Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to publish proposals for a beauty therapy qualification.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The decision to no longer introduce a combined T Level in Hairdressing, Barbering and Beauty Therapy was taken following discussions with employers and representatives of the hair and beauty sector. The feedback the department has had from the hair sector representatives has led the department to the conclusion that the best route is for learners to progress into their industry through completion of an existing level 2 or level 3 apprenticeship or a level 2 classroom-based qualification.
The beauty sector has fed back that a good quality level 3 classroom-based progression route is desirable. Therefore, the department has decided to explore introducing a T Level which focuses on the beauty sector, with the expectation that this could be introduced after 2025. The department will update stakeholders in due course following scoping work and engagement with the beauty sector and T Level providers.
Payment of the development charge made to the Awarding Organisation to date is £450,990 (excluding VAT). This is for the development of the originally scoped Hairdressing, Barbering and Beauty Therapy T Level. The department anticipates that a substantial proportion of that content will remain relevant in any future T Level focussed on beauty.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide COVID-19 catch-up learning for most disadvantaged pupils following the cessation of the National Tutoring Programme in August.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department acted swiftly in helping all children to recover from the impact of the pandemic and made available almost £5 billion for its ambitious multi-year programmes to support education recovery. These programmes were principally targeted at disadvantaged pupils, supporting the narrowing of the disadvantage gap to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as possible. Crucially, they were also designed to have a legacy beyond the multi-year period of exceptional and additional support.
Over £1 billion has been invested in tutoring over four years through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP). This has seen nearly 5 million tutoring courses commence since the programme started in November 2020, including over 2 million in each of the last two academic years. In the current academic year, 346,000 courses have started up to 5 October 2023.
The department anticipates that tutoring will continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using core budgets and pupil premium funding to provide targeted support for those children who will benefit.
Raising attainment for pupils is at the heart of this government’s agenda. The department knows that disadvantaged children have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are committed to narrowing the attainment gap.
The department is continuing to support pupils’ needs by investing an extra £2 billion into core schools funding both this year and next year, over and above what it had already announced at the 2021 Spending Review. The department has also announced an additional £525 million this year to support schools with the teachers’ pay award, with a further £900 million in 2024/25. This means that by next year, school funding will be more than £59.6 billion, which is the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
Schools receive the pupil premium to enable them to provide extra support to improve disadvantaged pupils’ academic and personal achievements. Pupil premium funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in 2024/25, which is an increase of £80 million from 2023/24. This represents a 10% increase in per pupil rates from 2021/22 to 2024/25.
Additionally, the department is investing in 55 Education Investment Areas, where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest, including £86 million in trust capacity funding to help strong trusts to expand into areas most in need of improvement.
Furthermore, students in 16-19 education during the 2024/25 academic year will continue to receive the additional 40 learning hours that the department is funding to help them catch up on the vital teaching and learning they need to progress. It is estimated that the additional hours will support the recovery of approximately one month of lost learning per academic year.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to provide one-to-one and small group tuition in education settings following the conclusion of the National Tutoring Programme in August.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department acted swiftly in helping all children to recover from the impact of the pandemic and made available almost £5 billion for its ambitious multi-year programmes to support education recovery. These programmes were principally targeted at disadvantaged pupils, supporting the narrowing of the disadvantage gap to pre-pandemic levels as quickly as possible. Crucially, they were also designed to have a legacy beyond the multi-year period of exceptional and additional support.
Over £1 billion has been invested in tutoring over four years through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP). This has seen nearly 5 million tutoring courses commence since the programme started in November 2020, including over 2 million in each of the last two academic years. In the current academic year, 346,000 courses have started up to 5 October 2023.
The department anticipates that tutoring will continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using core budgets and pupil premium funding to provide targeted support for those children who will benefit.
Raising attainment for pupils is at the heart of this government’s agenda. The department knows that disadvantaged children have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and are committed to narrowing the attainment gap.
The department is continuing to support pupils’ needs by investing an extra £2 billion into core schools funding both this year and next year, over and above what it had already announced at the 2021 Spending Review. The department has also announced an additional £525 million this year to support schools with the teachers’ pay award, with a further £900 million in 2024/25. This means that by next year, school funding will be more than £59.6 billion, which is the highest ever level in real terms per pupil.
Schools receive the pupil premium to enable them to provide extra support to improve disadvantaged pupils’ academic and personal achievements. Pupil premium funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in 2024/25, which is an increase of £80 million from 2023/24. This represents a 10% increase in per pupil rates from 2021/22 to 2024/25.
Additionally, the department is investing in 55 Education Investment Areas, where outcomes in literacy and numeracy are the poorest, including £86 million in trust capacity funding to help strong trusts to expand into areas most in need of improvement.
