Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the quality of staff is fundamental, but so is the number of staff. We have a big challenge to ensure that we have sufficient staff in place by next September to deliver the outlined entitlement. We are working to provide additional training for staff. I take his point about the training and ongoing support that we need to provide for the staff who do such an important job at the beginning of children’s lives.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, the largest number of nursery closures in recent years has been in the poorest parts of the country, particularly in areas with large minority-ethnic populations. Will the new and expanded nurseries that the Government are allocating be proportionately allocated in those hardest-hit areas?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that those are the areas where need is very great. In our recent announcement of £15 million-worth of investment in the first 300 nurseries based in schools, we will be encouraging applications from those where there is a particular need. We will be using evidence of those applications to ensure that we are able to improve the provision in the areas that need it most.

Home and Online Schooling

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gohir]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether there has been a rise in home schooling and online schooling, and what action they are taking to strengthen child safeguarding in this context.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we are aware that the number of home-educated children has been rising for several years. While the rise in itself is not an inherent safeguarding concern, the view of many local authorities is that the increase is driven by reasons other than commitment to home education. That is why we remain committed to introducing local authority statutory registers, are consulting on revised elective home education guidance, and have launched an accreditation scheme for full-time online education providers.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, it is important to try to understand the reasons for the rise in home education. Can the Minister provide a demographic breakdown of home-schooled children by sex, age, ethnicity, location—there may be hotspots—special educational needs and reasons for home schooling? I do not expect that information to be provided now; I can have it in writing. If that information is not readily available through local authorities, could mechanisms be implemented to collect it? I am worried about children with special educational needs. Are their needs being met? I am worried about the content and quality of online education, although I acknowledge that it removes barriers to learning. I am very worried about the increased risk of children being subjected to sexual violence and domestic abuse—Sara Sharif is an example. Some girls will be at increased risk of FGM and forced marriage. What will the Government do about these things? I do not think the register is the only solution.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I share many of the noble Baroness’s concerns. On her first point, we believe there are three main reasons why parents might decide to educate their children at home. The first is that they want to do it and it is a positive choice. The second is that they feel that the school their child is at is not meeting their child’s needs, particularly where special educational needs come in, as the noble Baroness suggests. The third group is where we have genuine safeguarding concerns. The Government are working on all three aspects, and part of the consultation will aim to address them.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I acknowledge the noble Lord’s point about the variability in identification of certain commonly occurring special educational needs. There is a variability as the noble Lord explained, but also regionally. That is why we are trying in our special educational needs, disabilities and AP improvement plan to make sure that at every level—from initial teacher training to the qualifications of SENCOs, to the availability of specialist support from educational psychologists—schools get the support they need and such children are identified early.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I am really concerned that parents are being told that their children’s special educational needs cannot be taken on in schools, or to move their children in order to maintain school statistics. Does the Minister agree that this is discriminatory, and what action will the Government take to prevent this happening?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

If the noble Baroness has specific cases she would like to share with me afterwards, I will be more than happy to take those up and look into them. It is extremely important that children with special educational needs are in schools where they can flourish and thrive. For the vast majority, that will be in mainstream provision, but I recognise some of the pressures the noble Baroness describes and I am very happy to take this issue away and try to address it directly.