Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to shorten the school summer 2021 holidays to help students to catch up on learning missed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government recognises the COVID-19 outbreak and associated education restrictions have had an impact on children and young people’s education.
The Government has appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner to oversee the long-term plan. Sir Kevan will engage with parents, pupils and teachers to develop this proposal and review how evidence-based interventions can be used to address the impact the COVID-19 outbreak has had on education. We are considering all options to address lost education to ensure the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is addressed as comprehensively as possible.
Term dates for the current and next academic year have already been set and published by local authorities, governing bodies, and academy trusts, but schools are free to offer summer activities to pupils should they so wish. We are making £200 million available to secondary schools to fund a short summer school, offering a blend of academic teaching and enrichment activities. We are recommending a focus on incoming Year 7 pupils, but schools are free to target those most in need of support.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the guidance on teacher assessments has been made available to teachers of A-Levels and GCSEs.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In light of the increase in COVID-19 rates, the Government has made the decision to limit attendance at schools and colleges to reduce the number of contacts between households. As a result, examinations will not go ahead in the summer as planned.
The Department and Ofqual have launched a two week consultation on how to fairly award all pupils a grade that supports them to progress to the next stage of their lives. The consultation can be accessed from the Ofqual website and will be open until 29 January 2021. We strongly encourage all our stakeholders, including students and their parents, to respond.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has confirmed he wishes teachers to assess the standard at which pupils are performing and thus the grade they should receive. The consultation proposes that teachers will be supported in doing so through training, guidance, and papers to inform assessments. Guidance materials will be made available after the consultation has closed and the detail of the approach is agreed. The consultation also proposes and seeks views on approaches to assessment which will allow teachers to assess pupils’ performance on content they have had an opportunity to study, despite the disruption, whilst continuing to ensure they have sufficient breadth of knowledge to enable them to successfully progress.
The Department recognises the challenges faced by schools, teachers, and pupils, and knows that disruption has been felt differently across the country and between schools and colleges in the same area, and between pupils within individual institutions. In order to support schools to make up for lost learning, the Government has provided a £1 billion catch-up programme. This includes a £650 million catch-up premium for all schools in recognition of the fact that all pupils will have been impacted by disruption to their education. Additionally, the £350 million National Tutoring Programme is an ambitious scheme that will provide additional, targeted tuition support for disadvantaged pupils who need the most help to catch up.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the teacher assessments due to take place in summer 2021 will take into account the effect on students of education missed during 2020 as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In light of the increase in COVID-19 rates, the Government has made the decision to limit attendance at schools and colleges to reduce the number of contacts between households. As a result, examinations will not go ahead in the summer as planned.
The Department and Ofqual have launched a two week consultation on how to fairly award all pupils a grade that supports them to progress to the next stage of their lives. The consultation can be accessed from the Ofqual website and will be open until 29 January 2021. We strongly encourage all our stakeholders, including students and their parents, to respond.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has confirmed he wishes teachers to assess the standard at which pupils are performing and thus the grade they should receive. The consultation proposes that teachers will be supported in doing so through training, guidance, and papers to inform assessments. Guidance materials will be made available after the consultation has closed and the detail of the approach is agreed. The consultation also proposes and seeks views on approaches to assessment which will allow teachers to assess pupils’ performance on content they have had an opportunity to study, despite the disruption, whilst continuing to ensure they have sufficient breadth of knowledge to enable them to successfully progress.
The Department recognises the challenges faced by schools, teachers, and pupils, and knows that disruption has been felt differently across the country and between schools and colleges in the same area, and between pupils within individual institutions. In order to support schools to make up for lost learning, the Government has provided a £1 billion catch-up programme. This includes a £650 million catch-up premium for all schools in recognition of the fact that all pupils will have been impacted by disruption to their education. Additionally, the £350 million National Tutoring Programme is an ambitious scheme that will provide additional, targeted tuition support for disadvantaged pupils who need the most help to catch up.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to update Public Health England guidance in response to the new covid-19 variant; and when that guidance will be available to schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
All evidence suggests that the new variant of concern is more transmissible than previous cases and is now the dominant strain across the country.
However, the data suggests that this effect is broadly uniform across age groups. The new variant does not appear disproportionately more transmissible among children than adults, nor is there any evidence that the new variant is more transmissible in schools than elsewhere in society.
Previous Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) advice has been clear that the measures that reduced transmission of the older variant all continue to apply for the new variant, including those in schools. Those measures are now all the more important.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the recommended maximum class-room size is for (a) primary and (b) secondary schools during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
During this period of national lockdown, schools should only allow vulnerable children and the children of critical workers to attend face-to-face education. Every school will have a different number of children who need to attend. It is important that on site provision is provided for these pupils, there is no limit to the numbers of these pupils who may attend, and schools should not limit attendance of these groups. This is because we are reducing overall social contact across areas and the country rather than individually by each institution.
