Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of funding pressures on the ability of rural schools to maintain staffing levels, curriculum provision and support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are making a significant investment in the core schools budget in the 2026/27 financial year, providing an extra £2.3 billion for schools. The National Funding Formula (NFF) accounts for the particular challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the lump sum, set at £152,700 in 2026/27, and sparsity factor. In 2026/27, primary schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £58,600, and all other schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £85,200. For schools facing falling rolls, the lagged funding system gives them time to reorganise their staffing and costs before their funding is impacted. In addition to the core funding allocated through the NFF, the department has also allocated £155 million in Growth and Falling Rolls funding to local authorities in 2026/27.
The department’s ‘Maximising Value for Pupils’ programme helps schools and trusts make the best possible use of the available resources. The programme is available to all schools and trusts, including schools with falling rolls, to provide practical support and tools to help leaders identify and respond to pressures in their own context and help funding reach the classroom where it can have the greatest impact.
The department conducts an assessment of affordability at a national level as part of the Schools Costs Technical Note: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69a5c57e46e50eda5c46b5b5/Schools_costs_technical_note_2025_to_2029_.pdf.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the financial sustainability of small rural schools in England; and what steps her Department is taking to support schools facing financial pressures arising from falling pupil numbers and increasing operating costs.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are making a significant investment in the core schools budget in the 2026/27 financial year, providing an extra £2.3 billion for schools. The National Funding Formula (NFF) accounts for the particular challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the lump sum, set at £152,700 in 2026/27, and sparsity factor. In 2026/27, primary schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £58,600, and all other schools eligible for sparsity funding attract up to £85,200. For schools facing falling rolls, the lagged funding system gives them time to reorganise their staffing and costs before their funding is impacted. In addition to the core funding allocated through the NFF, the department has also allocated £155 million in Growth and Falling Rolls funding to local authorities in 2026/27.
The department’s ‘Maximising Value for Pupils’ programme helps schools and trusts make the best possible use of the available resources. The programme is available to all schools and trusts, including schools with falling rolls, to provide practical support and tools to help leaders identify and respond to pressures in their own context and help funding reach the classroom where it can have the greatest impact.
The department conducts an assessment of affordability at a national level as part of the Schools Costs Technical Note: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69a5c57e46e50eda5c46b5b5/Schools_costs_technical_note_2025_to_2029_.pdf.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential for artificial intelligence tools to improve access to educational support for children with SEND in rural and coastal areas.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
The department recognises the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including adaptive and AI-enabled assistive technologies, to support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities to achieve and thrive.
We are supporting the safe and effective use of AI in education through our published guidance and wider work to improve digital infrastructure, building the evidence base and supporting schools and colleges to adopt technology confidently.
This includes work to improve connectivity, through the Connect the Classroom programme supporting rural and coastal areas, work to develop workforce skills, and programmes to evaluate how technology can improve inclusion and pupil outcomes.
Some local areas are benefitting from the pilot of assistive technology lending libraries, including in rural and coastal areas such as Shropshire and County Durham. This enables schools and pupils to borrow and trial a range of tools to support access to learning, some of which may be enabled by AI.
The department is clear, however, that AI should complement the professional judgement of staff. Use of AI must be safe, evidence-informed and focused on improving outcomes for all children.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that social care professionals working with adoptive families receive trauma-informed training.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for South East Cornwall to the answer of 13 January 2026 to Question 102909.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that communication in (a) adoption support and (b) reunification cases is (i) timely and (ii) compliant with statutory guidance.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Regional adoption agencies should clearly set out on their websites what adoption support is available, who provides it, and how families can access it. This should include an overview of universal, targeted and specialist forms of support. During the adoption assessment process, prospective adopters must also receive information, counselling and advice about adoption, including the support services they may be entitled to. In addition, the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund provides nationwide access to funded post‑adoption support, including therapeutic interventions for adopted children and their families.
