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Written Question
Overseas Students: India
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of international students studying in the UK from India in the last 12 months.

Answered by Robert Halfon

Data on the number of international students by country of domicile can be found on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) website here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-from. HESA data is not available for the last 12 months.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of appointments for education, health and care plan assessments.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to assess whether children and young people have Special Educational Needs which require an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. EHC plans must be issued within twenty weeks of the needs assessment commencing so that children and young people can access the support they need. In 2022, there were 114,482 requests for an EHC needs assessment and 72,695 assessments took place. The number of assessments has been increasing year on year since EHC plans were introduced. As of January 2023, 517,049 children and young people have EHC plans.

Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Need and Disabilities (SEND), the department works with them using a range of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses. Stockport is one of a number of local areas where the department is monitoring their EHC plan performance. The department is working with Stockport to improve their EHC plan quality as one of the key actions in the Local Area Partnerships ‘Accelerated Progress Plan’ following their most recent Ofsted Care Quality Commission inspection.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs: Training
Monday 19th February 2024

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of special educational needs training given to teachers and staff at comprehensive schools in Greater Manchester.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department does not perform teacher performance evaluation at the local level. The Teachers’ Standards sets out the minimum level of practice expected of teachers who are awarded qualified teacher status (QTS). To be awarded QTS at the end of Initial Teacher Training (ITT), trainees must demonstrate that they have met all the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. The standards are also used to assess the performance of all teachers with QTS under the School Teachers’ Appraisal Regulations (2012). Therefore, most teachers need to adhere to the standards throughout their careers.

All teachers are teachers of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and the department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND. Consideration of SEND underpins both the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework (ECF), which were both produced with the support of sector experts. ITT courses and ECF-based programmes are designed so that new teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils.

To pass statutory teacher induction, early career teachers must demonstrate that they meet the Teachers' Standards through a formal assessment, signed off by their headteacher and independently checked by their appropriate body. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting ITT partnerships and ECF lead providers in line with published inspection frameworks.

Headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils. To further support the needs of pupils with SEND, particularly in mainstream settings where most of these learners are educated, the department has funded the Universal Services programme. The Universal Services programme, backed by almost £12 million in funding, will help the school and further education (FE) workforce to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND earlier and more effectively.

National Standards will improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of needs, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will include clarifying the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to FE, no matter where they live or what their needs are.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs
Thursday 18th January 2024

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure local authorities have sufficient resources to deliver specialist education services for (a) children and (b) young people with visual impairment.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Specialist education services and provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including those with visual impairment, is funded from local authorities’ high needs budgets. High needs funding will increase to over £10.5 billion in 2024/25 which is an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations.

In December 2023 the department announced local authorities’ allocations of high needs funding through their 2024/25 dedicated schools grant. Stockport Council is due to receive an allocation of over £48 million, which is a cumulative increase of 28% per head through the national funding formula over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help with the costs of delivering specialist education services for children and young people with visual impairment.

To support pupils with visual impairments in school, the department is reforming the system to support all children with SEND, which includes improved support in mainstream schools and securing the supply of specialist teachers trained in sensory impairment.


Written Question
Students: Diabetes
Thursday 11th January 2024

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to provide support for students with diabetes.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Pupils at school with medical conditions should be properly supported so that they have full access to education. In 2014, the government introduced a new duty on schools to support pupils with all medical conditions and has published statutory guidance intended to help governing bodies meet their legal responsibilities. This guidance sets out the arrangements they will be expected to make, based on good practice. Schools should ensure they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and should have policies and processes in place to ensure these can be well managed.

The government encourages all schools to promote healthy eating amongst pupils and provide healthy, tasty and nutritious food and drink. Compliance with the School Food Standards, which restricts foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, is mandatory. It ensures that pupils always have healthy food and drink options available to them while in school, and that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.


Written Question
Schools: Ventilation
Wednesday 13th December 2023

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of ventilation in schools on (a) illness and (b) attendance levels.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The department recognises that letting fresh air into indoor spaces and ensuring they are well ventilated can help remove air that contains virus particles and is important in reducing the spread of airborne illnesses, including flu, Strep A and COVID-19.

A departmental priority is to reduce overall school absence and maximise the number of children who regularly attend school. One way to help achieve this is through maintaining good ventilation which creates a healthy indoor environment for staff and students.

Between September 2021 and April 2023, the department has delivered over 700,000 CO2 monitors to over 45,000 state-funded settings, including early years, further education, childminders operating in groups of four or more, and children’s homes that offer places to six or more. This means that all eligible settings now have an assigned monitor for every teaching and childcare space. The monitors enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping classrooms warm.

Settings that reported high CO2 readings using their monitors were able to apply for department funded air cleaning units, where they met the criteria, to help reduce airborne transmission of illness further. The department has subsequently provided over 9,000 ACUs to over 1,300 settings to help them manage their indoor air quality while longer term remedial work is undertaken to address the underlying ventilation issue.

The department has published guidance with linked resources to help settings understand the need for good ventilation, and how to make the most out of their devices. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-co-monitors-and-air-cleaning-units-in-education-and-care-settings.


