, a large percentage of their life — something like 85% — is lived outside of actual school settings, so this was about building authentic partnerships. It was never about just money for schools. It is important to say that.

The second thing in relation to that is that this was to be about a whole-child, whole-family, whole-school, whole-community and whole-systems approach. What turns out to be £20 million or, variously, £17 million, spread out across 18 areas, or whatever, is not a lot of money to do that. The big money to do that lives in the whole system across every Department that has anything to with the life of a child. That is where a massive focus needs to go, because no matter how that is spent, Danny, it is not a silver bullet. It needs a whole-government approach to improve the lives of children in the disadvantaged areas of Belfast, Derry/Londonderry and other parts of the province. That would be a big prize if every Department rode in against it. The lessons of the Harlem Children's Zone are that —

Mr Baker: I do not disagree. That is not what I mean — I know that there is no silver bullet. I am saying that we do not have much of the Budget, and then, every Minister must prioritise, as well. It seems to me that this programme was put in front and that there was almost a convoluted formula put in place. We have the free school meals. It may be crude, but it is the best indicator. The Department itself says so.

You will have areas, for example, in my constituency, which would be in the top 10 areas of social deprivation, which could not avail themselves of that funding, yet you could have schools — a prep school, for example — which could. That is the frustrating part of it. That is what we want to get into. I know that you may not agree and like to jump across, David —

Mr Brooks: It is a straw man — a prep school.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): David, come in through the Chair, please? Thank you.

Mr Baker: They put that information online; I did not. That is one of the reasons why I asked the questions.

As I say, the officials pulled you into it by saying that you came up with that formula. That is frustrating for me, as a new Member. I believe very much that — I may have to go back and look at the Hansard report myself — that is very misleading for us as Committee members. Thank you very much.

Ms Montgomery: Can I come in on this?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly on this point, yes.

Ms Montgomery: I will circle back to something that you said about wrap-around services. There is confusion, because in that key area, the first thing that we signposted was a review of free school meals as a measure. That may well be where it has fallen into that context with the officials. That is the first thing.

The second thing, and the important bit, is that our vision —. I have worked in the Boys' Model for 32 years. I worked there at a period of school improvement, and our community partners were crucial. When we were sitting down and looking at how to tackle underachievement, we looked at cost-effective ways of pulling everybody around the child. To give you a good, worked example, which goes back to your point about wrap-around care, when we signposted that in the document, it was about tapping into the resource of youth services. That is a phenomenal resource in a community, particularly disadvantaged communities, because the services engage with, encourage and link in with young people.

In north Belfast, at the minute, one of the programmes that we have is the involvement of youth services in schools. It has engaged with the Department of Health on a pilot to provide wrap-around care in the schools that they service and taking young people off the CAMHS waiting list. The Department of Health is going to Streetbeat Youth Project, saying, "We have these children in your area who are on the CAMHS waiting list. It is so long that we will not see them. Can you access them through the schools?" That is what is happening: they are getting mentoring and counselling exactly as we envisaged. In an ideal world, RAISE money would be funding that voluntary youth service, not necessarily funding the school. That was the vision.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful clarification. Thank you. Michelle, you were next.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for being here. I am one of the new Members who you mentioned in your opening remarks, Noel. From your contribution so far, it is clear why you are the expert panel. You clearly have the expertise on and passion for this, and that has come across in your answers, as well as from the report having been so well received. I understand why you guys were selected for the role.

I will talk about early years — some of the interventions at that stage and the need to pivot towards early years. Early intervention forms a massive part of the report. I recently got feedback from a number of schools on preparedness and readiness for school coming through from early years. I would like to get a sense of your knowledge of any updates on the implementation of your report. Are you satisfied that a measure is in place for that? What is your assessment of progress on kids being prepared, when they walk into a school, to learn and to function in that school?

Ms Logue: Thank you. As I said, early years was a major focus of the panel, and it is no secret why there are 13 actions in that key area. One of the actions is to build a seamless journey for children from birth, right through. We had great hopes for those actions and were very happy to see the standardisation of the school day, with money being guaranteed — I hope that I am not speaking out of turn when I say this — until 2026, and, I think, 107 schools coming on in September, because there had been a discrepancy. Some children were receiving two and a half hours a day in school — 9.30 am to 11.30 am — and others were in school until 1.30 pm and therefore benefited from lunches. That standardisation has been excellent.