Furthermore, students in 16-19 education during the 2024/25 academic year will continue to receive the additional 40 learning hours that the department is funding to help them catch up on the vital teaching and learning they need to progress. It is estimated that the additional hours will support the recovery of approximately one month of lost learning per academic year.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the merits of bringing school improvement within the terms of reference of regular Ofsted inspections.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Ofsted plays an important role within the government’s strategies for accountability and school improvement.
Ofsted is not an improvement agency, but its work encourages improvement through effective inspection. There are several aspects to this, including: the publication of Ofsted’s inspection frameworks and handbooks, which help to set standards and expectations; the engagement and feedback that takes place during inspections; the reporting of strengths and areas that need improvement; and the publication and dissemination of insights gained though inspection, for example through thematic surveys and reports.
Ofsted inspections provide a diagnosis and in some cases may trigger support and intervention mechanisms, but the primary responsibility for improvement rests with schools and trusts, with support and intervention from others where necessary, including through the department’s Regional Directors. This separation of responsibilities is important in maintaining the independence of inspection.
The government’s primary strategy for school and trust improvement is to commission growth in the highest quality trusts, as they have the best levers to secure sustainable improvement and are directly accountable for the performance of their schools. More information about high quality trusts can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commissioning-high-quality-trusts.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the finding by the charity Words Matter that two in five children experience verbal abuse from the adults around them which can cause anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse and suicide; and what steps they are taking in response.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Protection from abuse and neglect is a fundamental right for all children. The government’s priority for all vulnerable children is to keep them safe, protect their welfare and put their best interests at the heart of every decision.
In the department’s Children in Need statistics release, the department publishes data on factors identified at the end of an assessment by children’s social care services. The statistics release for 2023 is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need. Currently, verbal abuse is not defined as a separate category but would fall under emotional abuse. For that reason, the department has not made a specific assessment of the impact of verbal abuse on children, but it is the government’s priority to ensure all children are protected and safe from harm.
Government ministers and departmental officials have ongoing, regular engagement with the Children’s Commissioner and her office on a range of issues, including safeguarding children. The department has also offered to meet with the charity Words Matter to discuss their report in more detail so that the department can take forward any appropriate action to mitigate against the effects of verbal abuse on children and young people. Once departmental officials have met with Words Matter, the department will be in a better position to make a detailed assessment.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what recent discussions they have had with the Children's Commissioner for England regarding the verbal abuse of children by adults; and what plans do they have for measures to tackle such abuse.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Protection from abuse and neglect is a fundamental right for all children. The government’s priority for all vulnerable children is to keep them safe, protect their welfare and put their best interests at the heart of every decision.
In the department’s Children in Need statistics release, the department publishes data on factors identified at the end of an assessment by children’s social care services. The statistics release for 2023 is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need. Currently, verbal abuse is not defined as a separate category but would fall under emotional abuse. For that reason, the department has not made a specific assessment of the impact of verbal abuse on children, but it is the government’s priority to ensure all children are protected and safe from harm.
Government ministers and departmental officials have ongoing, regular engagement with the Children’s Commissioner and her office on a range of issues, including safeguarding children. The department has also offered to meet with the charity Words Matter to discuss their report in more detail so that the department can take forward any appropriate action to mitigate against the effects of verbal abuse on children and young people. Once departmental officials have met with Words Matter, the department will be in a better position to make a detailed assessment.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance, if any, is included as part of the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme for parents on how to speak to their children and awareness of what constitutes verbal abuse.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme provides funding for local authorities to provide services that support parents to care for and interact with their children. This includes programmes on parenting, parent-infant relationships, perinatal mental health and the Home Learning Environment. Funding for parenting support should be used for provision of a universal and targeted offer which helps make the transition to parenthood as smooth as possible and which stresses the importance of sensitive and responsive caregiving. All these services are informed by local needs assessment and should consider the wants and needs of different parents and carers.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance is included, if any, in the Initial Teacher Training content framework on (1) how to speak to children and what constitutes verbal abuse from adults to children, and (2) behaviour management.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework (CCF), alongside the Early Career Framework, sets out the minimum entitlement of training and support for all trainee teachers.
The CCF is underpinned by the Teachers’ Standards (2011), and behaviour management is addressed in High Expectations and Managing Behaviour (S1 and S7 of the CCF). This is in line with Standard 7 of the Teachers’ Standards, which requires teachers to “manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment”. Part Two of the Teachers' Standards requires teachers to ensure that they are “treating pupils with dignity, building relationships rooted in mutual respect, and at all times observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position”.
