Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to increase teaching on financial literacy in the secondary school curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Friend in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children with SEND are not in formal education in (a) Romford constituency and (b) the London Borough of Havering as of 13 October 2023.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department holds data on the number of children and young people with an Education, Health and Care plan, including the setting in which the child or young person is typically educated or where they are not in education or training for any reason. The information is included in the National Statistics publication, which is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans. The data is only available at local authority level.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve access for mobility impaired students in schools.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All schools have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments to prevent children and young people with disabilities from being put at a substantial disadvantage. Schools are not subject to the reasonable adjustment duty to make alterations to physical features, such as adding ramps. They must instead publish accessibility plans explaining how they plan to increase access for disabled pupils to the curriculum, improve the physical environment, and make written information more accessible to disabled pupils by providing information in a range of ways.
In addition to this legal duty, the department’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, outlined plans to build a consistent national SEND and AP system that ensures all children and young people with SEND can access the support they need, and which parents and carers can trust, easily navigate and have confidence in.
A key part of the new system will be effective and inclusive education for every child, underpinned by excellent local mainstream provision. This will mean that every child or young person has access to high-quality teaching and curriculum, supplemented by targeted support where required. To support this, the department is investing £2.6 billion between 2022-2025 to improve existing provision and fund new specialist and AP places across the country. As part of this £2.6 billion, the department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. Local authorities can use this funding to deliver new places in mainstream schools (as well special schools and other specialist settings), and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.
In the Improvement Plan, the department sought to prevent disability discrimination from arising by supporting schools to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010. The department also said there would be further consideration on how disability discrimination claims against schools are dealt with.
As a first step, the department published a blog on the education hub, which is available here: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/04/10/what-are-reasonable-adjustments-and-how-do-they-help-disabled-pupils-at-school/. The aim was to raise awareness of the reasonable adjustments duty, share examples of the types of reasonable adjustments that schools can make, and explain how parents/carers and schools should work together to make reasonable adjustments. This builds on previous guidance on disabled children and the Equality Act 2010, funded by the department and published by the Council for Disabled Children in March 2022, which is available here: https://councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/Equality%20Act%20Guide%20for%20schools%20-%20FINAL%20EM%20EDIT.pdf.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to improve the provision of afterschool physical exercise clubs for (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In July 2023 the Department published an update to the school sport and activity action plan, which will support teachers and schools to deliver two hours of high quality physical education (PE) and provide competitive and extracurricular opportunities to all pupils.
The primary PE and sport premium supports all primary schools to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of the PE, physical activity and sport they offer, complemented by a wide range of extracurricular sport and competitive opportunities. The Department has announced over £600 million across the 2023/23 and 2024/25 academic years for the premium, along with £22 million for the school games organiser network.
New, non-statutory guidance will be published by the end of 2023. This aims to communicate a range of approaches to all schools for successfully delivering a minimum of 2 hours PE per week, equality of access to PE and extracurricular school sport and competition using examples from different types of schools and locations.
The Department is funding up to £57 million to deliver phase three of the Opening School Facilities programme, which allows schools to open their sports facilities outside of the core school day to provide more extracurricular opportunities for pupils and communities to play sport and be physically active. The programme is targeted where the funding will have the most positive impact, including for girls, disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and disabilities and other groups who have lower participation levels in sport.
The Department is also investing up to £289 million to support local authorities and providers in England to introduce or expand childcare provision for primary school aged children as part of the national wraparound childcare programme. This could include the use of Ofsted registered childcare providers that specialise in sports provision and physical activities.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the use of SATs to track the educational progress of primary school children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Primary assessments play a crucial role in supporting pupils’ basic understanding of reading, writing and mathematics, and in preparing pupils for secondary school. They allow parents and schools to understand pupils’ achievements in relation to the age related attainment expectations outlined in the National Curriculum.
As set out in the Bew Report and the Government consultation document on primary assessment and accountability, the test and teacher assessment outcomes are also used to hold schools to account for the attainment and progress made by their pupils. In addition, the data enables benchmarking between schools, as well as monitoring of performance locally and nationally. The Bew Report is accessible here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-key-stage-2-testing-assessment-and-accountability-final-report. The Government consultation outcome is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/new-national-curriculum-primary-assessment-and-accountability.
