Munira Wilson

The department is committed to improving the condition of the school and college estate through the department’s annual funding for the School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) and by fixing the problem of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). The government is funding the removal of RAAC from schools and colleges in England, permanently removing RAAC either through grant funding or the SRP. All schools and colleges confirmed to have RAAC are providing full-time, face-to-face education for all pupils and have suitable mitigations in place.

For schools and colleges receiving grants to permanently remove RAAC, it is for responsible bodies to develop project plans that suit their individual circumstances, drawing on support from the department as needed. The department is encouraging responsible bodies to plan their projects for completion as soon as realistically possible, although settings will need sufficient time in school holidays for works to take place. The department is continuing to support responsible bodies as they take this forward.

All schools in the SRP are prioritised for delivery according to the condition of their buildings, their readiness to proceed and the efficiency of delivery. This includes schools who will have RAAC permanently removed through the SRP. The department also takes into account the suitability and longevity of any temporary accommodation schools may have in place. Expected delivery timeframes have been communicated to all responsible bodies and specific start dates are communicated at least a month in advance of the project entering delivery. Once a school enters delivery, a project team carries out a feasibility study which determines the scope of the works. All schools with confirmed RAAC in SRP are progressing as planned.

Information on 15 hours free childcare entitlements is published in the education provision: children under 5 years of age statistical publication. The publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5/2024.

Data on the number of two-year-olds eligible for the 15 hours free childcare entitlement for working parents is expected to be published in July 2025. An estimated 154,957 disadvantaged 2-year-old were eligible for 15-hours of free childcare in January 2024. Based on analyses of data from various surveys, an estimated 427,000 three and four-year-olds were eligible for the 30-hour entitlement in January 2024.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.

The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. No local authority is currently reporting a sufficiency concern.

Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department will discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed, we support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

Information on 15 hours free childcare entitlements is published in the education provision: children under 5 years of age statistical publication. The publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5/2024.

Data on the number of two-year-olds eligible for the 15 hours free childcare entitlement for working parents is expected to be published in July 2025. An estimated 154,957 disadvantaged 2-year-old were eligible for 15-hours of free childcare in January 2024. Based on analyses of data from various surveys, an estimated 427,000 three and four-year-olds were eligible for the 30-hour entitlement in January 2024.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.

The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. No local authority is currently reporting a sufficiency concern.

Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department will discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed, we support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

Information on closures of state-funded schools, sixth form colleges, vocational colleges and nursery schools is available on the Get Information about Schools (GIAS) website, which can be found here:
https://www.get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Search?SelectedTab=Establishments.

GIAS records a number of different reasons for closure, including closure as a result of amalgamation, closure where a school has been replaced by a successor institution (including academy conversions), as well as outright closure of provision.

The government has committed £1.4 billion to continue the current School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) in 2025/26, reconfirming our commitment to rebuild or refurbish 518 schools and sixth form colleges across England, prioritising delivery based on need. We have handed over 28 projects, refurbished or rebuilt, in the SRP. All schools within the programme are prioritised for delivery according to the condition of their buildings, readiness to proceed, and efficiency of delivery. Expected delivery timeframes have been communicated to all responsible bodies.

Just under half of SRP projects have started various stages of delivery activity. In the next financial year, we plan to increase the number of existing school rebuilding projects on which we will start delivery to 100, from 50 in the 2023/24 financial year and 75 in the 2024/25 financial year, so work can start more quickly.

The factor in schools and colleges that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcomes is high-quality teaching. Ensuring a high-quality teaching workforce is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost life chances for every child. However, this government inherited shortages of qualified teachers across the country as the number of teachers has not kept pace with demographic change. That is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

The department has already made good early progress towards this key pledge, including providing a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools, announcing a £233 million initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle, and confirming targeted retention incentives for shortage subjects worth up to £6,000 after tax.

We have also taken steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing, to support retention and help reestablish teaching as an attractive profession. This includes opportunities for greater flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation and assessment time (PPA) to be undertaken remotely, and making key resources to support wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers​.

​​​​Career changers make a valuable contribution to the teaching profession and the department remains committed to recruiting and supporting them into initial teacher training, including as part of our efforts to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. Our wider offer to all potential teachers, including career changers, supports them through their journey to apply for teacher training and during the critical early years of teaching. This includes the Get Into Teaching service which offers one-to-one support and advice to all candidates, including targeted support for career changers.

We are working with the sector to develop our approach as part of the spending review.

The factor in schools and colleges that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcomes is high-quality teaching. Ensuring a high-quality teaching workforce is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost life chances for every child. However, this government inherited shortages of qualified teachers across the country as the number of teachers has not kept pace with demographic change. That is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

The department has already made good early progress towards this key pledge, including providing a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools, announcing a £233 million initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle, and confirming targeted retention incentives for shortage subjects worth up to £6,000 after tax.

We have also taken steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing, to support retention and help reestablish teaching as an attractive profession. This includes opportunities for greater flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation and assessment time (PPA) to be undertaken remotely, and making key resources to support wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers​.

​​​​Career changers make a valuable contribution to the teaching profession and the department remains committed to recruiting and supporting them into initial teacher training, including as part of our efforts to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. Our wider offer to all potential teachers, including career changers, supports them through their journey to apply for teacher training and during the critical early years of teaching. This includes the Get Into Teaching service which offers one-to-one support and advice to all candidates, including targeted support for career changers.

We are working with the sector to develop our approach as part of the spending review.

