Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve decision making by local authorities on special educational provision for children.
Answered by David Johnston
To support strategic decision-making, the department will introduce new local Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) partnerships that bring together delivery partners across local systems to support local authorities to strategically plan and commission support for children and young people with SEND and in AP. Partnerships will be expected to co-produce a Local Area Inclusion Plan based on robust evidence that will explain how the needs of children and young people aged 0-25 in the area will be met. The department is providing local authorities with guidance on partnerships and plans throughout the year to strengthen local governance and decision-making for SEND and AP and services. Soon, the department will be launching a national and local inclusion dashboard that will present published data on system health and performance to enable better decision-making at a national and local level and drive self-improvement across local areas.
The department is also testing, via the Change Programme, whether using Multi Agency Panels for decision making about individuals in the Education, Health and Care plan process improves decision-making and parental confidence.
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with Warrington Borough Council to help (a) support families with disabled children and (b) reduce the time taken to process education, health and care plans.
Answered by David Johnston
Following the Area Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) inspection of Warrington Local Area Partnership (LAP), conducted by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission and published in May 2023, departmental officials have been working alongside NHS England SEND advisers to provide support and challenge to the LAP to address the areas for improvement highlighted in the report. These areas for improvement include:
Responding to the inspection report, Warrington LAP have updated their SEND strategy and published a strategic SEND improvement plan. This sets out how the Partnership will improve services for children and young people with SEND in the area and address the areas for improvement highlighted in the inspection report. The department monitors progress against these plans at regular intervals. Both documents are available at: https://www.warrington.gov.uk/send-inspection-review.
In 2022, the rate of EHC plans, excluding exceptions, issued within 20 weeks in Warrington was 48.2%, compared with a national average of 49.2%. This data is accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans.
The department has increased Warrington's dedicated schools grant from £190 million in 2021/22 to over £238 million in 2024/25. This includes an increase of 33% in the high needs block from £25.6 million in 2021 to over £34.2 million in 2024/25.
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Bumper £24 million to boost children’s literacy, published on 9 October 2022, whether that funding will be used to support children's speech and language skills.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has committed £24 million to boost literacy in schools in the 2022/23 academic year. The majority of this funding will be distributed via the English Hubs programme.
The focus in the first two years of the programme has been on phonics teaching, with early language and reading for pleasure as secondary aims. In the third and fourth delivery year, English Hubs continue to focus on systematic synthetic phonics. A number of English Hubs have already started to deliver support in all three priority areas, including early language. In January 2023, the Hubs will begin delivering new early language training to schools, which has been designed by Hubs and external experts.
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that pre-reception and post-reception children can recover their ability to speak and understand language during the covid-19 recovery.
Answered by Will Quince
In total, the department has announced almost £5 billion for an ambitious, multi-year education recovery plan to support young people to catch up on missed learning.
As part of education recovery, the department is investing up to £180 million of recovery support in the early years sector. Strengthening understanding of speech and language development is an important part of this support.
The recovery includes investing in continuous professional development for early years practitioners, through the national expansion of the early years Professional Development Programme, which has a focus on upskilling practitioners to support the early development of literacy and language and early mathematics, alongside personal, social, and emotional development. The department is also investing over £24 million for local authorities to select and train early years practitioners in the best programmes to support parents with the home learning environment. This aims to improve children’s early language and social and emotional development, giving priority to families that will benefit the most.
Additionally, the department is investing £17 million for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI), which is a proven programme aimed at the reception aged children needing extra support with their speech and language development. We are also increasing the number of qualified special educational needs coordinators in early years settings.
The Recovery Premium, providing £1.3 billion for the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years, is additional funding to help schools deliver evidence-based approaches to support education recovery. Recovery Premium eligibility builds on that of the pupil premium. However, school leaders have flexibility to use the funding to support any pupil where a need is identified, including those with speech and language difficulties. Schools can use their funding to assess and address immediate needs, such as those relating to speech and language difficulties, as well as longer-term strategic improvements, such as boosting the quality of oracy teaching.
The Parent Pledge in the Schools White Paper will also make the department’s vision clear that any child who falls behind in English or mathematics will receive the right evidence-based targeted support to get them back on track.
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many laptops have been allocated to vulnerable children in Warrington during the period of school closures due to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has committed over £100 million to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in England to access remote education and social care services, including by providing laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers.
We are providing laptops and tablets to disadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access and are preparing for examinations in year 10, receiving support from a social worker or are a care leaver. Where care leavers, children with a social worker at secondary school and children in year 10 do not have internet connections, we are providing 4G wireless routers.
The Department has ordered over 200,000 laptops and tablets and allocated devices to local authorities and academy trusts based on its estimates of the number of eligible children that do not have access to a device. Local authorities and academy trusts are best place to identify and prioritise children and young people who need devices. The Department is working to provide these devices in the shortest possible timeframe; deliveries to schools and local authorities began in May and have continued throughout June. As of 14 June, we have shipped over 100,000 laptops and 20,000 4G routers, including 481 to Warrington for children with a social worker and care leavers and 45 for disadvantaged year 10 pupils.
The Department has published information about how many laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers we have delivered or dispatched to local authorities and academy trusts as of 14 June, which can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data.