The CCF has been reviewed with consideration of how to best prepare trainee teachers to support pupils by creating respectful cultures within their classrooms where pupils feel motivated and valued, and highlights the importance of building strong, positive relationships with pupils.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Protect Student Choice campaign Desperate measures: data and the reform of Level 3 qualifications, published in September, which found that at least 155,000 students could be left without a suitable study programme from 2026, given the planned reduction in Applied General Qualifications and slow growth of T levels.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The post-16 qualification reforms are based on three principles: simplifying a complex system difficult for students and employers to navigate, improving progression outcomes, and creating a new, world-class technical offer that meets the needs of employers. These changes are designed to create a ladder of opportunity that young people of all backgrounds can climb.
Despite the report’s premise that removing an existing qualification means students are left without a suitable alternative, students will have a range of options to choose at level 3. This will include large qualifications that can be studied as whole programmes such as T Levels, large Alternative Academic Qualifications (for example in sport or the performing arts), or a newly created large Technical Occupational Entry qualification in a non-T Level route (such as Travel and Tourism). Students will also be able to choose to study A levels, or a mixed study programme comprising of A levels and a small Alternative Academic Qualification or small technical qualifications.
Over 16,000 students have studied all or part of a T Level since their launch in 2020, and the department expects many more young people to benefit in the years to come. We are supporting providers to deliver the additional teaching hours, industry placements and high-quality learning environments needed to make T Levels a success, by increasing the national funding rates for T Levels by 10% for 2023/4 and making £450 million capital funding available alongside a £12 million Employer Support Fund. The department is helping colleges to deliver the additional teaching hours, industry placements and high-quality learning environments needed to make T Levels a success with over £500 million of funding.
For students who aspire to study at level 3 but need additional time and support, the department will fund technical and academic progression qualifications which offer a subject specific focus alongside their study of English and maths. This includes T Level Foundation Qualifications that would be taken in the T Level Foundation Year. The department will also fund large technical occupational entry qualifications at level 2, which will offer broad route-specific content in addition to the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to become occupationally competent and enter the workforce.
The department’s impact assessment for the Level 3 second stage consultation response can be found in the attachment. The assessment estimated that 4% of 16-19 year olds currently studying level 3, may not be able to directly access it in the future.
The department is confident that the new system includes provision for all students. There are currently a wide range of approaches to entry criteria for T Levels amongst colleges, and T Levels will embrace a broader range of young people as they become universally available, with more providers offering the T Level Foundation Year.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they gave to any representations made by the publishing industry in making Oak National Academy resources available on an Open Government Licence without geographical restrictions.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Department published its Full Business Case and Market Impact Assessment setting out the rationale for an intervention by the Government to establish an arm’s length body (ALB) incorporating Oak National Academy (ONA). The ALB supports teachers to teach and enables pupils to access a high quality curriculum, whilst also reducing teacher workload.
Following a review, ONA made the decision to make the majority of its new curricula and teaching resources available on an Open Government Licence (OGL). This decision was informed by an assessment of the implications conducted by ONA’s Accounting Officer.
Under the UK Government Licensing Framework (UKGLF), it is Government policy that Government funded materials will be available on a licence which allows anyone to access them directly. This ensures that the benefit of public funding is maximised, promotes transparency, and enables wider economic and social gain. In making its decision to make new materials available on an OGL, ONA carried out a review which incorporated representations by the publishing industry. These were considered alongside the views of others and Oak’s remit.
The decision to publish Oak’s content on an OGL only applies to the curriculum resources that are currently being developed with Oak’s new curriculum partners, and who have agreed to these terms as part of their contract. OGL does not apply to existing curriculum resources that were transferred at the ALB’s creation.
All of ONA’s new curriculum partners, with whom they are working to develop new high quality curriculum content, were aware of, and agreed to, licensing terms up to and including an OGL. This was confirmed as part of the procurement and contracting process which launched in autumn 2022. Following the decision of the Oak Board to make Oak’s curriculum resources available on an OGL without geo-restrictions, these arrangements were confirmed with Oak’s new curriculum partners.
Under ONA’s founding principles, no individual can make a direct profit from its materials. ONA’s resources continuing to be freely available to all removes the ability for others to make direct profit from its content. The decision of ONA’s Board not to geo-restrict ONA’s new materials is consistent with Government policy on licensing, more generally, and with the founding principles of ONA itself.
Oak’s resources are based on the English National Curriculum and its remit is to support UK teachers and pupils. Oak is not undertaking any activities to promote or grow use of its resources overseas. Oak will continue to monitor international use to ensure it remains minimal and will continue to focus on delivering its objectives in the UK and will not promote its resources abroad.