Lord Bishop of Newcastle
Main Page: Lord Bishop of Newcastle (Bishops - Bishops)Education: Alternative Providers
Lord Bishop of Newcastle Excerpts
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I am not sure the noble Lord is right. My full understanding, having looked at the matter very recently—in the last two or three days—is that Ofsted is responsible, working with local authorities, schools and AP providers, for looking at AP settings that for a variety of reasons are unregistered. That continues to be the case.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
My Lords, I am grateful for the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and for the Minister’s answers to previous questions. At the Aspire Academy in Hull, an alternative provision academy that forms part of the Sentamu Academy Learning Trust, a unique multi-professional team that includes a clinical psychologist, a psychotherapist, speech and language therapists and educational psychologists is in place to ensure that students’ mental health and special educational needs are met. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that mental health care and special needs provision are part of what it means for alternative provision providers to offer a quality education?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The right reverend Prelate makes an extremely good point. It is important that local needs are taken into account. She raised one example and I can give another: the Family School, an AP free school that opened in September 2014. Its ethos is built around supporting pupils to cultivate,
“a productive lifestyle, personal resilience and the values required to become responsible members of society”.
As the right reverend Prelate will know, we have a Green Paper out on children’s mental health.