Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support mechanisms her Department has in place for schools in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency considered at risk of failing to meet attendance improvement targets.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Tackling absence is central to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. Children attended over 5.3 million additional days in the 2024/25 school year compared to the 2023/23 school year, with over 140,000 fewer pupils persistently absent.
Our statutory ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance sets clear expectations for schools to take a support-first approach, using data to identify patterns and intervene early.
To support this, our attendance baseline improvement expectations (ABIEs) set out the minimum improvement expected over an academic year, based on each school’s context and previous year’s attendance. Schools’ progress against their ABIEs informs the type of support offered.
ABIEs are a starting point, not a limit. Schools are encouraged to work, towards pre-pandemic attendance levels or better. Indicative ABIEs are available now, with full introduction in 2026/27.
Alongside ABIEs, schools receive ‘similar schools’ reports which name higher-performing schools with comparable characteristics and provide advice on how to contact them to share strategies. Schools can also access an updated attendance improvement toolkit for practical advice on attendance improvement. For schools facing the greatest challenges, we are rolling out up to 90 Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, to deliver structured peer support and bespoke improvement plans.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department has issued to schools in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency on minimum attendance improvement targets.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Tackling absence is central to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. Children attended over 5.3 million additional days in the 2024/25 school year compared to the 2023/23 school year, with over 140,000 fewer pupils persistently absent.
Our statutory ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance sets clear expectations for schools to take a support-first approach, using data to identify patterns and intervene early.
To support this, our attendance baseline improvement expectations (ABIEs) set out the minimum improvement expected over an academic year, based on each school’s context and previous year’s attendance. Schools’ progress against their ABIEs informs the type of support offered.
ABIEs are a starting point, not a limit. Schools are encouraged to work, towards pre-pandemic attendance levels or better. Indicative ABIEs are available now, with full introduction in 2026/27.
Alongside ABIEs, schools receive ‘similar schools’ reports which name higher-performing schools with comparable characteristics and provide advice on how to contact them to share strategies. Schools can also access an updated attendance improvement toolkit for practical advice on attendance improvement. For schools facing the greatest challenges, we are rolling out up to 90 Attendance and Behaviour Hubs, to deliver structured peer support and bespoke improvement plans.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what baseline data her Department uses to determine school-specific attendance improvement targets.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department uses a combination of national and school-level data to determine each school’s attendance baseline improvement expectation (ABIE), which sets out the minimum improvement expected over an academic year.
ABIEs include a context-based factor, which compares a school’s previous year attendance with that of statistically similar schools. Similar schools are identified using characteristics such as free school meal eligibility, special educational needs, deprivation, funding levels, and region.
The reports headteachers receive also include pre-pandemic attendance benchmarks and local authority averages, providing schools with a “ladder of ambition” against which to benchmark improvements.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what monitoring arrangements her Department has in place to evaluate the impact of the attendance improvement roadmap on pupil outcomes.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
To monitor progress against our journey to return to pre-pandemic levels of attendance and beyond, the department collects comprehensive attendance data to track trends and identify what is working well and where the system needs support.
Our world leading data tools allow us to monitor real time attendance across all state-funded schools. By analysing this data at national, regional, and school level, we can assess progress towards pre-pandemic levels and ensure interventions are targeted where they will have the greatest impact on pupil outcomes.
Support provided through Attendance and Behaviour Hubs and our expanded mentoring programme, is subject to ongoing monitoring and quality assurance by regional advisers and will be independently evaluated to assess their impact on attendance and pupil outcomes.
Thanks to the efforts of the sector, absence is moving in the right direction, with children gaining over five million more days in school last year compared to the previous year.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what communication her Department has had with academy trusts in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency on attendance improvement plans.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department engages regularly with academy trusts on attendance improvement through a range of channels.
In the last academic year, we hosted 12 regional conferences for secondary school and trust leaders focusing solely on the attendance challenge through our regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) programme. The conferences covered data analysis and shared practical strategies. Feedback from school and trust leaders was strong, and was supported by increased engagement with our data tool.
The department also provides targeted communications through webinars, newsletters and direct correspondence to school and trust leaders. This includes updates on new resources such as the Attendance Improvement Toolkit and support available through our RISE Attendance and Behaviour Hubs.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the press notice entitled World-leading UK higher education sector expands in India and bolsters growth at home, published on 9 October 2025, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the expansion of higher education partnerships in India on the economy.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, is pleased that 14 university Vice Chancellors and representatives joined my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, in his recent trip to India in recognition of the increased demand for higher education (HE) in India, which has created an opportunity for UK universities seeking new funding streams. HE is one of the UK’s greatest exports, and international education was worth £32 billion in export revenue in 2022. The UK’s HE sector is set to bring in a £50 million boost over the next five years to the economy as part of a major expansion of British universities in India.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding under the reading initiative has been allocated for teacher training in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government has committed £27.7 million to support and drive high and rising standards in reading in the 2025/26 financial year. This funding will deliver a range of support for schools, including new training for primary schools, delivered through the 34 English Hubs, to help children progress from the early stages of phonics through to reading fluently by the time they leave primary school; and new support and training for secondary schools to support reading at key stage 3.
Milton Keynes is served by Whiteknights English Hub. The department does not provide specific funding to local authorities under the English Hubs programme.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that Early Years Pupil Premium funding is aligned with the Government’s quality improvement objectives in (a) Buckinghamshire and (b) Milton Keynes.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government is taking coordinated steps to ensure that early years pupil premium (EYPP) aligns with broader quality improvement objectives in early years education.
Through the department’s Best Start in Life strategy, we are ensuring families across the country can access affordable, high-quality early education and family support services that support them to thrive.
In April 2025, we increased funding for EYPP by an unprecedented 45%, to a maximum of £570 per year per child in all local authorities across England.
The government’s new early years strategy, ‘Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life’, explicitly links EYPP with its wider goals of reducing inequalities early in life, improving early years provision, strengthening transitions into primary school and enhancing workforce development through training and professional recognition. This includes additional EYPP funding targeted at high-need areas and the creation of published guidance to drive quality of spend.
From 2026, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education wants to provide additional funding to extend EYPP in areas most in need, and test different approaches to using this funding to understand how best to maximise its impact, ensuring that the children most at risk of falling behind receive high-quality evidence-informed support.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many small businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors have accessed apprenticeship support schemes in the last three years in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s Apprenticeships by Industry Characteristics publication contains apprenticeship starts figures, including by sector, constituency, and size of businesses. This data has been available since 29 May 2025 and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-in-england-by-industry-characteristics/2022-23.
Apprenticeship starts by constituency are available in the apprenticeships statistics publication. This data has been available since 17 July 2025 and can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships/2024-25.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate her Department has made of the average annual training cost per apprentice borne by small businesses in the personal services sector.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold a breakdown of apprenticeships data for the personal services sector.
The government offers a range of financial support to support small businesses across all sectors to take on apprentices. The government pays full training costs for young apprentices aged 16-21, and for apprentices aged 22-24 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan or have been, or are, in local authority care, when they under-take apprenticeships with non-levy paying employers.
For all other apprentices, employers that do not pay the levy are required to co-invest 5% towards apprentice training costs.
The government also pays £1,000 to both employers and providers for apprentices aged 16-18, and for apprentices aged 19-24 who have an EHC plan or have been, or are, in local authority care.