Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of schools that have not resumed delivery of a full extra-curricular offering compared to before the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
It is up to schools to decide what extra-curricular activities to offer to pupils. This can change and the department does not ask them to provide regular data.
However, the department included questions in both the School Snapshot Panel Survey and the Pupil and Parent Panel Surveys to understand provision and take up of extra-curricular activity, including the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The information collected does not indicate how many schools have returned to the same level of provision as before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, parents and pupils have reported that the uptake of extra-curricular activities increased in the 2021/22 academic year, compared to 2020/21, as schools looked to rebuild their offer to pupils.
The data can be found at:
We expect to publish further survey results in due course.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on future uses of the NHS Test and Trace database system.
Answered by Nick Gibb
NHS Test and Trace data is used by the Department for Education to routinely monitor and report to Ministers on the take-up of COVID-19 testing in schools and colleges, and to support operational delivery. For example, the Department has used the data to proactively identify schools that required additional support to report test results for their setting during the initial on-site testing phase of the programme.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to use the NHS Test and Trace database system.
Answered by Nick Gibb
NHS Test and Trace data is used by the Department for Education to routinely monitor and report to Ministers on the take-up of COVID-19 testing in schools and colleges, and to support operational delivery. For example, the Department has used the data to proactively identify schools that required additional support to report test results for their setting during the initial on-site testing phase of the programme.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has allocated (a) financial and (b) other resources from his Department's budget to investigate potential future uses by his Department of the NHS Test and Trace system.
Answered by Nick Gibb
NHS Test and Trace data is used by the Department for Education to routinely monitor and report to Ministers on the take-up of COVID-19 testing in schools and colleges, and to support operational delivery. For example, the Department has used the data to proactively identify schools that required additional support to report test results for their setting during the initial on-site testing phase of the programme.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many times on average pupils in (a) Bolton, (b) Wigan, (c) the county of Cornwall and (d) Greater London were sent home from school due to covid-19 in (i) September, (ii) October and (iii) November 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department collects data on the number of schools that have indicated they have sent children home due to COVID-19 containment on a daily basis, as well as the total number of pupils in attendance and the number of pupils asked to isolate due to potential contact with COVID-19. This data is published from this collection at both national and local authority levels as part of the official statistics series. The publication can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak. Data is published from 9 September 2020, but prior to 12 October 2020 information on pupils isolating was not collected. This data is collected at school level, not pupil level. Therefore, we cannot estimate the average number of times a pupil has been asked to isolate.
The Department is constantly reviewing the content of its publications. Announcements about future content will be made through the official statistics release page: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/statistics.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
What steps his Department is taking to support good (a) attendance and (b) behaviour as pupils return to school as covid-19 restrictions are eased.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is vital for all pupils to return to school to minimise the impact of the pandemic on their education. It is important for schools to also be calm and disciplined environments, where everyone follows the rules.
We have published guidance for school leaders to support them to:
To support this work on the ground, regional teams continue to engage regularly with local authorities to understand any barriers to attendance. We are also working with stakeholders to enable schools and LAs to share best practice to improve attendance and ensure a smooth transition back to school.
More widely, we are running a ‘Back to school’ campaign which seeks to reassure parents and explain the measures that education providers are taking to reduce the risk of transmission.
We have also worked with local authorities and transport providers to make sure children/young people can get to school/college safely, providing more than £40 million of additional funding to create extra capacity.
The Department will shortly be inviting schools with exemplary behaviour to deliver the Behaviour Hubs programme and support those schools that need additional support in turning around their behaviour cultures. Over the Autumn term, National Leaders of Education will continue to work with schools most affected by COVID-19, including in improving behaviour.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of how much of the money from the apprenticeship levy has been used by employers from each sector in each year since the introduction of that levy.
Answered by Anne Milton
The apprenticeship levy is collected from employers by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Education and Skills Funding Agency does not require levy-paying employers to register an industry sector when registering an apprenticeship service account and is therefore unable to supply information on the sectoral distribution of spending on apprenticeships in the format requested.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the contributions made to the apprenticeship levy by different sectors in each year since the introduction of that levy.
Answered by Anne Milton
The apprenticeship levy is collected from employers by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The Education and Skills Funding Agency does not require levy-paying employers to register an industry sector when registering an apprenticeship service account and is therefore unable to supply information on the sectoral distribution of spending on apprenticeships in the format requested.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking with the Institute of Apprenticeships to ensure that the required end-point assessments are available for new apprenticeships without delay.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfA) works with employer trailblazer groups to understand the requirements of developing end-point assessment materials and to design assessment plans that end-point assessment organisations are able to work with to deliver high quality and consistent end-point assessment.
The IfA also works with the Education and Skills Funding Agency to make sure that there is appropriate coverage of apprenticeships assessment across all standards, including by working with a wide variety of organisations to stimulate provision. The register of end-point assessment organisations is always open and there are 215 organisations currently on the register. As new standards are developed, we continue to work with the sector to make sure that new and existing end-point assessment organisations are aware of the opportunity and can apply to the register for employers to select them.
We are working with the IfA and external quality assurance providers to monitor the progress of organisations once they are approved on the register and to quality-assure the materials and assessment instruments they produce prior to first use. This monitoring will, alongside our improvements to data reporting, give us a clearer picture of market capacity and help apprentices to prepare for their end-point assessment.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the most recent estimate is of the funding required to establish a free school in Bolton.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The capital cost of establishing a free school varies, depending on the type and size of the school and the site available. There is an approved primary free school project in Bolton (Great Lever Primary) but a suitable site has not yet been secured.
The Department has provided Bolton Council with £27 million to fund new school places between 2011 and 2017 and a further £18 million for 2017 to 2020.