Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when his Department plans to publish the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities review.
Answered by Will Quince
The special educational needs and disability (SEND) Review was set up to improve the outcomes for children and young people with SEND, with a focus on targeting and distributing resources in a way that best ensures children’s needs are met quickly and effectively.
The Department for Education is working with a range of partners including children and young people with SEND, the Children’s Commissioner, parents and carers, system leaders, SEND sector organisations, representatives from educational establishments and many others.
Proposals are being developed and we will consult publicly on them. We are not yet in a position to provide a firm date for the publication of proposals but are looking to do so as soon as possible.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the (a) level of reduction in funding for Higher Education arts subjects in England and (b) potential effect of that change in funding on the future (i) accessibility and (ii) viability of cultural and creative sectors.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
In January 2021, the former Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson), my right hon. Friend for South Staffordshire, asked the Office for Students (OfS) to reform the Strategic Priorities Grant for the 2021-22 academic year[1].
The OfS consulted on the proposals and has recently published its conclusions. Following careful consideration of the issues raised in consultation responses, the former Secretary of State for Education issued Terms and Conditions of funding to the OfS (in relation to London Weighting and high-cost subject funding) to ensure the government’s priorities for the grant were implemented this year.
For the 2021-22 academic year, the high-cost subject funding rate for arts and music courses has been set at £121.50 – this is equivalent to a reduction of around 1% in combined funding (on a per-student basis) from a £9,250 tuition fee and OfS grant funding compared to 2020-21. Total funding for high-cost subjects, such as medicine and engineering, is 12% higher than last year, an increase of £81 million[2].
The government continues to value performing arts and creative subjects. High quality provision in a range of subjects is critical for our workforce and our public services, as well as being intellectually rewarding and culturally enriching for those studying them and wider society.
As part of the same reform programme, we asked the OfS to invest an additional £10 million in our world-leading specialist providers, many of which specialise in arts provision. We want to ensure that such providers receive additional support, and that grant funding is used effectively to support students, including those with an interest in the cultural and creative sectors.
The government supports the arts throughout the education system. For example, the government has invested nearly £620 million during 2016-21 in a diverse portfolio of music and cultural education programmes to ensure all school children, whatever their background, have access to a high-quality education in music and arts[3].
[2] https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/b2eaeeb4-7fed-4eda-9868-a4671f170129/recurrent-funding-2021-22.pdf Table 2: Recurrent grant budgets for academic year 2021-22 (£ millions).
[3] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-09-06/43435.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to allocate additional local authority funding to support schools to provide (a) breakfast clubs and (b) after school clubs until the Breakfast Clubs programme procurement closes.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Earlier this year, we released an invitation to tender worth up to £24 million to continue our support for school breakfast clubs. This will enable our investment in school breakfast clubs to continue until 2023, making sure that thousands of children in disadvantaged areas have a healthy start to the day. The outcome from this procurement process will be available shortly. This builds on the investment of up to £38 million in school breakfast clubs which the government has delivered since 2018. The current contract is due to complete in July 2021, and the new procurement will enable our provision to continue seamlessly.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of supporting more universities to offer foundation year courses on the Government’s levelling up agenda.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
We recognise that foundation years can play an important role in enabling students with lower prior attainment, potentially from disadvantaged backgrounds, to access high tariff provision. We also recognise their role in allowing students to switch subjects. Some universities are already using high-quality foundation years in ways which provide good value for these students, and we are pleased to support such universities.
We are committed to ensuring that all foundation years continue to provide good value for money and provide a distinct benefit to students.
We plan to consult on further reforms to the higher education system, including the treatment of foundation years, in summer 2021, before setting out a full response to the report and final conclusion to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding alongside the next Comprehensive Spending Review.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of universities that offer foundation year provision.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
We recognise that foundation years can play an important role in enabling students with lower prior attainment, potentially from disadvantaged backgrounds, to access high tariff provision. We also recognise their role in allowing students to switch subjects. Some universities are already using high-quality foundation years in ways which provide good value for these students, and we are pleased to support such universities.
We are committed to ensuring that all foundation years continue to provide good value for money and provide a distinct benefit to students.
We plan to consult on further reforms to the higher education system, including the treatment of foundation years, in summer 2021, before setting out a full response to the report and final conclusion to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding alongside the next Comprehensive Spending Review.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to increase the number of special educational needs and disabilities places in schools in the Barnsley Central constituency.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places, including for those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), sits with local authorities. We are supporting local authorities to fulfil this duty by investing £300 million in the 2021-22 financial year to support local authorities to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children with SEND or who require alternative provision.
On 9 April 2021 we announced that Barnsley has been allocated almost £1.5 million of this funding via its High Needs Provision Capital Allocation. It will be for Barnsley to determine how best to use this funding to address their local priorities and local authorities are free to work with any schools in their area.
