Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the University of Manchester's blog entitled Addressing the UK’s heritage skills crisis: why we must act now, published on 23 January 2025, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including (a) heritage skills and (b) the Sloyd method in the national curriculum.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The national curriculum focuses on the key knowledge that must be taught to children aged 5 to 16 years-old in maintained schools. The national curriculum provides a broad framework which ensures schools have flexibility to organise the content and delivery of the curriculum to meet the needs of their pupils.
The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.
The Review seeks to deliver a curriculum that ensures children and young people leave compulsory education ready for life and ready for work, building the knowledge, skills and attributes needed to thrive.
The Review Group has now published a well-evidenced, clear interim report, which sets out its interim findings and confirms the key areas for further work. This highlights the successes of the current system, making clear that the most trusted and valued aspects of our system will remain, whilst setting a positive vision for the future. The report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report.
The government will consider any changes it wishes to make to curriculum, assessment and qualifications whilst the Review is conducted, and will respond to the final recommendations in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to increase recruitment in SEND services.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department knows that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) frequently require access to additional support from a broad specialist workforce across education, health and care, including speech and language therapy and educational psychologists.
This is why the department introduced the speech and language degree apprenticeship, which is now in its third year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.
The department is working closely with NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with SEND.
The department is also investing a further £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, in addition to the £10 million currently being invested in the training of over 200 educational psychologists, who began their training in September 2023.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that funding for early years services meets the financial needs of providers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has been clear in our commitment to the early years as our number one priority. It is our ambition that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, improving the life chances for every child and the work choices for every parent. That also means ensuring the sector is financially sustainable and confident as it continues to deliver the entitlements and high-quality early years provision going forward.
That is why, despite tough decisions to get our public finances back on track, the department is continuing to prioritise and invest, supporting early education and childcare providers with the costs they face.
In the 2025/26 financial year alone, this government plans to spend over £8 billion on early years entitlements and we announced the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45%, compared to 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. On top of this we are providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant to support the sector as they prepare to deliver the final phase of expanded childcare entitlements from September 2025, recognising the significant level of expansion needed and the effort and planning this will require.
We are also providing £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in the early years.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to utilise (a) audiobooks and (b) audio resources in the Curriculum and Assessment Review.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review will support the innovation and professionalism of teachers, enabling them to adapt how they teach the curriculum to their students’ lives.
The Review Group will publish an interim report in early spring setting out its interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work, and publish its final report with recommendations this autumn.
The department respects the autonomy of teachers in terms of what resources they choose to use or recommend to their individual pupils, based on individual need in their own educational context and circumstances.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve educational opportunities for young people in the Forest of Dean.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Through our work to deliver the Opportunity Mission, the department will improve opportunities and life chances across the country, including for young people in the Forest of Dean, breaking the unfair link between background and success.
The department is committed to helping all young people to achieve and thrive at school and to build skills for opportunity and growth, ensuring that every young person can follow the pathway that is right for them.
High and rising standards in every school are at the heart of this mission. The department aims to deliver these improvements through excellent teaching and leadership, a high- quality curriculum and a system which removes the barriers to learning that hold too many children back.
As one of our first steps for change, the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. Additionally, we have launched an independent, expert-led Curriculum and Assessment Review which seeks to deliver an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths. The Review also seeks to deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative, readying young people for life and work, reflecting the diversities of our society.
The department has also introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to give every family the certainty that they will be able to access a good local school for their child, where they can achieve and thrive, regardless of where they live.
The government is developing a comprehensive strategy for post‐16 education and skills, to break down barriers to opportunity, support the development of a skilled workforce in all areas, including the Forest of Dean, and drive economic growth through our Industrial Strategy.
This includes the establishment of Skills England to ensure we have the highly trained workforce needed to deliver the national, regional and local skills needs of the next decade. It will ensure that the skills system is clear and navigable for individuals, for both young people and older adults, strengthening careers pathways into jobs across the economy.
The Forest of Dean benefits from colleges such as Hartpury College, which is delivering £16.7 million of FE and skills provision. The college is delivering T Levels in agriculture related subjects.
The Autumn Budget 2024 provided an additional £300 million revenue funding for further education (FE) for the 2025/26 financial year to ensure young people are developing the skills this country needs. £50 million of this funding has been made available to FE colleges and sixth-form colleges for the period April to July 2025. This one-off grant will enable colleges, such as Hartpury College, to respond to current priorities and challenges, including workforce recruitment and retention. Schools and academies will also continue to get grant funding for their 16 to 19 provision over this period.
Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) support the department’s long term priority to drive local economic growth by reshaping the skills system to better align provision of post-16 technical education and training with local labour market needs.
The Gloucestershire LSIP, which includes the Forest of Dean, recognises local challenges, such as the net exportation of young people and a declining working-age population, and identifies key skills needs in priority local sectors, including agriculture, agritech and land management, construction, and digital industries. The plan proposes a range of actions to resolve issues, such as enhancing careers advice for young people in education and developing new provision through quality apprenticeships, T Levels and full time 16 to 19 study programmes, as well as via routes including Boot Camps and adult education budget programmes. The LSIP also advocates better signposting and guidance for employers to increase awareness of local existing provision which may already meet skills needs.
The department is developing new foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door at the start of their working lives whilst supporting the pipeline of new talent that employers will need to drive economic growth and could benefit young people in the Forest of Dean. This signals an important step towards realising a youth guarantee, which brings together a range of existing and new entitlements and provision so that 18 to 21-year-olds can access training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work in England. The department and the Department for Work and Pensions are developing the guarantee with mayoral authorities to provide local, tailored support and will work with local areas on future expansion.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of SEND funding allocations on children in kinship care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the importance of children in kinship care getting the support they need to thrive in school. Where children have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the department would expect them to receive appropriate support from their school and, for those with complex SEND, also from the relevant local authority.
Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of almost £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion.
In addition, since September 2024, the role of virtual school heads (VSH) has been expanded to include championing the education, attendance, and attainment of children in kinship care, ensuring that more children in kinship care receive the help they need to thrive at school.
The department anticipates all children in kinship arrangements, which is estimated to be over 130,000, will benefit from the adaptation of the strategic VSH role.
This could include ensuring different kinds of kinship arrangements are visible in training for schools and working with education settings to strengthen how they address barriers to educational progress for kinship children.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage reading for pleasure by (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Forest of Dean to the answer of 16 December 2024 to Question 19139.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what funding mechanisms she is considering to support primary schools in (a) installing and (b) maintaining library facilities.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Forest of Dean to the answer of 7 January 2025 to Question 21170.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to (a) renew the and (b) extend eligibility for kinship families to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We will shortly be finalising business planning decisions on how we will allocate the department’s budget for the next financial year. All decisions regarding the adoption and special guardianship support fund are being made as part of these discussions.
An announcement will be made as soon as possible.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending eligibility for Pupil Premium Plus to (a) children who have not been looked after and (b) other children in kinship care.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is providing over £2.9 billion of pupil premium funding in 2024/25 to improve the educational outcomes of disadvantaged pupils in England.
The criteria for pupil premium eligibility are:
The portion of funding for looked after children and previously looked after children is often referred to as pupil premium plus and these pupils attract funding at a higher rate.
Pupil premium is not a personal budget for individual pupils and schools do not have to spend this funding so that it solely benefits pupils who meet the funding criteria. Schools can direct spending where the need is greatest, including to pupils with other identified needs, such as children in kinship care. Schools can also use pupil premium on whole class approaches that will benefit all pupils such as, for example, on high-quality teaching.
The department will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that support is targeted at those who most need it.