Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings

Liz Twist Excerpts
Wednesday 30th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Gavin Williamson Portrait Gavin Williamson
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There is nothing that I can really disagree with my hon. Friend about, so I had better just sit down, hadn’t I?

Liz Twist Portrait Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
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Too many schoolchildren across my constituency of Blaydon have faced disadvantage from being out of school under the current arrangements. Will the Secretary of State be absolutely clear with school leaders well in advance of any new arrangements to be put in place? It is vital that they have that information. Will he also talk about the support that can be given to disabled children to ensure that they have the chance to catch up on the education opportunities that they have missed?

Gavin Williamson Portrait Gavin Williamson
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I very much want to reassure the hon. Lady that we will give all schools good notice of any new arrangements. As I have committed to, we are aiming to issue guidance and advice to schools in conjunction with the details of step 4. On disabled children and children with special educational needs, we will continue to have a really strong emphasis in terms of how we support special schools or alternative provision. In particular, we will weight the level of support at a much higher level for those schools than we do for mainstream schools.