Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to (a) support home educators and (b) protect children removed from mainstream schools for malicious reasons.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support for home educating families as part of the Children not in School measures of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The support duty ensures an established baseline level of support across all English local authorities, to ensure that wherever home educating families live they can have access to a reliable level of support from their local authority, if they choose to access it.
The department’s existing elective home education guidance for parents already sets out to help parents understand their obligations and rights in relation to elective home education.
This government is clear that any form of off-rolling is unacceptable, and we will work with Ofsted to tackle this. We are committed to strengthening accountability through reforming Ofsted to enhance the inspection regime by replacing a single headline grade with a new report card system, telling parents clearly how schools are performing, and introduce a new annual review of safeguarding, attendance, and pupil movement, including off-rolling.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of allocating separate funding for (a) oral hygiene education and (b) toothbrushing schemes in schools located in areas with high levels of tooth decay.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is working with the Department of Health and Social Care to help promote and deliver supervised toothbrushing programmes for 3 to 5 year-olds in the most deprived communities.
We recognise that prevention is better than cure. For this reason, we will be targeting the areas of highest need in order to have the greatest impact on young children’s oral health.
Further information on the implementation timetable will be confirmed in due course.
Currently all state-funded schools in England are required to teach about good oral hygiene as part of the statutory health education set out within relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support councils (a) in West Dorset and (b) nationally to increase local special school places to reduce reliance on out-of-county placements for children with Education, Health and Care Plans.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department knows that many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) struggle to find a suitable school placement that is close to their home and meets their needs. This government is committed to addressing this by improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to children and young people with the most complex needs.
The department wants more children and young people to receive the support they need to thrive in their local mainstream school, reducing the need for pupils to travel a long way to access a specialist placement. Many mainstream settings are already going above and beyond to deliver specialist provision locally, including through resourced provision and special educational needs units.
The department is committed to ensuring special schools play a vital role in supporting those pupils with the most complex needs. The Children and Families Act 2014 requires local authorities to ensure there are sufficient school places for all pupils, including those with SEND. If a local authority identifies a shortage of special school places, resulting in a significant number of pupils needing to travel a long way to access a placement, they could consider creating or expanding provision.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education announced £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26 to support children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. This new funding can be used to adapt classrooms to be more accessible for children with SEND, create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs, alongside continuing to provide places to support pupils in special schools with the most complex needs.
Departmental officials work closely with Dorset Council to strategically oversee SEND place planning and to see what support we can provide to ensure there are sufficient high-quality SEND places in the system. We will confirm local authority allocations to West Dorset for high needs capital funding in the spring.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to allocate more funding for SEND provision in rural areas.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
The department is providing an increase of almost £1 billion for local authorities’ high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion.
The department is now in the process of calculating indicative high needs funding allocations for local authorities next year through the national funding formula, which it expects to publish shortly.
This government is taking time to consider the funding formula that the department uses to allocate funding for children and young people with SEND. It is important that there is a fair education funding system, that directs funding to where it is needed, including funding for provision in rural areas.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help reduce waiting times for SEND assessments by local authorities in rural areas with fewer staff.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department wants to ensure that, where required, education, health and care (EHC) plan assessments are progressed promptly and, if needed, plans are issued as quickly as possible so that children and young people can access the support they need.
Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have special educational needs that require an EHC plan. EHC plans must be issued within 20 weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need. In 2023, there were 138,200 initial requests for an EHC plan and 90,500 assessments took place. 50.3% of new EHC plans in 2023 were issued within 20 weeks.
The department knows that local authorities have seen an increase in the number of assessment requests and that more needs to be done to ensure that local areas deliver effective and timely services. This includes better communication with schools and families.
The department continues to monitor and work closely with local authorities that have issues with EHC plan timeliness. Where there are concerns about a local authority’s capacity to make the required improvements, we help the local authority to identify the barriers and put in place an effective recovery plan. This includes, where needed, securing specialist SEND Adviser support to help identify the barriers to EHC plan process timeliness and put in place practical plans for recovery.
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a full SEND inspection of Dorset local area in March 2024. Their published report found that the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and the local area partnership is taking action where improvements are needed.
