Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using the specialist sector to complement the inclusive mainstream sector; and what steps she is taking to (a) support and (b) invest in special schools and specialist colleges.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to ensure that children and young people will have a right to be educated in a specialist placement if their complex needs cannot be met in a mainstream educational setting.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
In line with our proposed reforms, children with complex needs, who need a Specialist Provision Package(s) and a placement within a specialist setting, will have their provision guaranteed in their education health and care plan. Specialist Provision Packages will provide comprehensive, evidence-based and nationally consistent support.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for the National Inclusion Standards to include (a) speech and language therapists, (b) any other experts on speech, language and communication challenges.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
New National Inclusion Standards will set out evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with additional needs. This will include evidence for targeted support to address barriers to learning and participation related to specific areas of development. One of these proposed areas of development is Speech, Language, and Communication.
We will establish an independent, expert panel to develop National Inclusion Standards. The panel will be composed of a range of experts across both research and practice in supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. They will also engage wider experts to test the development of the Standards. This will include, for example, ensuring expertise from speech and language therapists and other relevant experts is incorporated.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for SEND practitioners to be provided with training on how to support children with speech, language and communication challenges.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department recently announced an investment of £15 million to establish new speech and language therapist (SaLT) advanced practitioners in every integrated care board geographical area, to get more SaLTs working in educational settings. These advanced practitioners will be qualified speech and language therapists.
The government is also investing £200 million to give all staff in schools, colleges and early years settings the training they need to better support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, including those with speech, language and communication needs in mainstream settings.
This is in addition to £3.4 million being invested this year in the Early Language Support for Every Child programme, helping to identify and respond to speech and language needs, continued investment in the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, which has demonstrated significant impact on speech and language skills particularly for disadvantaged pupils, and an expansion of English Hubs programme from the 2026/27 academic year to include intensive language and literacy support.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make proposals to support pupils with medical conditions, including allergies.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions. Schools should ensure they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and have policies and processes in place to ensure these can be well managed. Any member of school staff providing support to a pupil with medical needs should have received suitable training.
The government has committed to reviewing the statutory guidance on Supporting Pupils with Medical Conditions at School (2015), and we intend to consult on revised guidance. The current guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3.
Our aim is to ensure that schools are better equipped to support all pupils with medical conditions as part of our wider ambition to create more inclusive schools through the forthcoming Schools White Paper.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that Pupil Premium Plus is not absorbed into school budgets but is spent spent specifically on adopted the children that qualified for the payment.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The pupil premium grant provides funding to schools to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. ‘Pupil premium plus’ (PP+) refers to the portion of the pupil premium grant for children who are looked after by the local authority or were previously looked after by a local authority or other state care.
Pupil premium funding, including PP+, is not a personal budget for individual pupils. It is for schools to decide how to allocate the funding after assessing the needs of their disadvantaged cohort, including looked after and previously looked after children. Statutory guidance is clear that the school’s designated teacher should ensure the specific needs of the PP+ cohort are understood by the school’s staff and reflected in how the school uses PP+ to support these children. They should encourage parents and guardians’ involvement in deciding how the PP+ is used.
Maintained schools and academies must publish strategy statements setting out their planned use of pupil premium.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the statutory responsibilities of schools for children with allergies are (a) monitored and (b) assessed.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Governing bodies must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented. This includes the duty under Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions and the duties under the Equality Act 2010. The effectiveness of a school is assessed through inspection by Ofsted.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education on a Level 7 apprenticeship qualification for teachers of sensory impairment; and when the apprenticeship is expected to start.
Answered by Janet Daby
The department recognises the significant impact this profession has on the lives of children and families, and is committed to improving support for all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including children with a sensory impairment.
The department is reforming the apprenticeship levy into a new growth and skills levy, which will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers.
At the same time, the department is prepared to make the tough choices needed on how funding should be prioritised in future. That is why, taking advice from Skills England, we will be asking more employers to step forward and fund level 7 apprenticeships outside of the apprenticeship budget in future.
The department will be setting out our final decisions on funding level 7 apprenticeships, such as the qualification for teachers of sensory impairment, in the new year.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many fines were issued to parents for taking children on holiday during term time at (a) independent and (b) maintained schools in the last year.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The department collects information from local authorities on penalty notices issued for unauthorised absence. This is published in the statistical release on Parental Responsibility Measures, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/parental-responsibility-measures.
Information is not collected on the type of school the penalty notice relates to. Independent schools set their own attendance policies and penalty notices are not issued for pupils in these schools.
In England, in the 2022/23 academic year, 356,181 penalty notices were issued for unauthorised family holiday absence in state funded schools, including academies.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will review the School Admissions Code.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The School Admissions Code (the Code) exists to ensure that places in all state-funded schools are allocated in a fair and transparent manner. Admission authorities for all state-funded schools are required to comply with the requirements of the Code and related admissions law.
The latest version of the Code came into force on 1 September 2021. The department keeps the provisions of the Code under review to ensure they continue to remain fit for purpose, however there are currently no plans to change the Code.