Andrew Selous
Main Page: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Selous's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Will Quince
All teachers are teachers of SEND. We are doing a lot of work, and we will do as part of the SEND review, to ensure that teachers are equipped—but not just equipped, that they have confidence—to teach and identify special educational needs. All I would say, as I have said a few times, is that the hon. Lady should wait a handful more days for the SEND review.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
The Government have committed to a form of local authority register for children not in school, as was detailed in the children not in school consultation response that we published on 3 February. We hope to legislate on that measure at the next available opportunity to create the duty to keep and update a register and for local authorities to provide support to home educators where they want it.
Andrew Selous
If a local authority found that illiterate home-schooling parents were unable to teach their children to read, write and add up, would it signpost them to proper adult literacy and numeracy as well as ensuring that the children could access their inalienable right to a good education?
Mr Walker
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Government guidance sets out the powers that local authorities have and the actions that they can take. He is right that the adult education budget has funding to support literacy and, with the new numeracy programme, to support numeracy. There is a role for stepping up in that space. Local authorities already have powers to specify levels of literacy and numeracy on a case-by-case basis, and having the statutory register will encourage them to use those powers.