Dorset are not subject to formal intervention from the department or NHS England and the next full area SEND inspection by Ofsted and the CQC will be within approximately five years.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help improve access to SEND services for children who need specific adaptations for their educational needs.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
The department wants to drive a consistent and inclusive approach to supporting children and young people with SEND through early identification, effective support, high quality teaching and effective allocation of resources.
Educational psychologists play a critical role in the support available to children and young people, including those with SEND. To improve early identification and provision of support, the department is taking measures to help education settings have better access to educational psychology services by investing in the training of educational psychologists. The department is investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from this year. This builds on the £10 million which is already being invested for the over 200 educational psychologists who began their training in September 2023.
High quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education and the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers over the course of this parliament. To support all teachers, the department is implementing a range of teacher training reforms to ensure teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND. On 1 September 2024, the government introduced a new mandatory leadership level national professional qualification (NPQ) for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs). The NPQ will play a key role in improving outcomes for children and young people with SEND by ensuring SENCOs consistently receive high quality, evidence-based training. This is crucial given the central role SENCOs play in supporting pupils with SEND.
The government has also launched an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review to look closely at the key challenges to attainment that children and young people face, in particular those with SEND, to ensure that all pupils benefit from a rich and broad curriculum.
The department is providing an increase of almost £1 billion for high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that rural schools have access to the latest (a) technological resources and (b) STEM education in West Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Reliable technology can offer significant benefits to everyone who works and learns in schools and trusts. The department is working with commercial providers to accelerate gigabit capable internet rollout to schools, alongside a joint investment from the department and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
In collaboration with Building Digital UK (BDUK), the department is jointly funding fibre upgrades to 833 schools across England by the end of 2025. This is in addition to the 683 delivered by BDUK programmes with the department between 2017 and 2021.
Additionally, Connect the Classroom is supporting over 3,700 schools to upgrade their wireless networks, including some schools in West Dorset. So far, the programme has delivered over £200 million of funding to improve connectivity for over one million pupils nationally.
To widen participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in schools, the department is funding the Stimulating Physics Network (SPN) and Subject Knowledge for Physics Teaching (SKPT) programmes.
The SPN promotes the take-up of A level physics and provides coaching support to increase the profile of physics and retention of physics teachers. There are a total of 285 partner schools in England, supported by 42 coaches based in SPN-led schools and regional network staff, to ensure there is a good offer across the country for SPN. An SPN-led school in Hampshire covers support for schools across Hampshire and Dorset.
SKPT, which has practical sessions delivered across the country, aims to provide training to non-physics teachers to allow them to become specialists in physics. Rural schools that do not have access to local existing SKPT provision can contact the Ogden Trust, who run the SKPT programme, as there are limited bespoke packages of support for such schools.
Schools in West Dorset can receive teacher continuing professional development (CPD) on mathematics curriculum pedagogy and subject knowledge via the Jurassic Maths Hub, one of 40 maths hubs across England who offer school-to-school maths teacher CPD from reception to post-16.
The department also funds the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme, supporting teachers to improve the teaching of AS and A level mathematics, AS and A level further mathematics and core mathematics. Support is focused in disadvantaged areas and areas with low post-16 mathematics participation so that, whatever their location, background or gender, students can access high-quality mathematics teaching.
Additionally, the department funds the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE), which provides free CPD and resources to improve the quality of computing education and increase participation in computing at GCSE and A level. The NCCE manages a network of over 30 computing hubs across England to support schools and colleges in all areas of the country. NCCE CPD is delivered either in-person or online to reduce the need for travel, and hubs schedule courses based on demand and local attendance patterns.
The NCCE has a particular focus on reaching schools in education investment areas. Dorset has been identified as one of the NCCE’s highest priority areas and is receiving an additional focus as part of the ‘Targeted School Engagement Programme’. The Devon and Dorset hub is working closely with the education team at Dorset Council to embed NCCE provision across the area and promoting wider activities, including last September’s National Coding Week. Contact details for the Devon and Dorset hub are available from the NCCE’s Teach Computing website here: https://teachcomputing.org.