Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when building work is planned to start at Hall Road Academy in Kingston upon Hull.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Hall Road Academy was announced in December 2022 as part of Round 4 of the School Rebuilding Programme. The project will commence before April 2025.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in Kingston Upon Hull North constituency do not have qualified teacher status.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce in England is published in the annual ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistics release, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The number of teachers without qualified teacher status in all state funded schools in England, including a breakdown by primary and secondary, and by local authority, is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/29d83b82-2aba-44c7-bb82-08db371944c7.
Data relating to schools in individual constituencies can be found in the ‘teacher and support staff numbers by school’ file, within the additional supporting files section, available at: https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/0728fb07-f014-492c-aac9-fd11bb441601/files/2dfcc772-c410-46ac-cb9d-08da713e9200.
There are 24,000 more teachers now than in 2010. The quality of teaching is the most important in school factor in improving outcomes for children, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Evidence is clear that high quality professional development can lead to improved pupil attainment.
The Department has invested in transforming training for teachers and head teachers. Every teacher and head teacher now has access to high quality, evidence based training and professional development at every stage of their career, starting with initial teacher training (ITT).
By 2024, a reformed ITT provider market will be delivering quality assured training leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) that places a greater emphasis than ever before on embedding structured practice into courses, ensuring trainees are ready to thrive in the classroom.
A new system of higher quality training provider partnerships will be supported by £36 million to introduce new Quality Requirements, including better training for mentors and the delivery of new, cutting edge, intensive training, and practice activity. Every teaching school hub will be involved in ITT to ensure that training places are available across the country.
QTS is considered desirable for teachers in most schools in England. In some schools, including academies, free schools, and independent schools, QTS is not a legal requirement. Academies have a fundamental freedom to employ talented people who do not necessarily have QTS.
Most teachers in all schools, including academies, have QTS and have undertaken initial teacher training. In the 2021/22 academic year, the latest data available, 14,771 teachers (headcount) did not have qualified teacher status, equivalent to 2.9% of teachers.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is 24,000 more than in 2010.
The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects. Reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department remains committed to delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract and retain the best teachers.
The Department is investing £181 million in financial incentives. For those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year, there are bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage talented trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. The Department has also expanded the offer to international trainees in physics and languages.
The Department also offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools.
The Department launched its new digital service, ‘Apply for teacher training’ in autumn 2021, enabling a more streamlined, user friendly application route, to make it easier for people to train to become teachers.
The Department is also taking action to enable teachers to succeed through transforming their training and support. The Department will deliver 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities by the end of 2024, giving all teachers and school leaders access to quality, evidence based training and professional development at every stage of their career.
To support retention in the first few years of teaching, the Department has rolled out the Early Career Framework (ECF) nationally, providing the foundations for a successful career in teaching. This is backed by over £130 million a year in funding.
The Department’s reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment across all areas, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession. The Department has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing, and support all schools to introduce flexible working practices. These resources include the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which the Department is encouraging schools to sign up to as a shared commitment to promote staff wellbeing, and the school workload reduction toolkit, developed alongside head teachers. The Charter is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter, and the toolkit is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the impact of inflation on (a) school budgets and (b) the cost to parents associated with the school day.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years as a result of the 2022 Autumn Statement. The core schools budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including schools’ energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals, has risen from £49.8 billion in 2021/22 to £53.8 billion in 2022/23 and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25. By 2024/25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. These increases provide support to schools to deal with the effects of inflation on their budgets.
In September 2022, the Government announced unprecedented support to protect households and businesses from high energy prices. The Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Discount Scheme, the successor to the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, are supporting millions of households and businesses.
The Department is clear that school uniforms should be affordable. No school uniform should be so expensive that pupils or their families feel unable to apply to or attend a school of their choice. In November 2021, the Department issued statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms to ensure the cost of school uniforms is reasonable. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms/cost-of-school-uniforms. Governing boards should be compliant with much of the guidance by September 2022 and fully compliant by summer 2023.
The Government has announced further support, worth £26 billion, for next year. This is designed to target the most vulnerable households and families. This is on top of the £37 billion cost of living support provided by the Government this year.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure childcare is (a) accessible and (b) affordable.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is committed to improving the availability and affordability of childcare which is why we have spent more than £20 billion over the last five years to support families with the cost of childcare. This means that thousands of parents are benefitting from government childcare support.
