Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what applications he received from groups in Lancashire to establish a new free school in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 to date.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department for Education publishes a list of every application received in all the completed application rounds on the gov.uk website.
Applications received in Wave 4 can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-wave-4-application-information
Applications received in Wave 5 can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-wave-5-application-information
Applications received in 2013 to establish free schools were part of Waves 4 and 5. As the published list states, two applications were received from groups in Lancashire in Wave 4: Burnley High School and Steiner Academy Lancaster. No applications from groups in Lancashire were received in Wave 5.
Applications received so far in 2014 are part of Wave 6. The Department for Education will publish a list of all applications received shortly after the assessment process is complete, in the same way it has for previous rounds.
Asked by: Jake Berry (Conservative - Rossendale and Darwen)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to reduce absences from school due to bullying.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The Government has made tackling all forms of bullying a top priority. It is never acceptable for a child to be bullied, victimised or harmed in any way and the Government does not want any young person to be absent from school due to the effects of bullying.
All schools are required, by law, to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. Ofsted now holds schools clearly to account for their effectiveness. Under the current Ofsted framework, school inspectors consider pupil behaviour and safety, which includes how well schools prevent bullying, harassment and discrimination.
In the Education Act 2011, we strengthened teachers' powers to discipline pupils for poor behaviour, including bullying. They can now issue same day detentions, confiscate banned items and search for, and if necessary delete, inappropriate images on mobile phones which might be linked to cyberbullying.
We are also providing £4 million of funding over two years from spring 2013 to four organisations: Beatbullying, the DianaAward, Kidscape and the National Children's Bureau, to develop effective measures in school to prevent and tackle bullying.
Good schools create a positive ethos with clear expectations about pupil behaviour that prevent bullying from happening in the first place and deal with it quickly if it does occur.
We recognise the effect that bullying can have, that is why on 17 March 2014 we published a factsheet to help schools identify and support pupils which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying.