Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has taken steps to implement recommendation 27 on page 260 of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report entitled Equality and Human Rights Monitor, published in November 2023, on the under-performance of boys relative to girls in primary and secondary education.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Raising attainment for all pupils, no matter their gender or background is at the heart of this government’s agenda and the government is committed to providing a world-class education system for all.
The latest data shows that, while girls continue to outperform boys across most headline measures, the gender gap between boys and girls is narrowing.
At key stage 2 in 2022/23, the gender gap between boys and girls at the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics has decreased since 2022 and is the lowest it has been since 2016. Key stage 4 results show the gender gap has narrowed across all headline measures when comparing 2022/23 with both 2018/19 and 2021/22.
The Schools White Paper, published in March 2022, was clear about the direction of travel needed to improve attainment. It set out the department’s long-term vision for a school system that helps every child to fulfil their potential by ensuring that they receive the right support, in the right place, at the right time – founded on achieving world-class literacy and numeracy.
This is supported by significant investment in education with the overall core school budget totalling over £59.6 billion in 2024/25 which is the highest ever level in real terms per pupil. This will help schools in their vital work to close attainment gaps, and level up educational opportunities.
Alongside this, the department takes a range of steps to improve attainment and outcomes for all pupils, including improving the quality of teaching and curriculum resources, strengthening the school system, increasing attendance, and providing targeted support where needed.
The department is aware that disadvantaged pupils and those with additional needs are more likely to fall behind and need extra support to reach their full potential. This is why the department has provided additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium, which will rise to over £2.9 billion in 2024/25, an increase of £80 million from 2023/24.
Programmes such as free school meals that support 2 million children, the Holiday Activities and Food programme, and support for up to 2,700 breakfast clubs also support disadvantaged pupils.
The department continues to collaborate with other government departments to address out-of-school factors that we know have a significant impact on attainment outcomes.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when the new draft guidance for Relationship, Sex, and Health Education will be published.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The department aims to be in a position to publish a draft of the guidance for consultation very shortly so that the new guidance will be available as soon as possible.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that local councils secure the specified special educational provision for children and young people as set out in the Children and Families Act 2014.
Answered by David Johnston
Local authorities are statutorily responsible for securing the special educational provision specified in the Education, Health and Care plans they issue. They must work with schools, colleges, Integrated Care Services, parents and young people to design and deliver a Local Offer of services and provision to meet the Special Educational Needs of their children and young people.
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspect local areas’ Special Educational Needs and Disabilities services. Where inspection identifies significant weaknesses, the department may intervene to require improvement.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to protect Jewish university students from antisemitism at university campuses.
Answered by Robert Halfon
It has been deeply concerning to see a rise in hate towards Jewish people following Hamas's heinous terrorist attacks in Israel. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, and I wrote to Vice Chancellors on 11 October 2023, urging them to respond swiftly to hate-related incidents and actively reassure Jewish students, so they can study without harassment or intimidation. We have also written to school and college leaders in similar terms.
On 23 October, I attended a meeting of the Jewish Community, Crime, Policing and Security Taskforce chaired by the Home Secretary, to discuss how we can crack down on any antisemitism or glorification of terrorism in schools, colleges, and universities. We are very clear; all education settings must take swift and robust action against this unacceptable behaviour.
The department is liaising closely with Community Security Trust, the University Jewish Chaplaincy, the Union of Jewish Students, and higher and further education mission groups. We are very aware of the impact of the evolving conflict on Jewish students and the steps being taken by education providers to support them.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to publish draft guidance for public consultation on the teaching of relationship, health, and sex education in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has brought forward the review of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance, including an independent expert advisory panel, which will advise the Secretary of State on the introduction of age limits for certain subjects. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terms-of-reference-for-review-panel-on-rshe.
The work of the expert panel will inform the public consultation, which will be published in the autumn, prior to publishing revised guidance in 2024.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans to publish draft guidance for schools on sex and gender.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has engaged with a number of stakeholders in relation to developing the guidance for schools and colleges on gender questioning children.
The Department will be undertaking a full public consultation on the draft guidance prior to publication and will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders throughout this process.
It is vital that the guidance published gives clarity for schools and colleges, and reassurance for parents. The Department is taking the necessary time to ensure that it reflects the best possible advice before publishing the draft.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 June 2023 to Question 189737 Primary Education: Boys, whether her Department has produced research on interventions at Key Stage 1 and 2 that have closed attainment gaps in (a) literacy and (b) phonics between boys and girls.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards for all pupils, regardless of gender. English is fundamental to education and provides the skills and knowledge pupils need to communicate with others, both in school and in the wider world. Language in the early years is also associated with long-term employment outcomes. Children with poor vocabulary at age five are more than twice as likely to be unemployed at age 34 as children with good vocabulary, according to research which is available at: https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/1057/eResearch_1057.pdf?sequence=1.
By ensuring high quality systematic synthetic phonics teaching, the Government wants to improve literacy levels to give all children a solid base upon which to build as they progress through school, and help children to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and the Sutton Trust are, together, the Government-designated What Works Centre for Education. The EEF has carried out a comprehensive review of robust studies on the effects of phonics. They found that phonics is more effective on average than other approaches for early reading, when embedded in a rich literacy environment. Phonics approaches have been consistently found to be effective in supporting younger readers to master the basics of reading, with an average impact of an additional four months’ progress.
Since 2010, the Government has accelerated the effective teaching of phonics, by placing it at the heart of the curriculum and introducing the annual phonics screening check in 2012 for pupils at the end of Year 1.