As I said, however, if we do not catch children early, we will lose that battle. I see that the gap is widening for children from P1 on. We are doing our young people an injustice. The standardisation of the school day is crucial. The money allocated to that did not all come out of A Fair Start, but I think that the 'A Fair Start' report was the impetus for that. The other thing is that money is being given to the childcare strategy. A 15% subsidy is being given to subsidise childcare, which, again, is very good. Particularly dear to my heart is the money for TinyLife's TinyLearners award, which is a programme that encourages schools to look a child's background.

There have been small gains, and we are happy with those. Special needs was a particularly big area. The Minister is carrying out a review of that, but that is not enough. Not enough has been done. We anticipated there being a spend of £56·2 million over the past four years, and the spend has been something like £2·559 million. We are nowhere near the spend that we had anticipated, and that is a false economy. I cannot stress enough that, if we do not catch children early, we will build up problems further down the line. It is not just an Education issue but goes back to what Jackie said about it being an interdepartmental issue. It is about Health, Communities and everywhere else. That includes the Department of Justice, down the road. This is a no-brainer: money, put in early, leads to impact. While we are happy about some of the things that have come along, it has been nowhere near what we wanted or anticipated.

Professor Purdy: I will come in off the back of that. That is absolutely the case. Out of the 47 actions in the report, 13 related to early years. We were convinced of that from the outset, and we provided evidence in the report, referencing the Heckman curve, which illustrates the importance of investing early and shows that early investment is more than offset by the savings that are made later on. We are delighted, therefore, that the Committee has shown such an interest in early years.

As Joyce said, however, that is still not enough. We know that the impact of COVID on preschool — among 0- to 2-year-olds or 0- to 3-year-olds — has been significant. Those children are making their way from preschool to P1 and P2 with higher levels of special educational needs. There has been investment in the early years SEN inclusion service, but if you ask anybody in the sector — any preschool or foundation-stage teacher — they will tell you that there is still not enough, that the need far surpasses the existing provision and support and that that need is increasing all the time.

Mrs Guy: You have an expectation. It is stated in a number of places in the update report that this issue will be dealt with in the early learning and childcare strategy. Have you been consulted on the strategy or any of those inputs? No, OK.

I have one other thing that I wanted to pick up on briefly.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Very briefly, Michelle. We are out of time.

Mrs Guy: Oh, Pat got extra time but I do not. To come back to the progress report, it looks very much as though the Department is providing those reports. Sometimes, when I am looking at some of the actions that are green, they are not necessarily related to the reality that we have experienced. One that I picked out was the 14-19 framework. We know that it is not progressing, yet it is marked as green, suggesting that it is moving forward and is on track. Do you have concerns that the Department is marking its own homework on those reports and that, perhaps, someone else should be independently updating us on it?

Ms O'Hare: You make a very valid point. I chair the Northern Ireland Schools Council, and we are avidly watching the 14-19 framework report, which had some brilliant recommendations. I fear that by the time they are implemented, they will be completely out of date because the whole 14-19 area needs reform, particularly around one of the key areas, which is curriculum and assessment. We have an assessment system in Northern Ireland which is very greatly weighted towards academic qualifications. The recent NI Skills Barometer 2023-2033, published two weeks ago, pointed to the fact that we have a real shortage of people with levels 3, 4 and 5 qualifications in Northern Ireland and in areas where our education system does not even figure. The 14-19 framework needs to be implemented. Before it is, it will probably need to be reviewed to see if it is current for today. We have long awaited that report and have, equally, asked questions about why it was delayed. Those questions are best coming from people such as you.

Mrs Guy: Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We can certainly take that away. We hope to meet concurrently with the Economy Committee so that is, I hope, an issue that we can take away.