This funding is on top of the £365 million we invested nationally through the Special Provision Capital Fund between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 financial years, and our continued investment in the free schools programme. We are also providing an increase in revenue funding for those children and young people with more complex needs, of nearly a quarter (24%) over 2 years, bringing the total high needs budget to more than £8 billion in the 2021-22 financial year.
Further funding for new high needs places will be subject to the outcomes of the next government spending review, where we will have a chance to consider how we can best support the sector in the round.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to help retain newly qualified teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is a top priority of the Government to ensure that we continue to attract, retain, and support the high-quality teachers we need to inspire the next generation. We continue to progress the delivery of the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy that the Government published in January 2019. Our strategy includes commitments to ensuring all teachers receive world-class training and development and are supported to stay and succeed in the profession.
Central to these reforms is the Early Career Framework (ECF) which is the biggest teaching reform in a generation. It will provide newly qualified teachers with a funded, two-year support package, and will be fully rolled out in autumn 2021. Early roll-out began in autumn 2020 and is taking place in selected areas: the North East, Greater Manchester, Bradford, and Doncaster.
The content of the ECF builds on and complements Initial Teacher Training and underpins what all early career teachers should be entitled to learn about and learn how to do, based on expert guidance and the best available research evidence. The ECF has been designed to support early career teacher development in five core areas, including behaviour management, to ensure that new teachers receive high-quality support and development during the first two years of their careers.
The offer for early career teachers includes:
This is designed to ensure teachers feel more confident and in control at the start of their new career, and have the knowledge, skills and support they need for a strong start in the profession.
We are also taking a range of actions to address teacher workload and wellbeing, including improving access to resources, building wellbeing into teacher training and policy making, and the creation of the first ever Education Staff Wellbeing Charter which will be published at the earliest opportunity this year. We continue to assess the impact of policy changes and requests to schools on workload, working to reduce that impact wherever possible, for example, by reviewing data collections, services and requests.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) dongles, (b) MiFi devices, (c) SIM cards and (d) other connectivity devices have been supplied to schools under (i) the Get help with technology programme and (ii) predecessor programmes aimed at supporting schools through the outbreak of covid-19 in each local education authority as at (A) 1 September 2020, (B) 20 December 2020 and (C) 1 April 2021.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As part of the Government’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. To date, over 1.29 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, academy trusts, local authorities and further education colleges.
The Department has also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data to help disadvantaged children get online as well as delivering 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home.
We are building on the foundations of the Department’s significant investment in technology and exploring future options, which we will set out in due course.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on average how many looked after children have received custodial sentences in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The information held by the department covers children aged 10 years or over, who were looked after for at least 12 months, who were convicted or subject to youth cautions, or youth conditional cautions during each year. The figures are shown in the table below:
Number of children aged 10 years or over who were looked after for at least 12 months who were convicted or subject to youth cautions, or youth conditional cautions during the year in England[1]
Year ending 31 March | Number looked after for at least 12 months aged 10 to 17 at 31 March[2] | Number convicted or subject to youth cautions, or youth conditional cautions during the year[2] |
2020 | 39,620 | 1,160 |
2019 | 38,090 | 1,280 |
2018 | 36,730 | 1,510 |
2017 | 35,090 | 1,590 |
2016 | 33,120 | 1,640 |
2015 | 31,800 | 1,630 |
2014 | 30,650 | 1,690 |
2013 | 29,840 | 1,830 |
2012 | 29,790 | 2,070 |
2011 | 30,280 | 2,200 |
Source: SSDA903
The latest information on children looked after in England is contained in the ‘Children looked after in England’ statistics release, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions.
[1] Figures include children aged 10 to 17 years who have been continuously looked after for at least 12 months as at 31 March. Figures exclude children who were looked after under an agreed series of short-term placements.
[2] Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the recent National Education Union polling showing that one in three teachers in the UK plans to leave the profession within five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is a top priority of the Government to ensure that we continue to attract, retain and support the great teachers we need to educate the next generation. The Government is moving forward with delivery of the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy that was published in January 2019. This includes commitments to reduce teacher workload, improve continuing professional development, and create greater opportunities for flexible working.
We have started to roll out the Early Career Framework (ECF) – the biggest teaching reform in a generation – providing the foundations for a successful career in teaching, backed by up to £130 million a year in funding when fully rolled out. Early roll-out began in autumn 2020 and is taking place in selected areas: the North East, Greater Manchester, Bradford, and Doncaster.
The new initial teacher training (ITT) Core Content Framework, which was implemented from September 2020, is a mandatory core minimum entitlement for all trainees and will work coherently with the ECF to ensure all new teachers benefit from at least 3 years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into induction.
We are also launching new National Professional Qualifications from September 2021, offering high-quality professional development for teachers and school leaders at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in specialist areas of teaching practice, to those leading multiple schools across trusts.