In the 2021 Spending Review, the department announced additional funding of £160 million in financial years 2022/23, £180 million in 2023/24 and £170 million in 202425, compared to the 2021/22. This is for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers, reflecting cost pressures and changes in the number of eligible children anticipated at the time of the review.
For 2023/24, the department will invest an additional £20 million into early years funding, on top of the additional £180 million for 2023/24. Taken together, this will help support providers at a national level with the additional National Living Wage costs associated with delivering the free childcare entitlements in 2023.
In July, the department announced measures to reduce the costs and barriers facing providers and ensure families can access government support to save them money on their childcare bills.
This included the launch of a new £1.2 million communications campaign via the childcare choices website to ensure every parent knows about the government funded support they are eligible for. This is accessible here: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
The department continues to work across government, looking at ways to make childcare more affordable and accessible to ensure that families benefit from the government-funded support they are entitled to.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to help reform children’s social care services; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department committed to review the children’s social care system, so that children’s outcomes can be improved. Earlier this year, three reviews were published that provide an opportunity to reset children’s social care and make the urgent progress children need.
The department is rapidly working up a detailed implementation strategy in response to the reviews and this will be published in early 2023. The implementation strategy will set out the steps we are taking to reform children’s social care services.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of increases in energy costs on further education college budgets.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department knows that one of the biggest challenges facing some colleges is the rising cost of energy. The potential impacts of the rising cost of energy on educational providers is being kept under review by the department.
Further education (FE) colleges are autonomous institutions responsible for their own financial sustainability.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has outlined the range of support on energy cost increases that will be available for businesses, the public sector and households. As part of that, the Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to ensure that all businesses and other non-domestic customers, including colleges, are protected from high energy bills this winter. Discounts will be applied to energy usage initially between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Schools and colleges in England will also be allocated a share of £500 million in capital funding in the 2022/23 financial year. This comprises £447 million for schools and sixth form colleges and £53 million for FE colleges to spend on energy efficiency upgrades.
These upgrades will not only help schools and colleges save money, but they will also make schools and colleges more energy efficient during the cold period and increase winter resilience for future years. A FE college group will receive £290,000 on average from that additional funding. Allocations were published on 6 December 2022 to help colleges plan and payments are expected to be made in January 2023.
The department assesses and reviews colleges’ financial health on a regular basis and uses this information to determine where support and intervention from the department, Education Skills Funding Agency and FE Commissioner can help colleges to improve their position. More information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-oversight-support-and-intervention.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to investigate the reasons for the delayed results for vocational and technical exam and assessment results in 2022.
Answered by Robert Halfon
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Dr Jo Saxton, to write to the right hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
On 29 March 2022, the department published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, which sets out plans to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and those who need AP, within a fairer and more financially sustainable system.
The Green Paper consultation closed on 22 July 2022. The department is currently reviewing the feedback received and using this, along with continued engagement with the system, to inform the next stage of delivering improvements for children, young people and their families.
The department is committed to publishing a full response to the Green Paper in an Improvement Plan in early 2023.
The department will continue to support the system in the immediate term to deliver change and continue to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with SEND, and those who need AP.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effects of increases in the cost of living on improving access to higher education for students from (a) diverse and (b) disadvantaged backgrounds.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that have impacted students. Many higher education (HE) providers have hardship funds that students can apply to for assistance. There is £261 million of student premium funding available this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. The department is also working with the Office for Students to ensure universities support students in hardship using both hardship funds and drawing on the student premium.
All households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount. The Energy Prices Act passed on 25 October includes the provision to require landlords to pass benefits they receive from energy price support, as appropriate, onto end users. Further details of the requirements under this act are set out in the legislation.
A HM Treasury-led review is being undertaken to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023.
Decisions on student support are taken on an annual basis. The government has continued to increase living costs support each year with a 2.3% increase to maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for this academic year, 2022/23.
Students who have been awarded a loan for living costs for the 2022/23 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the tax year 2022-23 has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment, can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.
The government is currently considering options for changes to loans and grants for living and other costs for the 2023/24 academic year starting in August 2023 and an announcement will follow in due course.
The UCAS end of cycle report shows that in 2022 we had record numbers of 18-year-olds getting into university, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. An English 18-year-old from a disadvantaged background today is 86% more likely to go to university than in 2010.
The department’s widening participation publication from 2022 shows that progression to HE has increased across all students, including those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Black pupils have seen the greatest increase in the proportion entering HE by age 19, increasing from 44.1% in 2009/10 to 62.1% in 2020/21.