Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Turing Scheme on people wishing to study for degrees in gaming in the UK.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Turing scheme will be backed by at least £100 million, providing funding for around 35,000 students in universities, colleges, and schools to go on placements and exchanges overseas, starting in September 2021 and replaces funding previously available through the education mobility element of Erasmus+. The scheme will be global and not be limited to the EU.
The scheme will be available to students of all subjects including those studying degrees in gaming.
Further details of the scheme will be published shortly.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students have graduated with a degree in video games in each year since 2010.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes statistics on enrolments and qualifications obtained at UK Higher Education Institutions. Latest statistics refer to the academic year 2018/19.
The table below shows the numbers of first-degree qualifiers in computer games subjects for each year since the academic year 2012/13. Information on the number of qualifiers in these subjects has been available since the introduction of the third version of Joint Academic Coding System in 2012/13, hence figures cannot be provided for any year prior to that.
Full-person-equivalent1 First Degree qualifiers in computer games subjects
UK Higher Education Institutions
Academic years 2012/13 to 2018/19
Academic Year | Number of qualifiers in computer games subjects2 |
2012/13 | 595 |
2013/14 | 625 |
2014/15 | 690 |
2015/16 | 900 |
2016/17 | 1,290 |
2017/18 | 1,265 |
2018/19 | 1,380 |
Source: DfE analysis of the HESA Student Record.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help enable youth clubs to re-open to support vulnerable young people during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Ensuring continued access to support services and education for vulnerable children and young people remains a priority for the government. As such we have ensured that essential youth services, such as one-to-one youth work and support groups, are able to continue for the duration of the national lockdown, and that vulnerable children can continue to access childcare and other out-of-school activities (including wraparound care) during the national lockdown.
We will shortly be updating our guidance for providers of after-school and holiday clubs and other out-of-school settings on the measures providers should put in place if they continue to offer face-to-face provision for the eligible children during the national lockdown, to ensure they are operating as safely as possible. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protective-measures-for-holiday-or-after-school-clubs-and-other-out-of-school-settings-for-children-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/protective-measures-for-out-of-school-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
We are acutely aware of the impact that the COVID-19 outbreak has had on young people and the vital role our youth services play. That is why more than £60 million of the unprecedented £750 million package for the voluntary and charity sector has been directed towards organisations supporting children and young people. More recently, a £16.5 million ‘Youth Covid-19 Support Fund’ has been announced, which will protect the immediate future of grassroots and national youth organisations across the country. A link to the article can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-165-million-youth-covid-19-support-fund. This is on top of £200 million government investment in early intervention and prevention support initiatives to support children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, through the ‘Youth Endowment Fund’.
In addition, the ‘Youth Investment Fund’ remains a manifesto commitment for transformative levelling up across the country over the course of the parliament. In the recently announced Spending Review, £30 million of this was committed as capital investment for the 2021/22 financial year. This will provide a transformational investment in new and refurbished safe spaces for young people, so they can access support youth workers, and positive activities out of school, including sport and culture.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many laptops have been (a) requested and (b) sent to schools in (i) Stoke-on-Trent and (ii) Staffordshire during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is investing over £300 million to help schools and young people in England continue their education at home and access online social care. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Department has already delivered over 560,000 laptops and tablets for disadvantaged pupils who would not otherwise have access to a digital device.
The Department is adding to this support by making a further 440,000 devices available, bringing the total to over a million laptops and tablets available to support disadvantaged pupils that might experience disruption to their education. This scheme is continually reviewed to ensure that support is offered in the most effective way.
The laptops and tablets are an injection of support to help schools, academy trusts and local authorities to provide access to remote education and online social care. Schools, academy trusts and local authorities are responsible for distributing the laptops and tablets and are best placed to know which children and young people need access to a device.
As of December 2020, data on devices can be viewed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/946954/Devices_and_4G_wireless_routers_data_as_of_December.pdf. This includes 235 devices delivered or dispatched to local authority-maintained schools in Stoke-on-Trent and 769 devices delivered or dispatched to local authority-maintained schools in Staffordshire. The Department has also delivered devices to academy trusts in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire in addition to those delivered to local authority-maintained schools.
Where schools need additional devices, they should contact the Department for Education’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of children in Years 3 to 11 who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to recruit additional exam invigilators for the 2021 exam series.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has announced that, from 5 January 2021, schools and colleges have moved to remote provision, except for vulnerable children and children of critical workers.
The Department will therefore not be asking students to sit GCSE, AS and A level exams this summer as planned. Ofqual, with the department, will launch a consultation shortly which seeks views on how to fairly award all pupils with a grade that ensures they can progress to the next stage of their lives. This will be based on teacher assessment, with training and support provided to ensure grades are awarded fairly and consistently.
Further details on the delivery of assessment in 2021 will be available in due course.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to prepare for the wave 15 announcement from the free schools programme.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The free schools programme was established to deliver choice, innovation and higher standards for parents. Free schools have delivered tens of thousands of high quality school places across the country. We will announce the outcome of wave 14 soon, to enable successful applications to begin work towards opening these much needed schools. Funding for further free school approvals will be considered at the next Spending Review.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help children and young people in (a) Stoke-on-Trent and (b) Staffordshire to catch up on the education they missed during the 2019-20 school year as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government recognises that children and young people have had their education disrupted as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Government has committed to a £1 billion catch-up package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time on children in England.
The catch-up premium, worth £650 million, provides universal funding which is delivered in three payments to schools over the 2020/21 academic year. The Department’s expectation is that this funding will be spent on the additional activities required to support pupils to catch up in their education.?To help schools make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation has published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/covid-19-support-guide-for-schools/#nav-covid-19-support-guide-for-schools1. A further school planning guide: 2020 to 2021 is also available: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/.