The recent publication of the international literacy study, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021, showed England was among the top scoring countries, coming fourth out of the 43 countries that tested children of the same age. The performance of England’s pupils in PIRLS 2021 remained stable after significant improvements in 2011 and 2016. As well as the overall success, both the gender gap and the gap between the highest and lowest achievers have continued to narrow, driven in the long term by the improvement of the scores of boys and the lowest attainers. Researchers have found that the Phonics Screening Checks (PSC) score was the most significant predictor of PIRLS performance.
In 2018, the Department also launched the £60 million English Hubs Programme to improve the teaching of reading, with a focus on phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. The English Hubs have delivered intensive support to 1,700 schools to date. Departmental analysis shows that partner schools supported by the English Hubs Programme outperformed other schools by around seven percentage points in their PSC.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided guidance to schools on whether they should enter into formal partnerships with Stonewall.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Both the Relationships Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance and the Department’s ‘Political impartiality in schools’ guidance are clear that schools should assess external agencies thoroughly before agreeing to any work with them. This can include challenging or asking for evidence of claims made by external agencies about their work and how this interacts with schools’ legal duties on political impartiality.
All schools should consult with parents on what is to be covered and ensure that they provide examples of the resources that they plan to use. This will give parents an opportunity to understand what will be taught and when, and to clarify how the resources being used will support delivery of the different aspects of the RSHE curriculum. This is particularly important where schools plan to work with external organisation and/or use their materials.
On 31 March, the Secretary of State wrote to all schools to set out that, under current arrangements, schools can and should share curriculum materials with parents. The Department will consider, as part of the review of the RSHE statutory guidance, whether any further changes are needed to reinforce the need for transparency around RSHE materials.
In May, the Secretary of State announced the details of the independent expert advisory panel who will advise on the review of the RSHE curriculum. The panel will provide expert advice to the Secretary of State on what is appropriate to be taught in RSHE and at what age.
It will remain important that schools take full responsibility for ensuring lessons and materials are age appropriate, suitable, and politically impartial, particularly when using materials produced by external organisations.
Oak National Academy, the independent provider of freely available online curriculum and lesson resources, will develop curriculum materials to make sure every school can access high quality, compliant RSHE resources.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has produced research on improving learning for boys at primary school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to improving outcomes and raising attainment for all pupils no matter their gender.
Attainment in the phonics screening check increased significantly for boys and girls between its introduction in 2012 and the last assessments before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. In 2019, 78% of boys and 85% of girls met the expected standard by Year 1 compared to 54% of boys and 62% of girls in 2012. In 2022, following the pandemic, attainment in the phonics screening check was down by 6% for both boys and girls. 72% of boys met the expected standard compared to 79% of girls.
At Key Stage 2, the proportion of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths increased between 2016 and the last assessments before the pandemic in 2019. 65% of pupils met the expected standard in all three subjects in 2019 including 60% of boys and 70% of girls, compared to 53% in 2016 including 50% of boys and 56% of girls. In 2022, following the pandemic, attainment fell among both girls and boys in all subjects except reading; the fall was slightly larger for girls. Girls continue to outperform boys in all subjects except maths.
Outcomes, as measured by international comparison studies, show improvements in key subjects like reading and maths. Most recently, England came fourth out of the 43 countries that tested children of the same age, in the Progress in International Literacy Study (PIRLS), with an average score of 558.
The Department funds and supports research into improving attainment through the Educational Endowment Foundation (EEF), which aims to build a high quality evidence base on ‘what works’ in education practice, as well as supporting schools, colleges and nurseries to access and effectively mobilise this evidence to raise the attainment of disadvantaged two to nineteen year olds. The Department recently re-endowed the EEF with £137 million in 2022 to continue to build the evidence base until at least 2032. This funding will cement the EEF’s role as a central, long term feature of the education landscape for at least the next decade.
The Department also continues to invest in programmes that contribute to primary pupils’ education attainment:
- In 2018, the Department launched its English Hubs Programme to improve the teaching of reading with a focus on phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure.
- The Government has also transformed the way maths is taught in schools based on the best available international evidence, including approaches from the highest performing countries in the world. Reform of the mathematics curriculum was accompanied by the introduction of a National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, which is now working with a network of 40 maths hubs to help local schools improve the quality of their teaching through the £100 million Teaching for Mastery programme.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to ensure that the Independent Advisory Panel for the DfE Review of the RSHE Statutory Guidance engages adequately with (a) schools and (b) parents as set out in the terms of reference published on 31 May 2023, in the context of the announcement that it will conclude its work by September 2023 and of the school summer holidays which will take place from late July to September.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is providing dedicated secretariat support to service all aspects of the Panel’s work, including the identification of further experts and stakeholders for the Panel to engage with. The Department expects the Panel to report back regularly.
The Department expects that any engagement with schools undertaken by the Panel will be prioritised to ensure relevant activity takes place before the school holidays. The Department has already engaged with parent groups as part of the review and will facilitate their engagement with the Panel.
The terms of reference stipulate that the Panel will identify the topics within the relationships, sex and health education curriculum which would benefit from age limits. The Panel will bring together expertise on health, teaching, curriculum development, and safeguarding. It will advise on the application of suitable age limits for some topics to ensure pupils are protected from inappropriate concepts they are too young to understand. In doing so, it will draw on wider expertise on specific matters. The Panel will be independent and make its own recommendations to the Secretary of State for Education on age restrictions, including whether some topics are unsuitable. It will be for the Panel to determine what topics they wish to look at and whether they deem further work is necessary.