Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help coordinate services between higher education institutions and NHS mental health services for students.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Improving coordination between universities and NHS mental health services is a key priority. The Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce recently published Improving Student Mental Health through Higher Education-NHS Partnerships, which sets out evidenced models of effective collaboration and provides case studies showing how stronger partnerships working together can transform outcomes for students while delivering efficiencies for local health services. The government encourages any university not already involved in such a partnership to draw on these models and to work with their local integrated care board to identify an approach that meets local needs.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of male underrepresentation in the teaching workforce in primary schools on the attainment gap between boys and girls.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
As my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has said, the department wants to see more male teachers teaching, guiding and leading the boys in their classrooms.
Men are underrepresented across the education workforce. This is broadly in line with international trends and has remained stable over time in England
Recruiting and retaining expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child, as high-quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s outcomes.
We ensure men are featured regularly in our recruitment marketing campaign “Every Lesson Shapes a Life”, with men in the focal role in our last two major TV campaigns.
Whilst the department does not have evidence to draw a direct link between gender of teachers and pupil outcomes, we are clear that schools should be an environment where all children feel a genuine sense of belonging.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to provide a response to Question 93556 on Schools: Standards, tabled on 21 November 2025.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I can confirm that a response has been submitted to the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock to Question 93556.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase training on Personal, Social, Health and Economic education for teachers in Yeovil constituency.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The revised relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance was published on 15 July 2025.
The department will invest £3 million in a teacher training fund over the next two years to ensure that the new curriculum has the greatest impact and £5 million to pilot healthy relationships training delivered by external providers.
Following the Curriculum and Assessment Review, published on 5 November 2025, we will strengthen financial literacy content and sequencing in citizenship and maths. More details on the conclusions and recommendations from the Curriculum and Assessment Review are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-final-report.
To ensure all pupils benefit from the refreshed national curriculum, we will ensure that core training throughout a teacher’s career has a strong focus on high-quality adaptive teaching, formative assessment and high expectations for all. This includes initial teacher training and the early career framework.
The government commissioned Oak National Academy to develop resources for schools in line with new curriculum requirements.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish (a) the analysis identifying the need for additional 16 to 19 places in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham and (b) the impact assessment on existing providers that was used to support the approval of the Eton Star Oldham free school.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Mainstream free school projects were evaluated in line with consistent criteria focusing on assessing the need for places and value for money. This included considering whether projects would provide a distinctive local offer and whether they would risk negatively impacting other local schools or colleges.
As part of one of the largest city regions outside London, Oldham benefits from a large pool of potential learners. Well developed transport links will allow the school to attract learners from across a broad geographical area.
Conditions attached to the school will ensure both Eton and Star work with local schools and colleges to ensure the new school sits coherently within the existing local offer, with a focus on improving GCSE outcomes and progression rates into post-16 provision across the local area, as well as into top universities.
The responsibility for undertaking a Section 10 consultation prior to the school opening sits with the Academy Trust. The Secretary of State will take the findings into account when considering whether to enter into a funding agreement.
Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government at what stage of development is the Department for Education Content Store; what information, if any, it contains about pupils; who has access to it; for what purposes; and how ongoing developments will be reported to Parliament or made public.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Education Content Store programme is currently preparing for public beta phase. This phase will provide access, on a test basis, to publicly available materials which have been optimised for use with artificial intelligence. This will not include pupil work.
The Education Content Store contains no information about pupils. A limited amount of anonymised pupil work was included in the pilot, with written permission from parents.
During the pilot phase, a small number of British educational technology companies had access to the content store. Some of these were selected through the Contracts for Innovation competition with UK Research and Innovation, and others were participating in non-commercial user testing activities. The pilot phase has now ended, and only those working on the development of the store, or related programmes across government, including the National Data Library, currently have access.
We will publish a full report on the content store pilot phase before the end of the academic year.
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish (a) the the consultation timetable on the Eton Star Oldham free school and (b) the expected date for the publication of its findings.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Mainstream free school projects were evaluated in line with consistent criteria focusing on assessing the need for places and value for money. This included considering whether projects would provide a distinctive local offer and whether they would risk negatively impacting other local schools or colleges.
As part of one of the largest city regions outside London, Oldham benefits from a large pool of potential learners. Well developed transport links will allow the school to attract learners from across a broad geographical area.
Conditions attached to the school will ensure both Eton and Star work with local schools and colleges to ensure the new school sits coherently within the existing local offer, with a focus on improving GCSE outcomes and progression rates into post-16 provision across the local area, as well as into top universities.
The responsibility for undertaking a Section 10 consultation prior to the school opening sits with the Academy Trust. The Secretary of State will take the findings into account when considering whether to enter into a funding agreement.
Asked by: Terry Jermy (Labour - South West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department is ensuring that young people gain practical, vocational skills in regenerative farming, agroecology, and sustainable horticulture.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is strengthening technical education so that young people can gain practical skills in areas such as regenerative farming, agroecology, and sustainable horticulture. This includes a range of apprenticeships in agriculture, environmental and animal care sector such as crop technician.
Land-based colleges and institutes of technology offer applied learning experience with employer designed standards increasingly embedding regenerative and agroecological practices. Land based T Levels and technical qualifications include opportunities for hands on learning in soil health, sustainable crop production, biodiversity, and low-impact land management.
Skills England works with employers to embed real world regenerative and agroecological practices in relevant occupational and apprenticeship standards to ensure they meet ongoing skills needs.
Local Skills Improvement Plans help guide providers to match training with the priority skills needs, which include those related to agriculture and land-based industries.
Together, these measures create a strong pipeline of young people equipped for careers in regenerative, low carbon land-based sectors.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence entitled Adoptee Voices, published on 28 January 2026, if she will take steps with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to ensure mental health provision is available for adoptees that is trauma and adoptee-informed.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The ‘Adoptee Voices’ publication enabled the department to hear directly from adoptees and about their experience of trauma and mental health provision, such provision must be informed by lived experience as well as clinical evidence. The department recently published a consultation, ‘Adoption Support that Works for All’, confirming that we are working in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care to design their new pilot to improve mental health support for children in care and their families. This pilot will include support for adoptive families starting in one area and aims to test an integrated model of mental health support for children and families
Alongside this, we are expanding our investment in Regional Adoption Agency multi‑disciplinary teams, which bring together social care, health and education professionals to deliver a holistic package of assessment and support for adopted children and their families.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to answer Question 100240, tabled by the hon. Member for Poole on 15 December 2025.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The response to Written Parliamentary Question 100240 was published on 4 February 2026.