Written Question
Education: Stockport
Tuesday 21st November 2023

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to provide additional funding to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council for education services.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

The Central School Services Block (CSSB) funds Local Authorities to carry out central education services on behalf of all pupils in maintained schools and academies. The CSSB funding comprises two distinct parts: funding for ongoing responsibilities and funding for historic commitments. In the 2023/24 financial year, Stockport received a total of £2,019,683 in CSSB funding through the Dedicated Schools Grant and its provisional CSSB allocation for 2024/25 through the National Funding Formula is £1,971,361. Final allocations for 2024/25 will be published as usual in December within the Dedicated Schools Grant.


Written Question
Higher Education and Qualifications: Disability
Friday 17th November 2023

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to higher (a) education and (b) qualifications for people with disabilities.

Answered by Robert Halfon

The Higher Education and Research Act (HERA) 2017 established the Office for Students (OfS) as the regulator for higher education (HE). It has a statutory duty to have regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity in relation to the whole student lifecycle for disadvantaged and traditionally under-represented groups, including not only access, but also student success and progression.

In November 2021, the department issued guidance to the OfS, asking it to refocus the access and participation regime to create a system that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds throughout their education.

All approved providers who are intending to charge fees above the basic amount are required to fully rewrite their Access and Participation Plans (APPs) and to have these in place for September 2025. This work has started, with the first wave of HE providers having already submitted their revised plans to the OfS, to be in place by September 2024.

In March 2023, the OfS launched the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR). This will empower HE providers to deliver interventions for groups of students least likely to experience equal opportunity in HE settings by highlighting 12 key sector risks across the student lifecycle (access, attainment and progression) and the groups most likely to experience these. HE providers will be expected to refer to the EORR when writing their own APPs.

The department works with a range of stakeholders to ensure that it is aware of any issues or barriers which students with disabilities may face.

The department has been working with the Department for Work and Pensions’ to pilot an Access to Work Adjustment planner in Universities. The planner will support on-going discussions and assessments on how to support disabled students and ease the transition from university into employment by reducing the need for repeated health assessments when starting a new job.

The planner will now be rolled out nationally and be offered to students who already receive extra support while studying at university, capturing information about their condition and the adjustments they already benefit from, avoiding repetitive disclosures when it comes to applying for the grant once they start work.


Written Question
Apprentices: Disability
Thursday 16th November 2023

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of disabled people entering into apprenticeships.

Answered by Robert Halfon

Apprenticeships are available for all people of all backgrounds, including people with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD), allowing them to start, progress or to re-train in a variety of industries.

In recent years, the department has seen an improved representation of people who have declared LDD starting apprenticeships, and the department wants this to continue. The department has improved its Find an Apprenticeship service to allow people to identify Disability Confident Employers offering opportunities and ensuring apprenticeships are available to all.

In partnership with the Disability Rights UK, the department launched a Disabled Apprentice Network to provide insight and evidence on how to attract and retain disabled people into apprenticeships. Disability Rights UK published a report to support employers to improve the diversity of their apprenticeship programmes, whilst also highlighting the barriers people may face when undertaking an apprenticeship. In this report, the apprentices identified the opportunity to build confidence, skills and networks with people with different experiences and gain paid work experience as the key points which influenced them towards undertaking an apprenticeship.

To ensure that more people who declare LDD feel confident to undertake apprenticeships, the department has lowered the English and mathematics requirements to apprenticeships for a defined group of individuals with LDD. The department has also introduced British Sign Language (BSL) as an alternative to English Functional Skills for those who have BSL as their first language.

The department is conducting a pilot to consider the evidence used to determine eligibility for flexibilities to existing English and mathematics requirements for apprentices with an LDD. Through the pilot it is anticipated that the department will improve the process by which apprentices with an LDD who require the flexibilities are able to access these.

The department is also conducting a pilot to boost the mentoring offer of providers for apprentices with an LDD. This pilot will test whether offering expert support, advice and training to the people providing mentoring to LDD apprentices results in a positive impact on the cohort, both in terms of satisfaction, as well as broader areas such as retention and achievement for these apprentices.

Furthermore, the department makes £1,000 payments to employers and providers for taking on 16 to 18 year olds, or those aged 19 to 24 with an Education, Health and Care Plan, and also offers £150 per month to help providers make reasonable adjustments for eligible apprentices with special educational needs. Providers can claim additional funding if the cost of support exceeds this rate.


Written Question
Schools: Stockport
Tuesday 26th September 2023

Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the condition of school buildings in Stockport constituency.

Answered by Nick Gibb

It is the responsibility of those who run schools - academy trusts, Local Authorities and voluntary-aided school bodies - to manage the safety and maintenance of their schools and to alert the Department if there is a serious concern with a building. It has always been the case that where the Department is made aware of a building that may pose an immediate risk, immediate action is taken.

The Condition Data Collection (CDC) programme was the first ever comprehensive survey of the school estate. Previous administrations took no such action to understand the condition of the school estate. Running from 2017 to 2019, it allowed the Department to understand the condition of the school estate over time, and to inform capital funding and programmes by providing information on the condition of all 22,000 government funded school buildings and 260 further education (FE) colleges in England.

Individual CDC reports were shared with every school and the academy trusts, Local Authorities and voluntary aided bodies responsible for those schools to help inform their investment plans, alongside their own more detailed condition surveys and safety checks.

The key, high level findings of the condition data collection programme were published in May 2021.

CDC1 data was committed to the House of Commons and House of Lords Libraries on 20 July 2023.

The Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2) programme is currently underway and is visiting all government funded schools in England. CDC2 will update school condition data, concluding in 2026.