(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Member is absolutely right: antisemitism has no place in education. It was an honour to join the Secretary of State’s visit to Menorah High School last week, together with the whole ministerial team, standing in solidarity with that school and with the Jewish community. We have written to all schools and colleges urging a swift response to hate-related incidents and active reassurance for their students and staff, and we continue to work with faith leaders, schools and Ofsted to monitor the response to those concerns.
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Deprivation and disadvantaged children have been the core driving force of all our reforms since 2010. We are spending record amounts of money on school funding—£59.6 billion is the highest ever in cash terms, in real terms and in real terms per pupil. Before the pandemic, we had closed the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and other children by 13% in primary schools and by 9% in secondary schools. That has been undone by the pandemic, but we are determined to close that gap again. All the reforms that led to that closure are still in place, and we are confident, particularly with the £5 billion of recovery funding and the tutoring programme, that we will close that gap once again.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s answers today, and I thank him for his leadership and his ownership of this issue, which is not his fault. He has approached it in exactly the right manner, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said. I welcome that we are continuing to deliver the core schools budget in full, not just for mainstream schools, but for high needs. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister set out what the percentage increase for those areas will be in 2024-25, compared with this year?
On the increases in funding last year and this year, funding is increasing by £3.9 billion in 2022-23 and by £1.8 billion in 2024-25. When we combine that with the £4 billion increase we had between 2021-22 and 2022-23, that is a 20% increase in cash terms over that period.
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI understand the point the hon. Member is making but I have to say I disagree. I believe very firmly, as do the Government, that exams are the fairest method of assessing pupils’ attainment. It is also a workload issue for teachers. Throughout the pandemic, as we have devised a system to ensure that young people can move on to the next stage of their lives, we have always taken into account the workload implications for teachers and schools.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I agree with what he said and what he just said about exams. I pay tribute to teachers in Newcastle-under-Lyme who have gone above and beyond this academic year, as I know they will next year, to help pupils catch up with lost learning. Can he confirm that the measures he has set out will not be putting any undue additional pressure on teachers?
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Teachers, support staff and headteachers have worked incredibly hard in schools and colleges during the pandemic, making sure that schools are covid-secure, adapting to remote education, teaching both remotely and in class, and keeping schools open throughout the whole period for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. We do absolutely have teacher workload at the forefront of our minds as we devise policy.