Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of his civil service staff are back at work at his Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Staff in the Department have been working remotely since the middle of March and have been focused on dealing with the challenges posed by COVID-19.
In recent months, the Department has been working to ensure all our buildings are COVID-secure and putting in place plans to welcome staff safely back to the office.
Phase 1 saw a small number of volunteer staff return to the larger offices in August. Phase 2 started on 1 September, opening up to 20% capacity across our seven largest offices. Phase 3 is being planned and will enable 30-40% of capacity to be opened up, including at the Department’s smaller sites.
For the week commencing 14 September, approximately 13.5% of staff attended one of our offices. Since the Prime Minister announced a new series of measurements on Tuesday 22 September, the Department has advised staff to work from home where they can. Offices will remain open to support those colleagues without easy access to high quality home working facilities such as those in shared accommodation, and for new starters and colleagues earlier in their careers in need of more support. This is alongside a number of our colleagues who have continued to operate in their usual workplace throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, delivering vital public services.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that all civil servants are back at work at his Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Staff in the Department have been working remotely since the middle of March and have been focused on dealing with the challenges posed by COVID-19.
In recent months, the Department has been working to ensure all our buildings are COVID-secure and putting in place plans to welcome staff safely back to the office.
Phase 1 saw a small number of volunteer staff return to the larger offices in August. Phase 2 started on 1 September, opening up to 20% capacity across our seven largest offices. Phase 3 is being planned and will enable 30-40% of capacity to be opened up, including at the Department’s smaller sites.
For the week commencing 14 September, approximately 13.5% of staff attended one of our offices. Since the Prime Minister announced a new series of measurements on Tuesday 22 September, the Department has advised staff to work from home where they can. Offices will remain open to support those colleagues without easy access to high quality home working facilities such as those in shared accommodation, and for new starters and colleagues earlier in their careers in need of more support. This is alongside a number of our colleagues who have continued to operate in their usual workplace throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, delivering vital public services.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to include in the national curriculum, the teaching of moderate language and good manners for use on (a) social media platform and (b) other online fora.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We want to support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe, and to equip them for adult life and to make a positive contribution to society. To help achieve this, Relationships Education for all primary school-aged pupils, Relationships and Sex Education for all secondary school-aged pupils, and Health Education for all pupils in state-funded schools, will become compulsory from 1 September 2020.
In light of the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, and following engagement with the sector, the Department is reassuring schools that although the subjects will still be compulsory from 1 September 2020, schools have flexibility over how they discharge their duty within the first year of compulsory teaching. For further information, I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 10 June to Question 55660.
The principles of positive relationships apply as much online as they do offline especially as, by the end of primary school, many children will already be negotiating relationships seamlessly online and offline. The statutory guidance states that when teaching relationships content, teachers should address online safety and appropriate behaviour in a way that is relevant to pupils’ lives, including the importance of respect for others online even when they are anonymous. Within Health Education, pupils should be taught that although the internet is an integral part of life, they should understand the impact of positive and negative content online on mental and physical wellbeing, and how to consider the effect of their online actions on others and know how to recognise and display respectful behaviour online. The statutory guidance can be accessed via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.
To support schools, the Department is investing in a central package to help all schools to deliver these subjects. We are currently developing a new online service featuring training materials, an implementation guide and case studies. This will cover all of the teaching requirements in the statutory guidance. The first training module for teachers, covering mental wellbeing, is now available on GOV.UK, and additional content, including teacher training modules covering online safety, internet harms and media literacy will be added in the coming months.
We have also produced supporting information, Teaching Online Safety in Schools (2019), on how to teach about all aspects of internet safety, not just those relating to relationships, sex and health. This is to help schools deliver this in a coordinated and coherent way across their curriculum. This can be accessed via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teaching-online-safety-in-schools.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of assessments for (a) GCSEs and (b) A levels as a result of the long educational break as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sally Collier, to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the devolved response on school closures on the effectiveness of communications issued to the public.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy makes clear that part of that UK wide approach will be acknowledging that the virus may be spreading at different speeds in different parts of the UK. Measures may need to change in different ways and at different times.
Education is a devolved matter and it is right that individual jurisdictions take decisions in line with their local circumstances.
There are various factors including different school term dates and concerns about rates of infection that mean governments in the devolved administrations need to take the decisions that are right for them.
The Department engages regularly and positively with our counterparts in the devolved administrations to collaborate on our shared education challenges, including on the wider opening of schools.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much of the additional funding for education has been allocated to schools in Shropshire.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of land-based engineers in the farming and engineering sectors following the withdrawal of the land-based engineering level 2 service engineer apprenticeship from the Government's approved list of apprenticeships.
Answered by Anne Milton
Government currently funds both a level 2 apprenticeship framework and a level 2 apprenticeship standard in land-based engineering. We announced in January 2018 that we will not be withdrawing any further apprenticeship frameworks until 2020.
The Institute for Apprenticeships is responsible for the development and approval of apprenticeship standards.
The level 2 land-based service engineer apprenticeship standard has not been withdrawn from the list of apprenticeship standards. It was reviewed and approved for delivery in February 2018.
Information about the standard is on the Institute for Apprenticeships’ website: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/land-based-service-engineer/.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Institute for Apprenticeships on the proposal to withdraw land-based engineering level 2 service engineer from the Government's approved list of apprenticeships.
Answered by Anne Milton
Government currently funds both a level 2 apprenticeship framework and a level 2 apprenticeship standard in land-based engineering. We announced in January 2018 that we will not be withdrawing any further apprenticeship frameworks until 2020.
The Institute for Apprenticeships is responsible for the development and approval of apprenticeship standards.
The level 2 land-based service engineer apprenticeship standard has not been withdrawn from the list of apprenticeship standards. It was reviewed and approved for delivery in February 2018.
Information about the standard is on the Institute for Apprenticeships’ website: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/land-based-service-engineer/.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of permitting UK students who have been offered a place at a university in an (a) non-UK EU or (b) non-EU country to apply for a student loan.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Under EU law, UK students have the same access to higher education (HE) as students from the host member states. This means UK students are subject to the same fees, where they are charged, and generally the same loan or support arrangements as nationals of that member state.
Given that financial resources for HE are limited, it is not possible to offer funding for HE study abroad. Funding is focused on eligible students studying within the UK. English domiciled students studying a course at a UK university can receive funding for placements or study abroad where that study comprises less than half of their course.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assistance is available for children with dyslexia and learning difficulties to support them during key stage 2 assessment.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Statutory key stage 2 national curriculum assessments are intended to assess pupils’ abilities in a fair and comparable way, with as many pupils as possible able to access them. They are designed so that most pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), including dyslexia and other learning difficulties, can participate but some pupils may require extra assistance.
Access arrangements are adjustments that schools can make to support specific pupils during the tests, as long as they are based on normal classroom practice and do not advantage or disadvantage the specific pupil. Assistance available to support pupils with dyslexia or learning difficulties may include one or more of the following: additional time; a word processor or technical aid; an adult to act as a reader, scribe or prompter; and rest breaks.
Guidance on the specific types of access arrangements available to schools was last published in January 2017, and an updated version will be released shortly:
www.gov.uk/guidance/key-stage-2-tests-how-to-use-access-arrangements.