The factor in schools and colleges that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcomes is high-quality teaching. Ensuring a high-quality teaching workforce is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost life chances for every child. However, this government inherited shortages of qualified teachers across the country as the number of teachers has not kept pace with demographic change. That is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

The department has already made good early progress towards this key pledge, including providing a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools, announcing a £233 million initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle, and confirming targeted retention incentives for shortage subjects worth up to £6,000 after tax.

We have also taken steps to improve teachers’ workload and wellbeing, to support retention and help reestablish teaching as an attractive profession. This includes opportunities for greater flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation and assessment time (PPA) to be undertaken remotely, and making key resources to support wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers​.

​​​​Career changers make a valuable contribution to the teaching profession and the department remains committed to recruiting and supporting them into initial teacher training, including as part of our efforts to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers. Our wider offer to all potential teachers, including career changers, supports them through their journey to apply for teacher training and during the critical early years of teaching. This includes the Get Into Teaching service which offers one-to-one support and advice to all candidates, including targeted support for career changers.

We are working with the sector to develop our approach as part of the spending review.

Career changers make a valuable contribution to the teaching profession and the department remains committed to recruiting and supporting them into initial teacher training, including as part of our efforts to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

Our wider offer to all potential teachers, including career changers, supports them through their journey to apply for teacher training and during the critical early years of teaching. This includes the Get Into Teaching service, which offers one-to-one support and advice to all candidates, including career changers.

The current contract for the career changers programme will come to its natural end in autumn 2026, with no option to directly renew the contract with Now Teach. The department is currently working with Now Teach to support their exit planning and ensure that the final cohort of trainees complete the programme successfully. We have no plans to reprocure the contract at this stage.

The department has contracts with many organisations in support of teacher recruitment and training and continues to fund and support those organisations in line with the terms of the agreed contracts.

Career changers make a valuable contribution to the teaching profession and the department remains committed to recruiting and supporting them into initial teacher training, including as part of our efforts to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.

Our wider offer to all potential teachers, including career changers, supports them through their journey to apply for teacher training and during the critical early years of teaching. This includes the Get Into Teaching service, which offers one-to-one support and advice to all candidates, including career changers.

The current contract for the career changers programme will come to its natural end in autumn 2026, with no option to directly renew the contract with Now Teach. The department is currently working with Now Teach to support their exit planning and ensure that the final cohort of trainees complete the programme successfully. We have no plans to reprocure the contract at this stage.

The department has contracts with many organisations in support of teacher recruitment and training and continues to fund and support those organisations in line with the terms of the agreed contracts.

Children who need to be deprived of their liberty for their own safety are some of the most vulnerable in our society and we must do all that we can to keep them safe and help them to achieve and thrive. Better models of care are needed to ensure that these children’s needs can be met.

We have commissioned independent research to review emerging provision and will conduct testing in 2025/26 to understand the models of care which provide the best outcomes for these children. We will use these learnings to inform the regulatory requirements for relevant accommodation, to ensure provision meets the needs of this vulnerable cohort of children. As such, we are continuing to consider when we expect to lay the regulations required for this measure to take effect.

There were 20,346 special educational needs co-ordinators employed by state-funded schools in England in November 2023, which is the latest data available.

Information on the school workforce is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.

The review will be driven by evidence as it seeks to deliver an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics, and considers the key knowledge and skills, including digital, needed for future life.

It will also seek to deliver an assessment system that captures the strengths of every child and young person, with the right balance of assessment methods whilst maintaining the important role of examinations.

The review group will publish an interim report in early spring setting out its interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work. The final report with recommendations will be published this autumn. The department will take decisions on what changes to make to assessment and qualifications in light of these recommendations.

The department recently published its latest research on the cost of school uniform, surveying parents and carers of children aged 4 to 16 attending state-funded schools in England. The research report assessed the relative changes to the cost of school uniform since the department’s previous report in 2015. This report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms-survey-2023.

The research found that the average total expenditure on school uniform and physical education (PE) kit, based on the items required in 2023, was £381.92. There were higher levels of expenditure for children in secondary schools, at £442.25, than in primary schools, at £343.28, and within both phases for girls (secondary: £454.31; primary: £357.28) compared to boys (secondary: £430.40; primary: £330.78).

The data was sampled to be representative of the population at primary and secondary level. The sample size was not large enough to make robust comparisons at a regional level.

Too many families still tell us that the cost of school uniform remains a financial burden. ​This is why the department has introduced legislation to limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kit that schools can require to bring down costs for parents and remove barriers from children accessing sport and other school activities. This will give parents more choice in where to purchase uniform and allow them greater flexibility to make the spending decisions that suit their circumstances.

Education Support’s Teacher Wellbeing Index provides an insight into the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and education staff working in the UK.

Ensuring our education workforce are supported is critical to retaining teachers our children need and to deliver high-quality teaching for every child. The department is working in partnership with the sector and mental health experts to improve staff mental health and wellbeing to boost retention. Measures to do so include:

• Continued promotion of the education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out shared commitments to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff in schools and colleges, more than 4,000 schools and colleges have adopted the charter. The charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.
• Funded mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, which includes professional supervision and counselling. With more than 2,500 leaders have benefitted from the support so far. More information can be accessed at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/get-help/help-for-your-staff/wellbeing-services/professional-supervision/.
• Making a range of resources available to help schools prioritise staff wellbeing. For example, the department’s ‘Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff’ service, which was developed alongside school leaders, provides tools to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload and improve staff wellbeing; and guidance to support school leaders and staff to help manage behaviour in schools.

The department knows there are further changes needed to make to ensure the system is most effective for children, schools and staff, and to reset the relationship with the sector.