Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has for future funding of the Adoption Support Fund; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
We are currently finalising the department’s spending plans for 2020-21 and the Adoption Support Fund is being considered as part of this work. In March 2019, ahead of budgets being finalised, we put in place transitional funding for families whose recommended packages of support ran into 2020-21 so they could continue to access therapy for up to 9 months at a time. Funding for the Adoption Support Fund beyond 2021 will be considered as part of the full Spending Review planned in 2020.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that pupils with acquired brain injuries are fully supported in mainstream education.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Teachers must be able to adapt teaching to the needs of all their pupils. Teachers must also have an understanding of the factors that can inhibit learning and how best to overcome them.
The 2015 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice sets out high expectations of schools and colleges about how they identify and meet the needs of pupils with SEND. It covers both those who have Education, Health and Care plans with more complex needs and the much larger group of pupils whose needs can be met without a statutory plan, that is, those on SEND support.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the funding per pupil at (a) primary and ( b) secondary school in Kent in (i) 2018-19 and (ii) 2019-20.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table below shows the per pupil funding allocated to Kent from the schools block of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) in 2018-19 and 2019-20:
| Primary | Secondary |
2018-19 | £3,724 | £4,781 |
2019-20 | £3,793 | £4,941 |
These figures do not include funding allocated through the growth, premises, or mobility factors of the national funding formula, which are not distributed on a per pupil basis but total £28.9 million in Kent in 2018-19, and £29.9 million in 2019-20.
Schools also receive funding through several other sources, such as the high needs block of the DSG, from which Kent was allocated £200.8 million in 2018-19; and the Pupil Premium, through which schools in Kent received £57.7 million in 2018-19.
To provide stability for schools, local authorities will continue to be responsible for designing the distribution of funding in their areas in 2018-19 through to 2020-21. Because of this, the actual per pupil amount that schools receive may be different from the amount they are attracting through the national funding formula.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the value of using recruitment agencies to recruit teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for schools to decide how they recruit their staff but the government wants to help schools do so in the most efficient way possible.
In the manifesto we committed to creating a national teacher vacancy service for schools to publish vacancies, in order to reduce costs and help them find the best teachers. The aim is to reduce both the time schools currently spend on publishing vacancies and the cost of recruiting new teachers. The service will also make it easier for aspiring and current teachers to find jobs quickly and easily.
Dependent on the outcome of our current development phase, we could expect to start building this service in 2018.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the number of graduates taking up teaching positions in infant and primary schools in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of teachers is at an all-time high: there are now 457,300 full time equivalent teachers, up 15,500 from 2010, and 222,400 full time equivalent nursery and primary teachers, up 26,000 from 2010.
We have also recruited more than 32,000 new trainee teachers this year. We have successfully recruited more postgraduate primary trainees than last year – 12,905 up from 11,290 the year before – an increase of 1,615 (14%). In the same period, the primary target also increased by 6% to 12,121, meaning 106% of the primary target was achieved. In addition, we have recruited 595 new entrants to Early Years Initial Teacher Training in academic year 2017 to 2018.
The Government continues to offer a number of generous financial incentives to encourage recruitment of high quality teachers, including the Primary Maths bursary that is available for trainees on a Primary General with Maths or Primary Maths Specialist Initial Teacher Training course.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will remove the 50 per cent faith admissions cap.
Answered by Anne Milton
The proposal to remove the 50% cap on faith admissions in faith free schools is set out in the ‘Schools that work for everyone’ consultation document. The department plans to respond on this in due course.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether there is a formal mechanism by which educational organisations concerned about levels of funding can effectively communicate those concerns to the Department.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department maintains a formal process for individual institutions to share their school funding concerns.
Academies are able to raise concerns with their regional Education and Skills Funding Agency contacts.
Concerns about the finances of individual maintained schools should be raised with their maintaining local authority.
If individual academies or maintained schools have concerns over the local distribution of the funding they should discuss this with their school forum.
At a national level, officials convene regular meetings of the School and Academy Funding Group and its corresponding sub-groups, which have membership from a wide range of organisations representing schools and academies, local authorities, teachers and head teachers, to advise the Department on matters relating to all aspects of school and high needs funding.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that children born prematurely are not disadvantaged by delays to the start their education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The statutory School Admissions Code requires schools to provide for the admission of all children, including those born prematurely, in the September following their fourth birthday. A child reaches compulsory school age on the prescribed day following their fifth birthday, or on their fifth birthday if it falls on a prescribed day. The prescribed days are 31 December, 31 March and 31 August. Parents can defer their child’s admission to school until they reach compulsory school age, or may arrange for them to attend part time until this point, but all children must receive suitable full time education from the point at which they reach compulsory school age.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her assessment is of the adequacy of the funding delivered by the new funding formula for Amherst School, Seal Primary School, Weald Primary School, Riverhead Infants School and Dunton Green Primary School in Sevenoaks.
Answered by Nick Gibb
If the national funding formula were implemented in full, the schools in question would receive the following increases in the funding they attract compared to their baseline, based on 2017-18 data:
Amherst School – 9.7%, or £310 more per pupil
Seal CE Primary School – 8.3%, or £300 more per pupil
Weald Community Primary School – 3.8%, or £142 more per pupil
Riverhead Infants’ School – 3.1%, or £108 more per pupil
Dunton Green Primary School – 8.9%, or £339 more per pupil
For all but one of the above schools, their increases are greater than the national average for primary schools of 3.3%, or £135 per pupil.
Amherst School, Weald Community Primary School and Riverhead Infants’ School will attract their final formula allocation by 2019-20. Seal CE Primary School will attract an increase of 5.2% by 2019-20 and Dunton Green Primary School will attract an increase of 5.0% by 2019-20.
Individual schools’ actual budgets for 2018-19 and 2019-20 will be determined by the local authority, through the local school funding formula.
National funding formula allocations for local authorities and notional allocations for schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs.
Asked by: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) financial and (b) other support her Department provides to schools that do not fill pupil spaces in (i) England and (ii) Kent.
Answered by Nick Gibb
School budgets in England are set using actual pupil numbers from the previous October school census. This lagged approach to funding provides certainty and stability, and means that schools have more lead-time to adjust their plans for any reduced levels of funding caused by falling pupil numbers. Both maintained schools and academies have a responsibility to set a balanced budget. Where schools experience financial difficulties the Department, in respect of academies, and the local authority, in respect of maintained schools, support them to produce a recovery plan. A local authority that wants to operate a falling rolls fund to support good or outstanding maintained schools and academies with falling pupil numbers where numbers will grow again within the next three years can retain funding for that purpose.