Mr Brooks: I will not question you on the RAISE programme, but I will give my view on what has already been said. For example, Pat has read verbatim from that particular session, and I am not contesting that. However, if it is of interest, I recommend that you go away and watch that entire session to see the tone and the drive of that and the context in which comments were made. It sets a different tone. We are continuing to hear about grammar schools and prep schools, and, to be honest, I think that that is a straw man. The list of schools that went out from the Department should not have gone out. It was very misleading and very unhelpful, but some members around the Committee table are intent on using that continually for their own arguments. I do not think that it is appropriate, but I will move on.

Something that we are familiar with now is that pupils entitled to free school meals do better in Catholic maintained schools compared with those in controlled schools or those in Protestant, working-class areas. What is being done better in that sector, and, beyond that, is there a cultural element that goes beyond the schools? Why do you think that they are performing better than their Protestant equivalents and, in particular, Protestant working-class boys?

Professor Purdy: I will start on that, but I am sure that everyone will have an opinion. There is no easy answer. It is an excellent question, David, and I have asked it of three different principals in the last week, two of whom are in high-performing Catholic maintained schools with very high free-school-meal entitlement. I have asked whether they can put their finger on what makes a difference between their schools and many — not all — of the controlled schools whose GCSE scores are quite a bit lower. They could not answer, because they said, "I am sure the controlled school down the road puts their children first. I am sure they have a strong pastoral ethos and strong leadership. I am sure they are doing exactly the same as us."

Queen's University did the Investigating Links in Achievement and Deprivation (the ILiAD) report a few years ago, which talked about differences in community cohesion between traditionally Protestant, loyalist, working-class communities and Catholic, republican/nationalist communities. There was a suggestion that community cohesion is stronger in Catholic communities than in working-class Protestant areas. That is one theory, but if we knew the answer, we would all be writing about it and insisting that controlled schools adopt exactly the same model. I think that it is a broader societal piece, and it is very hard to put your finger on. I am sure others will want to comment.

Ms O'Hare: I have gone from one sector to another, having been head of a Catholic maintained school for 10 years and an integrated school in north Belfast for six. It is no one thing, but the ethos of a school is key to achievement. You do not just find that in Catholic maintained schools. I have walked into controlled schools with a wonderful ethos. I am looking at one beside me: Kilkeel, for example, has a wonderful ethos, as does Boys' Model.

However, there has to be something about the value of education, and the whole community can find that together. When I was a principal in Derry, I could have asked somebody in the Old Library Trust, the Bogside or Brandywell community to help me to get a child back on board. They would have done that. Sometimes they were funded for that and sometimes not.

I had to do a bit of work on that in north Belfast, simply because the school was probably newer in system, but I got great support, from every single political party to ensure that that happened. However, there is something in building that community cohesion. My colleague over here, Jackie, says that it takes a village to raise a child. I knew the power of that so well, when I came to north Belfast. However I felt, when I walked into north Belfast, from being in Derry, that it was a decade behind in that cohesion.

Mr Brooks: To be clear, I was not being disparaging towards our controlled sector. In my constituency, I can point to some very good schools. It is just dealing with the data. There is some discrepancy, and we must get to the bottom of it.

Following on from that, this point goes back to the report that Noel mentioned. Youth work is one of the aspects that it raised in Protestant wards as distinct from Catholic ones. That is not in area that I have any particular expertise in. The idea is that youth work is more fractured in Protestant areas relative to Catholic wards. Is that a contributory factor, and how do you think we could change that? You discuss it in here. Do you think that any progress has been made on that front?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Time is beating us. I must ask for a brief and succinct answer.

Ms Montgomery: OK. Youth work is transformative for young people who are subject to disadvantage. It is a key engagement tool for schools and it is multifaceted in the supports that it can offer schools, so it is absolutely a resource that we need to tap into.

Mr Redpath: David, in the Shankill, which is where I work and come from, we have traditionally had high levels of educational underachievement. The Shankill, Woodvale and Crumlin wards are among the worst for that.

We have looked at the cause of the causes of this. There are various layers to it. It is no simple thing: it is not just about schools. There is a cultural difference. I am the last of a generation on the Shankill who did not need a single qualification to my name to make my way in life. I was going to get spoken for, in Mackie's, the shipyard or wherever. As a community, we did not need to value exams or education. Now, two or three generations on, we need them, and we are playing very fast catch-up. It is a complicated and interesting picture. On the Shankill, we have so much in common with the Falls Road, but there are also differences.

