Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure that children are educated on LGBT issues.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Pupils should receive teaching on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships during their school years.
Through the new subjects of Relationship Education and Relationships and Sex Education, we expect secondary schools to include LGBT content. Primary schools are enabled and encouraged to cover LGBT content if they consider it age appropriate to do so.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to ensure that schools in Fylde constituency benefit from an increase in funding under the new national funding formula.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We are providing an additional £1.3 billion for schools across 2018-19 and 2019-20 to support the introduction of the national funding formula from April next year. Along with the funding we had already committed for schools at the 2015 Spending Review, this will mean the core schools budget rises from just under £41 billion to £43.5 billion by 2020. Full details of the arrangements are set out at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/justine-greening-statement-to-parliament-on-school-funding.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much the Government plans to spend on apprenticeships in the 2017-18 academic year.
Answered by Robert Halfon
We are committed to growing the quality and number of apprenticeships so that even more people have the opportunity to get on in life. That’s why in the 2017-18 academic year, we are making available over £2 billion for apprenticeships.
We are doubling the annual level of spending on apprenticeships between 2010-11 and 2019-20 in cash terms to £2.5billion.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to adequately resource schools to meet the increased demand for school places from new residents of large housing developments in Fylde.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them to do so is one of this Government’s top priorities.
Basic need funding is allocated to local authorities to support them in creating new school places. We use data provided by local authorities to ensure funding is targeted according to levels of need in each area. This Government has committed to investing a further £7 billion to create new school places between 2015 and 2021. Lancashire will receive £46 million of basic need funding from 2015-2018.
Where place pressure is created by future housing developments, we expect local authorities to seek contributions from developers as they are an important way of helping to meet the cost of future places. It is for the local planning authority to negotiate developer contributions through section 106 agreements or Community Infrastructure Levies, and to decide on the local infrastructure needs that this contribution should support.
Asked by: Mark Menzies (Independent - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure high standards of teaching in maths and physics.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are raising standards in mathematics and science. In March 2015 the Prime Minister announced £67m of funding to train an additional 2,500 science and maths teachers and provide subject knowledge enhancement courses for a further 15,000 teachers over the next five years.
Our network of 34 Maths Hubs is helping to improve mathematics teaching through exchanges with Shanghai and the use of high-quality textbooks. The National Science Learning Network and the Stimulating Physics Network are providing high quality training to teachers.