In 2017, the Department carried out a consultation into primary assessment in England, with the aim of creating effective and settled policy in this area. The consultation received over 4,000 responses from a diverse range of backgrounds and specialisms, providing a broad and informed range of views. The Government response was published in September 2017, and can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/primary-school-pupil-assessment-rochford-review-recommendations.
The resulting reform programme was designed to bring higher standards to primary assessment and to put in place an assessment system that helps teachers and head teachers help all pupils to succeed.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to meet the needs of areas where there are increases in demand for school placements at (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local Authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for pupils in their area. The Department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support Local Authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. This funding supports the Government’s priority to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity of a place at a good school, whatever their background.
The Department has announced a total of £2 billion for places needed for the academic years starting in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. This funding is on top of our investment in the Free Schools programme and means the Department has now committed Basic Need capital funding of over £14 billion to support the creation of new school places between 2011 and 2026.
The Department regularly engages with Local Authorities to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When Local Authorities are experiencing difficulties, the Department supports them to find solutions as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote the study of classical languages in state sector schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
To encourage the study of classics in state schools in England, the Department launched a £3.9 million Latin Excellence Programme (LEP) in September 2022. The LEP is delivered by the National Centre of Excellence and run by Future Academies, which is a multi academy trust based in London.
The aim of the LEP is to improve pupils’ attainment through increased access to, and uptake of, a GCSE in Latin, whilst also contributing to pupils’ broader classics education. The National Centre of Excellence works with 40 schools across the country to support high quality Key Stage 3 and 4 teaching, using a common curriculum which teachers will be trained to deliver by the Centre.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the provision of science-specific after-school clubs in state sector schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to ensuring that pupils have access to high quality extracurricular opportunities. These opportunities are an important part of a rich educational experience and can help pupils with their emotional and social development.
Schools are best placed to understand and meet the needs of their pupils and have the flexibility to decide what range of extracurricular activities to offer. Both the pupil premium and recovery premium can be used to fund enrichment activities. In March 2022, the Department updated its guidance to make this clear to schools; schools can choose how they wish to use this funding in line with a menu of approaches.
The Department supports a range of initiatives to expand access to high quality extracurricular activities. For example, the Department works with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to offer the Duke of Edinburgh’s (DofE) Award to all state secondary schools in England. Schools can also encourage young people to take part in the British Science Association’s flagship programme, the CREST Awards scheme. This is the UK’s largest national award scheme for project work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. It aims to inspire young people by providing science enrichment activities to inspire and engage five to nineteen year olds.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the recruitment of classics teachers in state sector schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Recent data shows that there are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest number of FTE teachers on record since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department’s teacher recruitment and retention reforms are aimed at supporting teacher recruitment and retention across all subjects, including classics.
The Department accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and leaders. This means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years. The award also delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions in England, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by Initial Teacher Training (ITT), the Core Content Framework (CCF) and the Early Career Framework (ECF). Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence based training, across ITT and into their induction.
The Department reviews bursaries each year before deciding the offer for trainees starting ITT the following academic year. The bursaries are focused on subjects experiencing teacher shortages where schools are likely to devote the most teaching time. This ensures the Department is spending money where it is needed most. For 2022/23, classics exceeded its postgraduate initial teacher training (PGITT) target, reaching 193% of the target, compared to 150% of the target the previous year.
While classics does not attract a bursary, the Department offers a £25,000 tax free bursary for languages, including ancient languages. Additionally, all trainees on a tuition fee funded course (including classics trainees) will be able to apply for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan to support their living costs.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of pupils are eligible for the pupil premium in Romford constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government provides additional funding through the Pupil Premium to support disadvantaged pupils. The Pupil Premium rates have increased by 5% for 2023/24, taking total Pupil Premium funding nationally to almost £2.9 billion.
As of June 2023, 3,493 pupils attending schools in the Romford constituency were eligible for Pupil Premium funding of £4,511,190. The proportion of pupils eligible for Pupil Premium funding in Romford schools, as of June 2023, was 22.9%. Pupil Premium allocations, including at constituency level, are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2023-to-2024.