Mr Brooks: That is a culture difference that I recognise as well.

Mrs Mason: Unsurprisingly, I want to go back to the RAISE programme. I go back to a point that Jackie made about how it is place-based. When we spoke to departmental officials specifically about the programme, one of the things that they said was that they wanted a geographic spread for the RAISE programme.

With that in mind, my constituency, South Down, has absolutely no funding. Jackie, you mentioned Strabane specifically. There is no funding there, despite the fact that it has high levels of deprivation. What is your view on that? Do you think that this programme has been successfully geographically spread? Do you think a geographical spread is a good way to set policy?

Mr Redpath: We wrestled with deprivation in rural areas when we met as a panel. Deprivation is dispersed and not concentrated in particular places. It is easier to deal with things that are concentrated in such places. Therefore, it depends on your definition of rural. We highlighted that as an issue. How do you deal with it? We were not sure. I do not know the detail of what was named or not named, or whether an area such as Strabane was in or out. There are obviously places outside Belfast and Derry/Londonderry that have significant pockets of deprivation. My guess — it is nothing more than a guess — is that that was an attempt to reach some of those places. As a panel, we were aware that stuff outside those two urban areas needed attention. How the decision was made to get to those areas was beyond our remit, but we anticipated that there were areas outside those two big urban centres that needed attention, even though the greatest concentration of underachievement that required attention was in them.

Professor Purdy: We are very sympathetic to issues of rurality. We had a session with a number of people from border areas in County Fermanagh and so on who had to travel many miles to access any services, so we are sympathetic to that. I suppose that it just comes down to implementation, criteria and super-output areas. We would, of course, be broadly supportive of as many people as possible accessing the funding. That goes without saying.

Mrs Mason: I take that on board, but it is clear that there are huge gaps. If it is the case that there is a geographic spread, it has not hit those areas.

Irish-medium education is referenced in the 'A Fair Start' report. It is in areas of disproportionately high disadvantage as well. Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta commissioned a lot of research through 'A Fair Start' funding. Will the RAISE programme hit the specific actions on Irish medium? Will it make any difference, or will it add to further disadvantage in those areas?

Professor Purdy: We had representation from Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta, and since then we have been involved with it. I am undertaking a research project for it on the workload of Irish-medium teachers in the sector. There have been number of other research studies — one was published just a couple of weeks ago that is really a review of the 2008 review that I attended here. A Queen's University report was published about a year ago that was led by Aisling O'Boyle. All those highlighted particular challenges.

We were convinced from the outset and from the first presentation that we had from Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta about the challenges facing the Irish-medium sector. That is why two of the 47 actions relate to the sector. RAISE — what we call RED — is only one action. Those are two distinct and separate actions, and we would certainly not want RAISE to overshadow or eclipse any of the other 46 actions in the report, particularly in relation to the Irish-medium sector, where there are undoubted challenges, which was well proved in recent research.

Ms Logue: We were very cognisant of the Irish-medium sector, particularly its resources and assessment. It is struggling with so many areas. It is a growing sector, and it needs a lot more. We had hoped by including that in the report that the sector would get our full backing, and we are still hopeful.

Mrs Mason: Do you not feel that it has been

to date?

Ms Logue: Funding has been given. I think that £100,000 was given to fund a coordinator and to carry out research, but is it enough? No.

Ms O'Hare: CCEA did some work as well. I was vice-chair at the time, and there was a difficulty in getting examiners from the Irish-medium sector. They were accessing 'A Fair Start' to try to address that. We have no update on how that is going, but that was a real issue because it is a growing sector.

Ms Logue: Another real issue is staffing, meaning teachers in the schools. We have so many parents who want to raise their children through the medium of Irish, and we all know the benefits of a second language. We hoped that that would be a big focus and would get more into the sector who would be able to speak Irish. I think that the Education Authority formed a committee and tried to recruit Irish speakers into that to support the Irish medium. It is like a lot of our actions: not enough has been done yet. We need more.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Time will beat us, but there are a number of things that we can follow up on. Colin, you indicated that you wanted in.

