Department for Education

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will empower local authorities to request to see a child in any of the homes in which the child lives within 15 days of the local authority recording the child’s home address(es) on their Children Not in School (CNIS) registers. The 15-day timeframe applies, irrespective of school holidays. After this point, the Bill also empowers local authorities to request a home visit for the purpose of determining whether to serve a preliminary notice or School Attendance Order (SAO).

If the parent on whom the request was made refuses the home visit, the local authority must take this into account when deciding whether to issue a preliminary notice or a SAO. As is the case now, parents of children subject to a SAO would only be subject to sanctions, such as fines, if found guilty in court of the offence of breaching the order. Parents may be found guilty if they do not enrol their child at the named school and are unable to demonstrate that they are providing a suitable education for their child and/or, where relevant, that education outside of a school is in their child’s best interests.

The department does not currently collect data on the number of home visits carried out by local authorities in relation to home educated children, nor on the living arrangements or family dynamics of those children.

However, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support them to carry out their new duties. The amount of funding will be determined via a new burdens assessment.

We will also provide statutory guidance, which will be publicly consulted on, and a training package to support parents and local authorities to understand how the CNIS measures should work in practice, including how the measures apply in situations where children live across more than one household.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

To ensure teachers can support children before needs escalate, we will develop National Inclusion Standards that set out evidence-informed tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with additional needs.

The department is also introducing the Experts at Hand offer, backed by around £1.8 billion, to give schools direct access to support, advice, training, and specialist expertise from professionals including speech and language therapists (SaLTs) and specialist teachers. These experts will work alongside school staff, building skills and confidence to identify needs early and respond effectively. New SaLT advanced practitioners will be responsible for bridging the gap between clinical and education settings, so that more SaLTs are specifically supporting children and young people. We are also investing in upskilling SaLT support workers, who can provide some of the more routine support in mainstream settings.

The department continues to invest in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, under the Best Start in Life strategy, which has demonstrated significant impact on oral language and early literacy, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. Evaluation has found that children who receive NELI make, on average, four months of additional progress in oral language skills, and seven months for those children on free school meals. Funding has been confirmed until the 2028/29 academic year (subject to further spending rounds).

The government is also investing £200 million to give every teacher the training they need to better support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This new training offer will cover children with SEND in their earliest years through to age 25, restoring parents’ confidence that their children will be supported throughout every stage of their education. This new inclusion training offer builds on improvements to existing programmes, such as the new Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework, which contains significantly more content on adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND.

The government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people across England can access a variety of enrichment opportunities at school, including after school clubs, as part of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity. A new Enrichment Framework will be published this academic year. It will set out benchmarks to help schools and colleges plan high-quality enrichment more strategically, with case studies and signposting to tools and resources. The framework will support schools to provide accessible and inclusive enrichment opportunities to those less likely to participate, such as pupils on free school meals.

The government has pledged to protect PE time and wants schools to offer a minimum of two hours of PE per week for all pupils. The department is committed to supporting schools to meet this ambition.

The government response to the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review has committed to strengthen the PE curriculum across all key stages, including key stage 4, to give it a clearer purpose and ensure schools recognise the importance of protecting two hours of PE throughout a pupil’s time at school.

To bring more consistency to the provision of support and opportunities across the country and to ensure it reaches the children and young people who need it most, we are working to set up new PE and School Sport Partnerships across the country. These will make sure that the support that schools can draw on for making improvements to PE is high quality and informed by the best evidence and clearly focused on the challenge of reducing inactivity, securing equal access to sporting opportunities and ensuring there is a renewed focus on supporting schools to increase PE time.

In March 2026, we published the 2026 Schools Costs Technical Note, which includes an estimate of cost pressures for schools’ non-staff costs over the 2026/27 and 2027/28 financial years. The analysis shows £1 billion of headroom in schools’ budgets over the next two years, after taking into account the expected rise in non-staff costs.

The department is helping schools and trusts to go further to unlock additional value. We established the Maximising Value for Pupils programme in December 2025 to help schools and groups seize opportunities to maximise value from every pound spent. This includes initiatives like our forthcoming new agency supply staff framework which will tackle excessive supplier margins and the department’s Energy for Schools service, which aggregates sector buying power to protect schools from market volatility; following a successful pilot which identified average savings of 36%, over 1,000 schools are already benefitting from the scheme.

As part of our Plan for Change, we are committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and colleges, over the course of this Parliament.

We are already making good progress. The teaching workforce has grown by 2,346 full-time equivalent (FTE) between 2023/24 and 2024/25 in secondary and special schools, the schools where they are needed most.

The number of FTE school support staff has increased by 7,100 (1.4%) since 2023/24, which is mainly due to an increase of 5,900 teaching assistants.

Our recent ‘Every child achieving and thriving’ white paper sets out the government’s vision for reforms to the schools and special educational needs and disabilities systems in England to ensure that every child can achieve and thrive.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced in June 2025 the establishment of a new PE and School Sport Partnerships Network to ensure all children and young people have access to high quality PE and extracurricular sport. Details on the PE and School Sports Partnerships funding will be confirmed in due course.

The Enrichment Framework will be published this academic year, accompanied by a range of support to help schools’ enrichment offers. We will work with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the National Youth Strategy implementation, including the £22.5 million Enrichment Expansion Programme and £132.5 million through the ‘Every Child Can’ dormant assets funding. This is in addition to international enrichment opportunities through the UK’s association to the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, continuing investment in our national network of Music Hubs, a new £750,000 chess support programme, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s flagship ‘TechYouth’ programme.

The response to this Written Parliamentary Question has been issued.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Spen Valley to the answer of 29 April 2026 to Question 128860.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The national funding formula (NFF) for school pupils up to age 16 reflects additional needs of pupils, including economic disadvantage, low prior attainment, English as an additional language and pupil mobility. In the 2026/27 academic year, £5.6 billion (11.0%) of the NFF has been allocated according to “deprivation” factors reflecting economic disadvantage and £9.2 billion (18.1%) has been allocated for additional needs overall. In addition to funding through the NFF, schools also receive pupil premium funding for disadvantaged pupils.

Disadvantage funding for 16 to 19 year-old students is provided linked to students’ economic deprivation and low prior attainment. We also allocate English and maths funding to support students aged 16 to 19 who have not achieved a GCSE grade 4 or above in English and maths. In total, 16 to 19 disadvantage and English and maths funding came to £1 billion in the 2025/26 academic year allocations, or 12% of total programme funding.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.