Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Education
Ben Spencer
Main Page: Ben Spencer (Conservative - Runnymede and Weybridge)Department Debates - View all Ben Spencer's debates with the Department for Education
Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils
Ben Spencer Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
My heart stopped for a moment because I thought the hon. Gentleman said that he looked forward to my appearing in front of the Education Committee this afternoon, but the autumn is fine—probably. He raises a very important point, because obviously we do want to see children back in school. As he will have heard me say, we have substantial improvement on where we were at the end of last term. Ordinarily of a September, pre-pandemic, we would expect about 95% of children to be in school. Last Thursday, the figure was 91.9%. We are very keen to make up that gap and we are working tirelessly to do so. One of the things I have not mentioned is that the DFE has REACT—regional education and children’s teams—working across the country with local authorities, regional schools commissioners and schools themselves to clamp down on outbreaks where they take place and to help children to get back into school as quickly as possible.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
It is great to see my hon. Friend in his place at the Dispatch Box. I welcome the work this Government have done to make it a priority to keep schools open for face-to-face learning. In contrast, Labour equivocated over whether they were even safe to reopen. Does he agree that if Labour were in power, our schools would probably be closed for face-to-face learning and our children left behind?
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have been very clear throughout that we wanted to get schools open as soon as it was safe to do so. We have done that. We have managed to increase attendance from 75% at the end of last term to 91.1% at the start of this term.[Official Report, 19 October 2021, Vol. 701, c. 4MC.] There is a lot further to go. However, it is the roll-out of our vaccination programme across the country, with the high uptake and the hard work of our health service, that has enabled us to get to this point. Children are better off in education and they are able to be in education because of the steps this Government have taken.