Mr Crawford: Both my questions have been answered. I had taken my hand down.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No problem, Colin.

Mr Martin: Folks, thank you for your presentation this afternoon. I will return to what my colleague was asking you about: the differential in outcomes for Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland. Table 17 of your research puts the gap at 9·6%. We got research recently that stated that the gap between controlled non-grammar and Catholic non-grammar was 8·6%. They are measuring different things, but they are similar in what they are driving towards.

Do you feel that controlled schools need more support in Northern Ireland? We have brilliant controlled schools. They are working really hard. Do you agree with the independent review panel that having the Education Authority as a managing authority is problematic? Is there a way of addressing it? The Minister has indicated a direction of travel. Do you think that that is one of the things that could help? Mary, you are a principal. What would be helpful in trying to reduce the gap that we see in every research paper that we find?

Ms Montgomery: There was an announcement that there will be a specific support body for controlled schools. That is a step in the right direction, and we will see how that turns out. There is a critical gap in leadership support, and we talk about that. There is a dearth of teacher professional learning (TPL) for the teaching profession across the board. Key area 6 relates to leadership. There is absolutely nothing that is contextual and specific to leadership in the context of educational disadvantage, whether controlled or not, so a huge piece of work needs to be done there.

Around £500,000 has been spent so far through the Education Authority on the Association of Education Advisers course, which is an accredited course that principals can do, but it is not contextual or specific. It is our vision that, when you are serving an area of disadvantage, with the plethora of challenges that you face daily, there will be a place to go to for expert advice, support and guidance relevant to that context.

Respectfully, a qualification is good, but you need someone on the other end of the phone when you have something very significant to deal with that is quite specific to your context. Therefore, there really needs to be something around leadership. That is a transformative piece. It does not matter how good everything else is. If you have poor leadership, the children in that school are unlikely to thrive.

Ms O'Hare: I second that. The investment in leadership is dreadful. When I first became a head teacher in 2002, there were huge opportunities to do the professional qualification for headship (PQH), MBAs, common purpose programmes and lots of leadership programmes, but there are none now with credible sources.
There is a piece of action that could happen. As former principal of an integrated school, I saw that Protestant children did as well as Catholic children. Why was that?

Mr Martin: I hope that that is not a question to me. I hope that it was at least rhetorical, Kathleen, because you will get me into real trouble over here.

Ms O'Hare: It was, Peter. I have to call out the fact that the previous Education Minister, Peter Weir, was key in recognising Protestant boys' underachievement, and he has not been lauded for that.

Professor Purdy: I will make one final point on that. I am not a school leader, so I may be unqualified to speak about it.

We need to get better at tapping into the expertise and experience of principals such as those whom I am surrounded by today. They cannot be allowed to simply retire and not share that expertise and experience with other aspiring or newly appointed principals in very challenging circumstances such as those in which my colleagues have succeeded beyond all expectations. We made that recommendation — or we certainly touched on it — in key area 7, as Mary said. However, there has not been adequate progress in replacing the PQH or in providing some kind of effective mentoring by experienced principals who have walked the walk in challenging communities. I feel strongly that we need to take that forward.

Ms O'Hare: I will add to that very quickly. The result of that is that fewer people are applying for principal and leadership roles. That has a knock-on effect down the line.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is great, thank you. The whole issue of how we give school leaders access to best practice hangs on the fact that they just do not have time even to visit other schools to see what is working well, let alone lead a full mentoring programme.

Mr Martin: May I ask one further question?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Time had already beaten you, but everyone else got a little bit extra, so I will give you one very short question, and I ask for a very brief answer.

Mr Martin: Am I the last?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No, there is one more. Time is against us.

Mr Martin: OK, one for the road, Chair.

You mentioned the lack of Executive funding. The Chair will keep me brief. I am glad that you mentioned the Executive, because it is an Executive document. There is sometimes a temptation in the Committee to home in on the Minister or the Department —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Get to the question.

Mr Martin: If you had one message for the Northern Ireland Executive about funding and 'A Fair Start', what would it be?

