Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many disadvantaged pupils in Gravesham have been provided with technological support by the Government during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has delivered over 200,000 laptops and tablets to children and young people who would not otherwise have access, as part of over £100 million invested to support remote education and access to online social care.
The devices were an injection of support to help local authorities and academy trusts to provide access to education and social care during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Local authorities and trusts were responsible for distributing the devices and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to a device.
Devices are owned by the local authority, trust or school who can loan unused devices to children and young people who need them most, and who may face disruption to face-to-face education in the event of future local COVID-19 restrictions.
As of 27 August, over 220,000 laptops and tablets and over 50,000 4G wireless routers had been delivered to local authorities and academy trusts. This information split by local authorities and trusts can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data.
This includes 4,000 devices delivered to Kent County Council for children with a social worker, care leavers and disadvantaged year 10 pupils and four devices to Mayfield Grammar in Gravesend.
The Department is now supplementing this support by making available additional devices in the event of face-to-face schooling being disrupted as a result of local COVID-19 restrictions or local lockdowns, and children become reliant on remote education.
This scheme is intended to enable schools to support disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 who cannot afford their own devices. Schools will also be able to order devices for disadvantaged children across all year groups who are shielding as a result of official advice, all year groups who attend hospital schools and those completing their Key Stage 4 at a further education college.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding has been allocated to schools in Gravesham for (a) online tuition and (b) teaching materials.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools in Gravesham are receiving an extra £5.4 million in 2020-21 through the national funding formula. This is equivalent to an increase of 4.6% in per pupil funding and takes total funding for 2020-21 for schools in Gravesham to over £77.7 million.
Schools in Gravesham will also benefit from the catch-up package to support schools to make up for lost teaching time. This £1 billion package is on top of the £2.6 billion increase this year in school budgets, announced last year as part of a £14 billion three-year funding settlement.
Schools are free to choose how they spend this to support their pupils, including on online tuition and teaching materials, and we trust head teachers to spend their budgets in a way that achieves the best outcomes.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department plans to take to reduce the gap in educational provision between state and private schools in Kent after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We recognise that all children and young people have had their education disrupted as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is our ambition, shared by schools, to ensure that all pupils have the chance to make up for this lost education - ensuring that everyone can reach their potential in the long term.
We appreciate that this ambition will be challenging for schools to deliver. That is why we are introducing a ‘Catch Up Premium’ worth a total of £650 million. This will be available to all state-funded mainstream and special schools, and alternative provision. Our expectation is that this funding will be spent on supporting children and young people to catch up after a period of disruption to their education. Alongside this universal offer, we have also announced a new £350 million National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils. This will increase access to high quality tuition for disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people, helping to accelerate their academic progress and tackling the attainment gap between them and their peers.
To support state schools to provide education online while they were closed to the majority of pupils, the Government committed over £100 million to boost access to remote education. This includes providing laptops and tablets and internet access for those who need it most, ensuring every school that wants it has access to free, expert technical support to get set up on Google for Education or Microsoft’s Office 365 Education, and offering peer support from schools and colleges leading the way with the use of education technology.
The Department also supported sector-led initiatives such as the Oak National Academy. This new enterprise was created by 40 teachers from schools across England and produced at least 180 hours of online lessons per week. There were at least four hours of lessons per day for secondary, and at least three hours for primary. By 12 July, 4.7 million unique users had accessed the Oak National Academy website and 16.1 million lessons had been viewed. Additionally, the BBC developed resources for families as part of a comprehensive new education package, which is now available on TV, BBC iPlayer and online at BBC Bitesize.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how Ofsted visits to schools from September 2020 to January 2021 will differ from formal inspections; and what potential effect that will have on Ofsted's ability to (a) target failing schools (b) tackle any inadequacies in remote learning provision.
Answered by Nick Gibb
These are matters for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to my hon. Friend directly and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what powers Ofsted will have after undertaking visits to schools in the period September 2020 to January 2021 to enforce standards in remote learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
These are matters for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to my hon. Friend directly and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) full-time and (b) part-time teachers working in publicly-funded schools were not working in the same role at the same school 12 months later in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by David Laws
The information is not available in the format requested.
Information on teacher retention is currently derived from the Database of Teacher Records (DTR). However, this data source does not provide the information as requested.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in special measures employed newly-qualified teachers in (a) Gravesham, (b) Kent and (c) England in the last 12 months for which figures are available; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by David Laws
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many participants there were in each recent intake of the National Professional Qualification for Headship programme; and what guidance is issued to participants in that programme on conducting their first round of monitoring and evaluating teachers in a new school.
Answered by David Laws
In financial year 2012/13, 1202 participants commenced the NPQH programme. In financial year 2013/14, 1140 participants commenced the NPQH programme.
In the first half of the financial year 2014/15, 550 participants commenced the NPQH programme, there is a second application round opening on 11 December 2014. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/national-professional-qualification-for-headship-npqh#apply.
NCTL licensed the delivery of leadership development, including the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers to School led consortiums in 2012. The qualifications are developed around a leadership curriculum combining a range of essential and elective modules. All qualifications have a rigorous final assessment process.
There are no specific centrally-generated materials on the NPQH for participants on conducting their first round of monitoring and evaluating teachers in a new school. However the entry assessment process, which is administered by a commissioned provider, contains a leadership competence on “Holding to account”. Both this and the performance management of staff and appraisal are covered generically within the programme.
In addition, the NPQH Essential modules, ‘Leading an effective school’ and ‘Leading and improving teaching’, which are mandatory, include content on teacher quality and standards, monitoring and evaluating teaching and performance management/appraisal. Licensees can enhance the modules by including additional material.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department gives to secondary schools near grammar schools about setting realistic attainment targets for pupils; and what steps she is taking to reflect this in school performance tables for secondary schools.
Answered by David Laws
The Department does not issue guidance on setting attainment targets for pupils. It is for teachers to use their professional judgement to set pupil targets.
The Department sets floor standards against which schools will be measured in performance tables. From 2016 we are replacing the existing secondary school floor standard, based on the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*- C grades including English and maths, with Progress 8. This is a measure based on the progress a pupil makes from KS2 (age 11) to a group of 8 subjects at the end of KS4 (age 16) compared to pupils with the same starting point.
Progress 8 is a fairer way of measuring school performance as schools will no longer be disadvantaged by having a challenging intake.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the (a) financial cost and (b) cost of the effect on pupils' learning of replacing a teacher who leaves a school.
Answered by David Laws
The Department for Education has not estimated the financial costs of replacing a teacher who leaves a school as teacher recruitment is undertaken directly by schools and local authorities.
Evidence is clear that being taught by a good teacher has a significant impact on how well pupils achieve. We are therefore supporting schools to attract and retain high quality teachers, minimising any disruption to children’s learning. Official statistics show that teacher vacancy rates are declining and retention remains stable, with the majority of new teachers still teaching after five years. Children in England now have the best chance they have ever had of attending a good or outstanding school.