Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Debate between Helen Hayes and Caroline Nokes

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement today. I welcome the news that St Luke’s Church of England primary school in my constituency will be one of the early adopters of a universal breakfast club under the programme.

All too often, children with special educational needs and disabilities are excluded from extracurricular activities, and it is the parents of children with SEND who often find it the hardest to access childcare. It is essential that children with SEND have equal access to breakfast clubs in both mainstream and specialist schools. What steps are being taken to ensure that that is the case, that schools have the capacity to provide specialist staff where needed and that any additional home-to-school transport costs, which are often essential in enabling children with SEND physically to access a breakfast club, will be met?

School Accountability and Intervention

Debate between Helen Hayes and Caroline Nokes

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her statement, and I associate myself with her remarks about the tragic incident in Sheffield.

The consultations that the Minister has announced are being launched in the context of considerable pressures in our education system, particularly the crisis in the SEND system, which has far-reaching consequences for every part of the sector, and the serious problems in the recruitment and retention of teachers. The Education Committee has heard from stakeholders that accountability pressures can encourage exclusionary practices to maintain academic performance. School leaders regularly raise concerns that the lack of resources to meet the needs of children with SEND makes it hard for them to meet the needs of every child. How does the Department plan to safeguard children with SEND to ensure that accountability pressures on schools do not lead to exclusionary practices but instead promote inclusive approaches that support the needs of students with SEND?