Professor Purdy: The message that we communicated right from the start, Peter, was that, from the outset, this was an Executive commitment through New Decade, New Approach. All five Executive parties at the time endorsed the 'A Fair Start' action plan. We need a funding commitment and a resource allocation to come from the Executive, rather than putting all the onus on one Department. It was never meant to be a single Department action plan; it was always meant to be cross-departmental. That would be the key message from all of us here today.

Ms O'Hare: It needs to be part of the Programme for Government, so we will be watching that space.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We will look at taking forward some of the actions arising from this at the end of the session. I will bring Cara in for the final question.

Ms Hunter: Thank you, Chair; I will be brief; otherwise, you will kill me.

Thank you very much to the panel for being here today. My colleagues have raised issues around geographical spread, and I thank them for that. The Committee has been talking a lot about school refusal and anxiety-based avoidance. Absenteeism has a profoundly negative impact on our young people's outcomes and educational attainment. There is an undeniable link between coming from a deprived area and being three times more likely to have an adverse childhood experience. The document touches on the importance of early intervention, which can improve mental and physical health and overall academic outcomes for young people.

In previous weeks, I have pointed out that there are young people in Key Stage 3 or at GCSE age who are refusing to go to school two to three days a week on average. Are we providing those young people with enough opportunities to get back into the school setting so that they can get good grades? That was flagged to me by a parent who said that their child had missed a lot of school. We do not have the opportunities to help them to get the education and grades that they need to prosper in society. That is quite a large question, I suppose, but I am all ears.

Ms Montgomery: I will take that one because that is happening in my school. It is about the strength of your community partners. We link with integrated services, the Youth Service, the statutory educational welfare services and so on. The school has to be forward thinking and has to reach out and have networks of people. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a parent will not open the door to a teacher, but they will open the door to a youth worker or someone from family support services. We have pastoral staff because we received additional funding through targeting social need (TSN) and being part of the full-service extended schools programme. We can afford parenting support, which is what we envisaged in RAISE as being something that could be funded. Those people live in the community, and they know the community and the challenges that exist. They are much more accessible for vulnerable parents. It sounds as though the parent whom you mentioned is not necessarily a vulnerable parent, but parents need a conduit to school, and schools need to be flexible in how they respond to the needs of the young person, whether than means a phased re-engagement programme, joint working with outside agencies, counselling, mentoring, hooking them into a youth club or getting them involved in a football club. It is about the holistic wrap-around response that we envisaged in 'A Fair Start'.

Ms Hunter: That is brilliant, thank you. I noted the importance of early intervention, but I was thinking about children who are at the other end of their time at school. That is a really helpful answer.

Ms Logue: That issue is also creeping into primary school. I have long heard about it in secondary schools. I have been in the primary sector for well over 35 years, and it is creeping in there, which I have never seen before. We are having to think outside the box about how we manage that. It is an issue.

Ms Hunter: Definitely. That is why I am so happy that it has come to the Committee and that we are having these conversations. You are right that it will continue to grow until we identify it as a massive issue. That is extremely helpful. I thank the panel for sharing its insights.

Mr Redpath: This is where the level of the conversation really needs to be, regardless of RAISE. In greater Shankill, we are putting together an area plan that is to be presented under RAISE, but the plan will go way beyond what RAISE can do. Last night, in preparing for this session, I looked at a model from the Harlem Children's Zone. That model involves loads of money — more than we will ever dream of — but the principles are the same. It talks about the interlocking network of education, health, family, social services and community. Cara, that is what Mary just referred to. That is the prize that we can win in areas of disadvantage: an authentic partnership across all those interlocking things. Children and young people's lives are complex, and they live them in many different contexts. The need to bring those contexts together is at the heart of the vision that we had of what is now called RAISE.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful.

Ms Hunter: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): One thing that has been in my mind through the whole evidence session is the Children's Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015.

Mr Redpath: Yes. Encourage every Department —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The Committee has felt as though it has been banging its head off a brick wall. Every time we raise that, officials' eyes seem to glaze over. We may look at how that legislation is utilised to ensure that we get buy-in from all the Departments that, as you have all so articulately outlined, need to be involved and around the table to make this work.

It has been a really helpful briefing. I thank you all for giving up your time for us today. It is very much appreciated.