Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve teacher (a) recruitment and (b) retention in (i) Lancashire and (ii) Fylde constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The within school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high quality teaching. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child.
This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes. That is why the government has set out the ambition to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament, including targeting shortage subjects.
The department has made good early progress towards this key pledge by ensuring teaching is once again an attractive and respected profession, key to which is ensuring teachers receive the pay they deserve. We accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools for 2024/25. Alongside teacher pay, we have made £233 million available from the 2025/26 recruitment cycle to support teacher trainees with tax-free bursaries of up to £29,000 and scholarships of up to £31,000 in shortage subjects. The department has also expanded its school teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’, and the further education teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Share your Skills’.
A successful recruitment strategy starts with a strong retention strategy, and new teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing will now receive a targeted retention incentive of up to £6,000, after-tax, if working in disadvantaged schools, in the first five years of their careers. There are three schools in Fylde that are eligible for targeted retention incentives.
The department is also working closely with teachers and school leaders to improve the experience of teaching. This includes introducing a new school report card in place of Ofsted’s single headline grades, to provide a clearer picture of schools’ strengths and weaknesses for parents and more proportionate accountability for staff. It also includes promoting flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation and assessment time to be taken from home, and making key resources to support wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers.
The department is also funding bespoke support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and multi-academy trusts, to ensure schools are able to capture the benefits of flexible working whilst protecting pupils’ face-to-face teacher time. Schools can be matched with an appropriate ambassador via the national delivery provider to receive tailored peer support.
High quality continuous professional development is also key to ensuring we have and retain an effective teaching workforce. The department has established Teaching School Hubs across the country, which provide approved high quality professional development to teachers at all stages of their careers. These Hubs play a significant role in delivering initial teacher training, the early career framework, national professional qualifications and appropriate body services. Embrace Teaching School Hub is a centre of excellence supporting teacher training and development across Chorley, Fylde, South Ribble and West Lancashire. Star Teaching School Hub North West Lancashire is a centre of excellence supporting teacher training and development across Blackpool, Lancaster, Preston and Wyre.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children are in a residential children's home over 20 miles from their family home.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of children looked after who were placed in secure homes and children’s homes over 20 miles from their family home on 31 March 2024 was 4,220.
This is published in Table A4 of the ‘Children looked after including adoptions’ statistical release, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/03be7f62-cb0e-4000-2555-08dd1b6649db.
The needs of the child are paramount when deciding the right care placement. Though the department wants to reduce out of area placements, they will always be part of the care landscape, as sometimes circumstances make it the right decision for a child to be placed elsewhere, for example when they are at risk from domestic abuse or sexual exploitation, trafficking or gang violence.
The department knows that children placed away from home can experience disruption to their lives and they can make it harder to maintain important relationships, such as with their birth family, education setting or wider community. This is why moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Regulations are clear that the decision to place a child outside of the local authority should have the child’s interest at heart and the child, family and independent reviewing officer’s views should be considered. It should be signed off by the director of children’s services, and all relevant parties should be notified, including the receiving local authority and safeguarding partners.
This government’s proposed reforms will mean less need for distance placements. Proposals on planning permissions and process will enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed. Regional care cooperatives will improve local authorities’ ability to shape the local market, and the kinship local offer requirement will encourage more kinship arrangements. We are also investing £86 million in capital funding to create up to 200 additional children’s homes beds which will help ensure more of the right provision in the right places.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of children being placed in residential children's homes more than 20 miles away from their family homes on their care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of children looked after who were placed in secure homes and children’s homes over 20 miles from their family home on 31 March 2024 was 4,220.
This is published in Table A4 of the ‘Children looked after including adoptions’ statistical release, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/03be7f62-cb0e-4000-2555-08dd1b6649db.
The needs of the child are paramount when deciding the right care placement. Though the department wants to reduce out of area placements, they will always be part of the care landscape, as sometimes circumstances make it the right decision for a child to be placed elsewhere, for example when they are at risk from domestic abuse or sexual exploitation, trafficking or gang violence.
The department knows that children placed away from home can experience disruption to their lives and they can make it harder to maintain important relationships, such as with their birth family, education setting or wider community. This is why moving a child away is not a decision to be taken lightly and there are legislative safeguards around this. Regulations are clear that the decision to place a child outside of the local authority should have the child’s interest at heart and the child, family and independent reviewing officer’s views should be considered. It should be signed off by the director of children’s services, and all relevant parties should be notified, including the receiving local authority and safeguarding partners.
This government’s proposed reforms will mean less need for distance placements. Proposals on planning permissions and process will enable providers to more easily set up homes where they are most needed. Regional care cooperatives will improve local authorities’ ability to shape the local market, and the kinship local offer requirement will encourage more kinship arrangements. We are also investing £86 million in capital funding to create up to 200 additional children’s homes beds which will help ensure more of the right provision in the right places.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to provide additional funding to increase the number of school places in Fylde before January 2025, in the context of the introduction of VAT on independent school fees.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has already set out funding allocations for all schools in the current year. The removal for the school fees exemption to VAT does not change those allocations.
The government has also set out that it expects the number of additional pupils joining the state-funded sector to be low, around 35,000 pupils UK-wide, which is less than 0.5% of the state-funded pupil population, over several years.
The impact on individual schools and local authorities will vary and interact with other pressures. The department works with local authorities to help them fulfil their duty to secure school places. Deciding whether to move a child part-way through the school year in January 2025 is a matter for parents. Requirements for state-funded places for children that would have attended a private school will be addressed in each local authority through normal processes.