On 7 January, the Department published further guidance which sets out what all schools will need to do during the COVID-19 outbreak from January 2021. This includes the system of controls which schools must continue adopt to the fullest extent possible to reduce risks in their school and create an inherently safer environment. The guidance is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950510/School_national_restrictions_guidance.pdf.
Schools should continue to minimise contact between individuals and maintain social distancing wherever possible. This can be achieved through keeping groups separate and by maintaining the distance between individuals. Whilst schools are attended by vulnerable children and the children of critical workers only, where possible schools should keep group sizes small. Any additional space available where there are lower numbers of pupils attending should be used wherever possible to maximise the distance between pupils and between staff and other people.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether independent schools are eligible to receive support under the scheme to provide laptops to children to support remote learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
This includes over 700,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to local authority maintained schools, trusts and local authorities by 11 January. Support through this programme does not cover schools that are not state funded.
The Department has delivered 1,980 laptops and tablets directly to Bradford local authority. We have also delivered devices to academy trusts that include schools in Bradford, which are not included in this figure. Data on the number of laptops delivered by parliamentary constituency is not available. This is because most laptops have been delivered to academy trusts and local authorities, which are responsible for distributing them to schools, usually in multiple constituencies.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many laptops (a) were allocated from March to December 2020 and (b) he plans to allocate in 2021, to schools in Bradford West constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
This includes over 700,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to local authority maintained schools, trusts and local authorities by 11 January. Support through this programme does not cover schools that are not state funded.
The Department has delivered 1,980 laptops and tablets directly to Bradford local authority. We have also delivered devices to academy trusts that include schools in Bradford, which are not included in this figure. Data on the number of laptops delivered by parliamentary constituency is not available. This is because most laptops have been delivered to academy trusts and local authorities, which are responsible for distributing them to schools, usually in multiple constituencies.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff in his Department reported their religion as Islam in the latest period for which figures are available; what the reported ethnicity of those staff was; and how many of those staff were employed at each grade.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
As at 30 September 2019, 304 employees reported their religion as Islam.
The reported ethnicity of these employees is included in table a, which has been attached. The reported grade of these employees is included in table b. To prevent the identification of individuals, totals have been rounded to the nearest 10.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of recent changes to pay levels in further education colleges on the ability of such institutions to recruit and retain staff.
Answered by Anne Milton
Further education (FE) colleges are independent of government and are responsible for setting the pay and conditions of their staff, commensurate with their local workforce planning needs. We recognise that the FE sector faces cost pressures, which is why we are looking closely at funding to make sure that the system can support the delivery of sustainable, high-quality education. We have also been actively engaging with FE providers and representative bodies to understand the specific challenges and opportunities for FE teacher recruitment and retention, to see if there is more support we can offer. The forthcoming Spending Review will present an opportunity for us to make the case for investment in the sector.
Asked by: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the level of bullying in schools; and whether there has been an increase in the level of bullying of BAME children in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Harassment or bullying of any kind is completely unacceptable and abhorrent in any setting including schools. All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. Schools have a role in promoting community cohesion and integration and are required to support pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and to promote fundamental British values. This is a priority for the Government and the Department working with the sector to support them in this role, including, for example, encouraging social mixing across schools.
Earlier this year an extension was announced to the Department’s anti-bullying grant programme, which is now providing over £2.8 million of funding between September 2016 and March 2020, to four anti-bullying organisations that support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups such as those with special educational need and disabilities and those who are victims of hate related to bullying, along with a project to report bullying online.
Whilst there is no legal requirement on schools to record and report incidents of bullying the department uses evidence from surveys as an indicator of the prevalence of bullying.
This includes the Department’s omnibus survey of pupils and their parents/carers. The latest report (September 2018[1]) shows an overall reduction in reports of bullying compared to the previous year, with 37% of pupils surveyed reporting being a victim of bullying at least once in the last year, compared to 45% of pupils the previous year.
There was an increase in the proportion of pupils who reported being bullied at least once a month in the last year because of their race, nationality or ethnicity (3%, compared to 1% the previous year).
Other surveys used by the department include Bullying in England - a report based on analysis of the ONS crime survey for England and Wales (published November 2018);[2] and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) 2 (wave 3 published June 2018).[3]
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupils-and-their-parents-or-carers-omnibus-wave-1-survey.
[2].https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bullying-in-england-april-2013-to-march-2018.