Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to tackle persistent absences in secondary schools in South Suffolk.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. There is evidence that more students are attending school this year compared to last, thanks to the sector’s efforts, although 1.6 million children remain persistently absent, missing 10% or more of lessons.
The department has a national approach to supporting all schools to tackle absence, including those in the South Suffolk constituency. Central to this approach is stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance which was made statutory on 19 August 2024 and can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bf300da44f1c4c23e5bd1b/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance_-_August_2024.pdf. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach, encouraging schools, trusts and local authorities to work with families in addressing attendance barriers.
Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard which is maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.
The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities within the sector to share existing best practice on how to improve attendance. This is why the government set up a network of 31 attendance hubs, who have offered support to 2,000 schools and shared their strategies and resources for improving attendance.
In addition to this work, the department is improving the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice shared with schools and local authorities nationally.
The department recently announced that new regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice across areas, and empowering schools to better access support and learn from one another. Improving school attendance is one of four national priorities for RISE teams.
School attendance is also supported by broader investments, such as funded breakfast clubs across all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn.
The department will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.
Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of SEND funding in South Suffolk.
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) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. Together with additional funding for schools’ increased National Insurance contributions costs announced recently, this brings total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to over £12 billion. Of that total, Suffolk County Council is being allocated over £124 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of £10.3 million on the 2024/25 DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 9% increase per head of their 2 to 18 year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.
In addition to the DSG, local authorities will also receive a separate core schools budget grant (CSBG) in the 2025/26 financial year. This CSBG continues the separate grants payable in 2024/25, which are to help special schools and alternative provision with the costs of teachers’ pay and pension increases and other staff pay increases, as well as the additional funding in respect of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions. The department plans to publish individual local authorities’ allocations of this funding for 2025/26 in May 2025.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to extend the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund beyond 31 March 2025.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer the hon. Member for South Suffolk to the answer of 29 January 2025 to Question 26025.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to continue the previous Government’s (a) plans and (b) timetable for delivering a new school building at Ormiston Sudbury Academy.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The building project for Ormiston Sudbury Academy is in the procurement stage of the process. The project team is working with the school and contractor and the planning submission is on track to be submitted by the end of the year. Works are estimated to start in summer 2025 with a planned handover around 2028.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) teachers, (b) pupils and (c) other members of school staff who have been attending or working at school in England since 1 June 2020 have tested positive for covid-19 since that date.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Please note that the Department does not hold the information in the format required. The latest national data on pupil attendance in educational establishments since 23 March was published on Tuesday 16 June at the following link and covers data up to Thursday 11 June:
The data is collected from individual education establishments and the published figures include estimates for non-response.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to improve SEND provision in Suffolk; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
Our ambition is for every local authority and Clinical Commissioning Group to deliver a high-quality service for every child or young person with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission conduct inspections of SEND services in local areas. Their inspection of Suffolk published in 2017 and subsequent revisit published in 2019 found strengths and improvements over time, but there remained a number of areas of significant weakness where sufficient progress had not been made.
Where we have concerns with performance, as there are with Suffolk, the Department for Education works with partners, including NHS England, to support and challenge local areas to improve. This includes regular advice and monitoring from the Department for Education and NHS England advisers as well as access to funded training opportunities and resources. Whilst there is more to be done, we welcome the progress being made and will continue to monitor the position closely.
In addition, in 2020-21, Suffolk will be receiving £74.9 million for its high needs budget, an increase of 17% per head of population aged 2-18 years old.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the degree to which standards are adequately and continuously assessed by OFSTED at schools where the most recent inspection was outstanding; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I wrote to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, on 3 December setting out the Department’s position regarding the inspection of outstanding schools. A copy of this letter is attached.
Outstanding schools are exempt from routine Ofsted inspection but continue to be risk assessed annually. Ofsted has the power to inspect any school at any time if there are concerns about the quality of provision or safety of pupils.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to promote graduate recruitment in the early years workforce.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
We are considering a range of approaches to increasing the number of graduates employed in the early years’ sector, and work is still underway. We will engage the sector in exploring ways to target support where it is most needed. We continue to support graduates into the sector through our funding of the Early Years Initial Teacher Training programme, including bursaries and employer incentives.
Further information about Early Years Initial Teacher Training is available at:
https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/explore-my-options/become-an-early-years-teacher
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding of (a) secondary and (b) primary schools in South Suffolk, and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, announced an additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs across 2018-19 and 2019-20, in addition to the schools budget set at Spending Review 2015, on 17 July. As a result, core funding for schools will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion in 2018-19 and £43.5 billion in 2019-20, representing an increase in the total schools budget of over 6% between this year and 2019-20. This means funding per pupil will now be maintained in real terms for the remaining two years of this Spending Review.
The Secretary of State further set out the details of the new national funding formula for schools, including the funding it will allocate for schools in South Suffolk, on [14] September. They can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the value of a national online platform for advertising teaching vacancies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is undertaking research to strengthen its understanding of the issues schools face when advertising teacher vacancies and the challenges teachers have finding and applying for jobs. This will inform the development and design of a new national teacher vacancy service.
This service will aim to reduce the time schools spend on publishing vacancies and the cost of recruiting new teachers. It will also make it easier for teachers to find jobs and increase the availability and quality of data on teacher recruitment.
We will provide further details in due course.