Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking through the national curriculum to help primary school children engage with nature.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what schools are expected to cover in each curriculum subject. Teachers use their own knowledge and expertise to determine how they teach their pupils the content of the curriculum, tailoring their lessons to the individual needs of the pupils.
The geography and science curricula offer opportunities to teach about nature and related topics. In science at Key Stages 1 and 2, under the topics of ‘Plants’ and ‘Living things and their habitats’, the National Curriculum provides opportunities for pupils to engage with nature and explore the local environment to answer questions on plants and animals in their habitat. In the Key Stage 2 geography curriculum pupils use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area using a range of methods, including sketch maps, plans and graphs, and digital technologies.
In April 2022, the Department released its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy which will increase opportunities for pupils to spend time in nature. Key initiatives of this strategy include the National Education Nature Park and Climate Action Award. These programmes will not only engage pupils with the natural world, but will directly involve them in measuring and improving biodiversity in their nursery, school, college or university.
On 18 May, the Department announced £15 million in funding will be provided to nurseries, schools and colleges to create opportunities for outdoor education in natural settings. The funding boost will help them to develop the biodiversity of their site.
The Department will continue to work across Government to identify opportunities for children and young people to access education in natural settings.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of introducing a statutory registration system for children not in school on home educators.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department completed all relevant and required impact assessments when the Children Not in School measures were part of the Schools Bill.
The Children Not in School measures were subject to a thorough equalities impact assessment, which considered the impact on families with different protected characteristics, and a regulatory impact assessment which looked at the impact measures will have on businesses and charities. A summary of these impact assessments have been published online as part of the Schools Bill impact assessment document, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-bill-impact-assessment.
The Department also conducted a Local Authority new burdens assessment in relation to the implementation and maintenance of the register, and the Department is in the process of finalising our data protection impact assessment with the Information Commissioner’s Office prior to the Schools Bill being discontinued. This remains with the Information Commissioner’s Office for consideration.
When a suitable legislative opportunity arises to take forward the Children Not in School measures, all necessary assessments will be reviewed.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to encourage local authorities to help children of separated parents maintain a relationship with their grandparents.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
Statutory guidance states that local authorities should offer Family Group Conferences to families undergoing or about to undergo care proceedings, with many providing this service before the care proceedings stage. Family Group Conferences allow extended family members to offer their practical support to parents, in order to develop a family plan that meets the needs of and promotes the welfare of the children involved. Under such circumstances, these plans can enable grandparents to maintain a relationship with their grandchildren, where the parents are separated.
A key principle of the Children’s Act 1989 is that children are best looked after within their families. Under certain circumstances, grandparents can become kinship carers of children from separated parents that might otherwise have been taken into care, via informal family arrangements or through legal orders made by the court. In 2011, the department issued statutory guidance for local authorities about supporting kinship carers, explaining that there is no limit on the level of support, including financial support, that local authorities can provide them.
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care published in May 2022 set out recommendations on how the department can further support kinship families. We are now considering these recommendations, including those to create a financial allowance, and will set out an ambitious and detailed response to the recommendations in the review in early 2023.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress her Department has made on increasing the number of school places available for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The department is investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to support local authorities to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision. This represents a significant investment in new high-needs provision. It will support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and will also be used to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.
As part of this commitment, in March 2022 the department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment, focused on the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. It is ultimately up to local authorities to determine how to best prioritise their funding to address their local priorities.
The £2.6 billion capital investment in high needs provision announced in October 2021 will also help to deliver up to 60 new special and alternative provision free schools. This is in addition to the 48 special free schools already in the pipeline and 90 special free schools already opened.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the Government's timescale is for allowing the (a) reopening of residential outdoor learning centres and (b) recommencement of residential school trips as covid-19 restrictions are eased; and what plans he has to provide additional financial support to residential outdoor learning centres.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are advised against all educational visits at this time. The Department is working on advice for schools on the planning and booking of residential visits when it is safe to do so and in line with the Government’s roadmap to recovery, as set out in: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-response-spring-2021/covid-19-response-spring-2021. The advice will be published shortly.
The Government will continue to work closely with local authorities, businesses, business representative organisations, and the financial services sector to monitor the implementation of current support and understand whether there is additional need.
The Government would encourage businesses who are unable to access support, or who are unsure of the support available, to access free tailored advice through the Business Support Helpline, which can be accessed through the Business Support website at: www.gov.uk/business-support-helpline, or through local Growth Hubs in England: www.lepnetwork.net/local-growth-hub-contacts. Businesses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can access business support through the devolved Governments.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is giving to rural nurseries to ensure they are able to meet the Government's commitment of providing 30 free hours of childcare.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We have recently consulted on a comprehensive set of reforms to the early years funding system, and one of our proposals is to allow local authorities to use a rurality/sparsity supplement in their local funding formulae, in recognition that there may be unavoidable higher costs to providers operating in sparsely populated, rural areas with limited demand. We are currently considering all responses to the consultation and are planning to publish the government’s response in the autumn.
We are also keen to gather learning and test how the extended entitlement will operate in a range of area types, including rural areas. Through Early Implementation of the 30 Hours Free Childcare entitlement, Northumberland, one of our early implementer local authorities, is looking specifically at how the extended hours work for and impact on providers operating within the most rural postcodes in Northumberland. Since September, over 500 children in rural parts of Northumberland have been benefiting from a 30 hours free childcare place a year early.
Asked by: David Warburton (Independent - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to meet demand for school places in Somerton and Frome constituency.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Supporting local authorities to ensure sufficient school places continues to be one of the Government’s top priorities. That is why we have committed to spending £7 billion on school places up to 2021, which, along with our investment in the free schools programme, we expect to deliver 600,000 new places. Somerset received £14.6 million of basic need funding between 2011 and 2015, which helped to create almost 3,000 new places between 2010 and 2015. It has also been allocated a further £24.5 million to create the places needed by 2019.