In early‑permanence placements such as foster‑to‑adopt, reunification may occur if the court decides a child should return to their birth family. In these circumstances, reunification must follow statutory care‑planning duties, ensuring well‑planned transitions and appropriate support for carers and parents. Adoption England’s Reunification Framework provides structured guidance for practitioners to manage these transitions safely and sensitively, ensuring the child’s needs remain central throughout the process.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of differences in teacher qualification requirements by multi-academy trusts and local authority-maintained schools on the consistency of educational standards.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Evidence shows that high quality teaching is the most important in-school factor that improves outcomes for children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) is the professional qualification for primary and secondary teachers and underpins high quality teaching by ensuring teachers meet the Teachers’ Standards. It is right that we expect teachers to be professionally qualified and the department is taking steps to ensure consistency in educational standards across all state funded primary and secondary schools. Teachers in local authority-maintained schools and special schools are already required to have QTS.
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are seeking to extend the requirement to academies, so all pupils, including those with SEND, benefit from well-trained, professionally qualified teachers. This change will ensure that teachers too benefit from the knowledge and training that underpins QTS across both local authority-maintained schools and academies.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of trends in the use of qualified supply teachers by academy trusts.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department values the work that supply teachers do and the important contribution they make to the smooth running of schools. The department has not made any assessments relating to academy trusts alone, but we have considered the school sector as a whole.
The department knows that the use of supply teachers, particularly in the secondary phase, has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic and that this is having an impact on school budgets. Details of our work on helping schools to maximise value from their budgets will be announced shortly.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of changes to international student policy on the finances of universities.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government has been clear that we welcome international students who meet the requirements to study in the UK. International students positively impact our higher education (HE) sector, economy, and society as a whole and enrich our university campuses, forge lifelong friendships with our domestic students and become global ambassadors for the UK.
The Immigration White Paper, published in May, sets out a balanced approach - helping the government achieve our manifesto commitment on reducing net migration while maintaining the UK’s global competitiveness.
The Office for Students (OfS) has identified reliance on international student fee income as a risk to HE providers’ sustainability. It has been clear that providers will need to change their business models to protect their financial health as a response to this risk and others. HE providers are independent from government and as such are responsible for managing their finances.
This government has taken action to support the financial sustainability of universities after seven years of frozen tuition fee caps. The maximum fee for a standard full-time undergraduate course in the 2025/26 academic year was increased by 3.1%, from £9,250 to £9,535. To provide long-term certainty over future funding for the sector, so that it can focus on reform, we will increase tuition fee caps in line with forecast inflation in 2026/27 and 2027/28 and then legislate to increase tuition fee caps automatically for future academic years.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help support higher education providers that have financial challenges in the next academic year.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government has been clear that we welcome international students who meet the requirements to study in the UK. International students positively impact our higher education (HE) sector, economy, and society as a whole and enrich our university campuses, forge lifelong friendships with our domestic students and become global ambassadors for the UK.
The Immigration White Paper, published in May, sets out a balanced approach - helping the government achieve our manifesto commitment on reducing net migration while maintaining the UK’s global competitiveness.
The Office for Students (OfS) has identified reliance on international student fee income as a risk to HE providers’ sustainability. It has been clear that providers will need to change their business models to protect their financial health as a response to this risk and others. HE providers are independent from government and as such are responsible for managing their finances.
This government has taken action to support the financial sustainability of universities after seven years of frozen tuition fee caps. The maximum fee for a standard full-time undergraduate course in the 2025/26 academic year was increased by 3.1%, from £9,250 to £9,535. To provide long-term certainty over future funding for the sector, so that it can focus on reform, we will increase tuition fee caps in line with forecast inflation in 2026/27 and 2027/28 and then legislate to increase tuition fee caps automatically for future academic years.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of times that teaching assistants have delivered unsupervised classroom teaching in place of qualified supply staff in (a) academies and (b) other state schools in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department does not hold information regarding the number of times that teaching assistants have delivered unsupervised classroom teaching in place of qualified supply staff.
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