Education Recovery

Debate between Lord Loomba and Baroness Berridge

Monday 7th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, the tutoring and support for teaching that I outlined were part of Sir Kevan’s plan. More than £1 billion is going into tutoring for young people. That should pay for 100 million hours for children and young people across England by 2024. Those are disadvantaged young people. Using a “per pupil” analysis is not accurate when certain pots of money have been targeted at, for instance, tutoring disadvantaged children and summer schools are available to secondary schools only.

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, in many families, the main breadwinner has died as a result of Covid-19, leaving their spouse a widow or widower suffering not only the grief of bereavement and poor mental health but facing immense financial pressure at a very uncertain time. What special steps will the Government take to assist and support the children of such new widows or widowers in catching up on learning lost during the pandemic?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important and tragic consequence of the pandemic. I visited a school about two weeks ago where 70% of the students were close bereaved. In this regard, the task of schools is immense. The money that I have outlined—the universal catch-up money, the £650 million which is in schools’ banks now—can be spent on additional pastoral support. We announced during Mental Health Awareness Week that we have invested £17 million to train up mental health support leads in more than 7,800 schools. I note that bereavement is not a mental health need, but it may be that that workforce also does bereavement support.

Schools: Exam-year Pupils

Debate between Lord Loomba and Baroness Berridge

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend outlines one of the implications. We are also expecting a population bulge through secondary schools, which will be another consideration, as well as the fact that any repetition of a year when children in England transition at 16 would have implications for FE, while, at 18, it would have implications for higher education. This is not a simple proposal to consider.

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, we are aware that children suffered greatly last year due to the school closures that were necessary to contain Covid-19. However, it is likely to have increased further the educational divide between children of richer and educated parents, who are likely to have had better-quality home schooling, and children in deprived areas. What steps are the Government taking to help these unfortunate children catch up before the next school year?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have given some £650 million to the national tutoring programme, which is for disadvantaged pupils. Within that, for the cohorts of the most disadvantaged pupils and schools in the most disadvantaged areas, Teach First is leading on academic mentors—that is, a full-time employee for the school. Some 700 of the 1,000 mentors that we are anticipating are now in schools, supporting catch-up provision.

Free School Meals: Food Parcels

Debate between Lord Loomba and Baroness Berridge

Thursday 14th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I applaud the example that the noble Lord has given, and I have outlined why it is important that these three options are open to schools. As I have said, schools can re-register this week for the national voucher system and reactivate their accounts, and vouchers will be redeemable and available from Monday. Also, of course, where there is a free school meal entitlement for those who also qualify for the breakfast club, that food should also be provided. This has been stood up as soon as we can. In the last phase of the pandemic we distributed more than £380 million through a national voucher scheme. Noble Lords made it clear that there were downsides to that, because it meant that the business was given only to supermarkets. So it is important that we use the food and do food parcels, local vouchers and national vouchers.

[Lord Loomba (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I commend the Government’s decision to provide lunches to school- children. However, sadly, due to the carelessness of caterers, there has been a great deal of variation in the contents of the food parcels. What steps are the Government taking to tighten this up and be more specific, to stop this happening again? Alternatively, would they consider a voucher scheme again? That would go some way to alleviating this problem, as some schools still prefer to use their own caterers, which also helps save jobs.

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for outlining the role that school caterers have at the moment. Some of them obviously want to be involved in the delivery of free school meals to qualifying children who are at home. It is clear that the standard of food that should be provided is based on a statutory requirement. The association of school food and caterers was part of putting that together. The provision of food should obviously be sensitive to dietary requirements and allergies, and to religious and cultural sensitivities, so that the food provided, whether in school or by way of delivery, is appropriate for the children.