Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the results of polling commissioned by Save the Children, published in February 2017, on the majority of parents wanting the Government to ensure that every nursery in England has a qualified early years teacher.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Education will be publishing an early years workforce strategy in due course, which will seek to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff. The strategy will include a focus on what government can do to help grow the graduate workforce.
We make early years initial teacher training places available to meet the demand from the market. Funding is available for training course fees, with additional funding for nursery employers to help them support graduates in their setting to become early years teachers. To encourage the best graduates into the early years workforce we provide bursaries to eligible trainees.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the results of polling commissioned by Save the Children, published in February 2017, on the proportion of children in Nottingham North constituency on free school meals who did not reach the expected level of speech and language skills by age five in 2015.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework (EYFS) sets out the key areas of learning which every provider must follow. This includes a focus on literacy and communication and language. We are seeing year on year improvements in the communications and language area of learning. In 2013, 59.9% of children eligible for FSM achieved at least the expected level in the communication and language area of Learning, compared to 75.0% of all other children. In 2016, 71.2% of children eligible for FSM achieved at least the expected level in the communication and language area of learning, compared to 83.3% of all other children.
For Nottingham North, in 2015, 75.1% of children eligible for FSM achieved at least the expected level in the communication and language area of learning, compared to 79.8% of all other children. In 2016, 74.9% of children eligible for FSM achieved at least the expected level in the communication and language area of learning, compared to 81.2% of all other children
Social mobility is at the heart of the Government’s agenda, and that is why we are increasing spending on childcare to over £6 billion per year by 2019-20 – more than any other government.
We are working hard to ensure parents and children - wherever they live in England - have access to high quality early years education places through the funded 15 hour entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds and for all three- and four-year-olds. The Early Years Pupil Premium also provides over £300 per eligible child to improve outcomes for disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds.
We know that the quality of the workforce has the biggest impact on the children’s outcomes, and over recent years, we have taken steps to improve the quality of the workforce. We are currently developing a workforce strategy to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff in the early years workforce.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of data published by Save the Children in February 2017 on the number of children at risk of finishing primary school without important skills in English by 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Reaching a high level of fluency in reading and writing by the end of primary school is fundamental to achievement in education and critical for everyday life. We want all children, regardless of their background, to leave primary school able to read and write to a high standard.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards for the provision of development and care from birth to age five. This includes a focus on literacy, communication and language. The EYFS Profile results have shown an increase in the percentage of children achieving a good level of development – from 51.7% in 2013 to 69% in 2016.
The results from the 2016 EYFS Profile show that 72.1% of children achieved at least the expected level in all early learning goals in literacy in 2016 compared with 60.7% in 2013. For communication and language 81.6% of children achieved at least the expected level in all learning goals in communication and language compared to 72.2% in 2013.
The English curriculum introduced in 2014 places a renewed focus on phonics, as evidence shows that systematic synthetic phonics is the most effective approach to teaching young children to read.
To boost the quality of phonics teaching, we provided £23.7 million in match funding to over 14,000 primary schools, enabling them to buy systematic synthetic phonics products and training. The results from this year’s phonics screening check show that, since the introduction of the phonics check in 2012, over 147,000 more six year olds are now on track to become excellent readers. Almost 9 in 10 pupils (89%) who met the expected standard of phonic decoding in year 1 went on to reach the expected standard in reading at the end of Key Stage 1.
The Year 7 Catch-up Premium provides additional funding for secondary schools to support pupils who did not reach the expected level in reading and/or mathematics by the end of primary school.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answers of 14 December 2016 to Question 56128 and of 23 December 2016 to Question 58051, whether she will issue guidance for schools and teachers on how the provisions in section 60 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 that allow the employment of all teachers in voluntary aided schools to be reserved teachers can be interpreted reasonably and proportionately to comply with the EU Employment Equality Directive Article 4(2).
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government does not consider the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to be in contravention of the EU Employment Equality Directive Article 4(2). The ‘Guidance on Managing Staff Employment in Schools’ (2009) clarifies the position with regard to the employment of reserved teachers in voluntary aided schools.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 14 December 2016 to Question 56128, whether she plans to repeal paragraph 4 of Schedule 22 of the Equality Act 2010 which exempts provisions of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 that relate to religious aspects of the appointment and dismissal of teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are no plans to repeal paragraph 4 of Schedule 22 of the Equality Act.
As set out in my response to question 56128, we consider that the provisions in sections 60(4) and 60(5) of the School Standards and Framework Act comply with the EU Employment Equality Directive Article 4(2) and as such see no requirement to make any changes to the Equality Act in this respect.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications of the Education Policy Institute report, entitled Faith Schools, pupil performance and social selection, published on 2 December 2016, for the proposal to remove the 50 per cent cap on religious selection in faith schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Education Policy Institute report does not recognise the fact that the government’s proposals are focused on creating more good school places, and therefore creating more choice for parents when selecting a school. Our proposals to expand the number of these good school places available to parents will benefit more young people and give them the chance to go as far as their talents will take them.
Faith schools make up a third of all schools in England, and are among the highest performing schools in the country. More primary and secondary faith schools are judged good or outstanding than their non-faith counterparts[1] and consistently achieve higher performance in exam results. Faith schools are popular with parents and so the removal of the 50% faith cap will enable the establishment of even more good schools and places.
[1]Ofsted official statistics: Maintained schools and academies inspections and outcomes as at 31 March 2016 shows faith schools are more likely to be good or outstanding as compared to non-faith schools (89% as compared to 86% at primary; 81% as compared to 75% at secondary).
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Equality and Human Rights Commission report, Religion or belief - is the law working, published in December 2016, if she will obtain independent legal advice to establish whether sections 60 (4) and (5) of the School Standards Framework Act (SSFA) comply with the EU Employment Equality Directive Article 4 (2) and whether exceptions allowed under the SSFA are legitimate and proportionate.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has already given this issue careful scrutiny and is confident that the provisions in the School Standards and Frameworks Act 1998 are lawful and comply with the EU Employment Equality Directive Article 4 (2). This issue has also been considered by the European Commission, which agrees with the Department’s interpretation of the legislation.
Employment, equality and human rights law applies to the employment practices of all schools, and they must act reasonably and proportionately. We have not been made aware of any firm evidence that schools are acting outside of this framework and have not been alerted to any alleged faith-discrimination cases from members of the school workforce.
It is important that faith schools are able to maintain their particular religious ethos and deliver the form of education which they have historically provided and which parents value.
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for her policy on faith schools of (a) the Populus Poll commissioned by the Accord Coalition, published on 2 November 2016 and (b) the 2011 research paper entitled Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils, written by Steve Gibbons and Olmo Silva.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Parents want good schools for their children and we know the vast majority of faith schools provide a high standard of education. The department wants to increase the number of good school places available, including at faith schools, and that’s why we are consulting on the proposals in “Schools that work for everyone” consultation document. We will consider evidence submitted alongside responses to the consultation.
The consultation document is available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/school-frameworks/schools-that-work-for-everyone
Asked by: Graham Allen (Labour - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the Government's policy is on whether schools with no religious character can be run by religious multi-academy trusts.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
A school with no religious character can be part of a religiously based multi-academy trust. This can only happen where it is approved by the Secretary of State and there is clear local support. To protect the school’s secular character and ethos we place legal safeguards within the school’s funding agreement and the Trust’s articles of association.