The attached table shows the amount of catch-up premium funding that has been provisionally allocated to the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent local authorities for the 2020/21 academic year. These allocations are based on the published rates and school census data from October 2019. The final allocations will be re-calculated once the October 2020 school census data is available.
Alongside this, the catch-up package includes a new £350 million National Tutoring Programme (NTP) for disadvantaged pupils aged 5 – 16. This scheme will provide additional, targeted support for disadvantaged pupils who need the most help to catch up. The programme has two pillars which can be accessed by schools. Firstly, schools will be able to access high quality, subsidised tuition from a selection of approved Tuition Partners. The Partners will offer a variety of tuition approaches, including online and face-to-face, and the cost of tutoring will be subsidised by the Department by 75%. Schools can access Tuition Partner support here: https://nationaltutoring.org.uk/ntp-tuition-partners.
The second pillar of NTP supports schools in the most disadvantaged areas to employ in-house academic mentors who can provide small group and one-to-one tuition to selected pupils. Eligible schools can request academic mentors. The first cohort saw 188 mentors start in schools on 2 November, and a further two cohorts will follow in January and February 2021. If schools in Staffordshire or Stoke-on-Trent would like to register interest for a mentor, they can do so here: https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/hire-academic-mentors.
To minimise the risk of further lost education, the Department has put in place measures to help ensure children have access to high quality remote education if they are unable to attend school in person, due to the COVID-19 outbreak. This will benefit children across the country, including those in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire.
To help schools and further education colleges meet remote education expectations, the Department put in place a support package which can be accessed through the remote education service: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19. The support package includes access to the right technology to deliver remote education, peer to peer training and guidance on how to use this effectively in the short and long term, and practical tools, good practice guidance and school-led webinars to support effective delivery of the curriculum.
Additionally, over 340,000 laptops and tablets are being made available this term to support disadvantaged children in Year 3 to 11 whose face-to-face education may be disrupted. This supplements over 220,000 laptops and tablets and over 50,000 4G wireless routers which have already been delivered to schools in England during the summer term.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to increase (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in Stoke-on-Trent.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is a top priority of the Government to ensure the whole country has a strong teaching workforce. In January 2019, the Department launched the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy. Whilst implementation of these commitments will support all schools, the Department recognises that some schools and local areas face greater challenges with recruitment and retention than others.
To supplement the national strategy, we are delivering targeted programmes to support recruitment and retention in challenging areas, including funding a range of regionally targeted financial incentives. For example, in financial years 2017 to 2019, £20 million of scholarship funding was made available to support teachers and head teachers in certain areas to take up a National Professional Qualification to support their professional development. Teachers and head teachers in schools in Stoke-on-Trent were eligible for this funding.
Stoke-on-Trent is also one of the areas where eligible mathematics and physics teachers can claim a £2,000 retention payment in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years. Eligible mathematics, physics, chemistry, and languages teachers in Stoke-on-Trent can apply for larger early-career payments of £7,500. Finally, Stoke-on-Trent is one of 25 local authorities where eligible languages, physics, chemistry, biology, and computing teachers can claim back student loan repayments.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that schools in (a) Stoke-on-Trent, (b) Kidsgrove and (c) Talke receive equitable levels of funding under the National Funding Formula.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Funding Formula (NFF), introduced in the 2018/19 financial year, ensures that funding is distributed fairly and consistently based on the characteristics of schools and their pupils. This has replaced the postcode lottery of the past, where funding was based on out-of-date decisions and data.
Stoke-on-Trent local authority is receiving 3.4% more per pupil under the NFF in the 2021-22 financial year, compared to 2020/21. This amounts to £8 million, taking total school funding in the area to £191 million. This is above the national average per-pupil increase.
Local authorities currently remain responsible for determining schools’ final allocations, using the funding they receive through the NFF. The funding that schools in Kidsgrove and Talke receive, from the total available to Stoke-on-Trent, will therefore be determined by the local school funding formula. The Government is committed to move to a ‘hard’ NFF in future, which will determine individual schools’ budgets directly rather than through local formulae set independently by each local authority. We will consult on proposals to that end in due course.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of students enrolled at further education colleges.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Further education (FE) colleges are vital to the post-16 education sector and we are taking forward an exciting and ambitious reform programme to level up the FE sector, ensuring it becomes a powerhouse that supplies the skills employers need, and equips young people and adults with the skills they need to have productive and fulfilling careers.
Under Raising the Participation Age, all young people in England are required to continue in education or training until their 18th birthday and many will undertake that at FE colleges. Local authorities have duties to track young people in their area and support those not in education, employment or training (NEET) in finding a suitable way to participate, including through referring to FE provision.
FE colleges are key to the delivery of T Levels. T Levels represent the biggest reform of post-16 education since A levels were first introduced 70 years ago and will give 16-19 year olds a genuine, high quality alternative to the academic route.
As part of the new £2.5 million National Skills Fund to help adults learn valuable skills and prepare for the economy of the future, we will be fully funding adults to gain their first Level 3 qualifications. We will target this Level 3 entitlement on areas with high economic value and the strongest alignment with government priorities, to ensure the best possible returns for individuals, employers and the nation. FE colleges will be key to delivery of this provision.
As part of my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s, Plan for Jobs announced in July, we are investing £101 million in a brand new offer to give 18 and 19 year old school and college leavers the opportunity to study high value Level 2 and 3 courses when there are no employment opportunities available to them.
We have reformed and improved careers advice in schools, which are now under a duty to allow providers of apprenticeships and technical education into schools to help pupils understand about the options available to them.