Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that the Child Poverty Strategy will address the barriers which prevent children in poverty from accessing speech and language support.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The number of children in poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This not only harms children’s lives now, but it also damages their future prospects, and holds back our economic potential as a country.
My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister therefore announced, on 17 July 2024, the appointment of my right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Secretary of State for Education, as the joint leads of a new ministerial taskforce to begin work on a Child Poverty Strategy. The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, to tackle the root causes, and give every child the best start at life.
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of breaking down barriers to opportunity and improving the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and to prosper. Too many children, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, leave primary school with unresolved speech, language and communication needs that have a lasting impact on their life chances.
To help tackle this now, the department will provide targeted support for teachers in early years settings and primary schools to support children with the development of speech, language and communication skills. More broadly, the department will work with teachers and curriculum experts to identify how oracy can be woven into lessons across the curriculum to support all children to succeed. Through this, the department aims to support teachers across the country to realise the benefits of using oracy to teach, by adding it to their repertoire and enabling more children and young people to flourish in life and work.
Early language skills are vital to enable children to thrive in the early years and later in life, including for all aspects of later attainment in school. To support early language skills, the department is investing over £20 million in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme (NELI). NELI is an evidence-based programme targeting reception aged children needing extra support with their speech and language development and is proven to help them make four months of additional progress, which rises to seven months for those eligible for free school meals. In July 2024, the department announced that funded support for the 11,100 schools registered for the NELI programme, which is equivalent to two thirds of all English state primaries, would continue for the 2024/25 academic year.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children were taken into care because their mother was given a custodial sentence in each of the last five years; and how many such children were in care for (1) less than two months, (2) two months to four months, (3) four months to six months, (4) six months to 12 months, and (5) over 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The department does not hold the information centrally as data is not collected on the number of children who enter care as a result of their mother receiving a custodial sentence.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of school leavers entered higher education in each of the ten districts of Greater Manchester in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The department publishes annual information on the proportion of students from state-funded and special schools who entered higher education by age 19 by local authority in its ‘Widening Participation in Higher Education’ statistical release.
The table below shows figures for the latest five years for local authorities within Greater Manchester.
Table 1: Percentage of pupils from state-funded and special schools who entered Higher Education by age 19 by local authority.
Local Authority | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
Bolton | 40% | 43% | 43% | 46% | 43% |
Bury | 41% | 44% | 46% | 43% | 44% |
Manchester | 35% | 37% | 39% | 39% | 42% |
Oldham | 37% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 41% |
Rochdale | 37% | 38% | 40% | 40% | 39% |
Salford | 34% | 32% | 34% | 33% | 32% |
Stockport | 38% | 39% | 41% | 40% | 43% |
Tameside | 31% | 35% | 37% | 36% | 36% |
Trafford | 50% | 52% | 53% | 54% | 57% |
Wigan | 37% | 38% | 40% | 41% | 40% |
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current waiting time for children with special educational needs to have education, health and care plans (1) processed, and (2) implemented, in each of the ten districts of Greater Manchester.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The information requested is not held centrally.
Data is collected by the department on assessments for education, health and care (EHC) plans that are completed within their 20-week target. This is published, at local authority level, in table 8 of the “Statements of special educational needs and EHC plans: England 2018” publication attached and available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2018.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the new school funding formula for each school in the city of Manchester.
Answered by Lord Nash
We want to ensure every school has the resources it needs to deliver a high quality education for every child and that all schools are fairly funded. We received over 25,000 responses to the consultation. We are grateful to all those who expressed their views on school funding and the proposed formula as part of this process. We will publish the response to the consultation in due course.