Education Recovery
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on opening this debate in such a measured way.
I would of course be delighted to arrange meetings with my hon. Friends the Members for North West Durham (Mr Holden) and for Bury South (Christian Wakeford). They are both passionate about education in their constituencies and I would be happy to work with them to tackle the issues that they want to raise with the Government.
Throughout this pandemic, the Government have prioritised education. No child’s long-term prospects should be damaged by this pandemic, which is why we want schools to be open and have, since June 2020, announced a series of measures to help children to catch up. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham was right to highlight the incredible job that teachers have done during the pandemic in their multiple roles, not only teaching remotely and in class but taking on all the other test and trace and covid responsibilities they have taken on.
Raising academic standards for all pupils has, of course, been the unifying vision that has driven education policy since we came into office in 2010. In the estimates debate a year ago, I spoke about closing the disadvantage gap by driving out a culture of low expectation. Between 2011 and 2019, the attainment gap closed by 13% in primary schools and by 9% in secondary schools. Ending the culture of low expectations is key to addressing the concerns raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and his Education Committee in its report on white working-class pupils.
We want all children, regardless of their background, to have the same opportunities and quality of education that children from more advantaged backgrounds take for granted. That is why we attach such importance to the EBacc performance measure, which holds schools to account for the proportion of pupils taking the core academic subjects at GCSE that provide the widest opportunity for progression—English, maths, at least two sciences, a humanity and a foreign language. That is why we are investing in family hubs. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) that, yes, we will be ambitious. That is why we are transforming technical education and strengthening teacher training.
The Government also welcome the Education Committee’s report on adult skills, which are key to supporting the economy and tackling disadvantage. That is more important now than ever, as people live longer and technological changes shake up the jobs market, and as we look to recover from the impact of covid-19. The Government recognise the economic, social and wellbeing benefits of lifelong education and training outlined in the Committee’s report. In September 2020, the Prime Minister announced the lifetime skills guarantee, which will help adults develop new skills and find new opportunities at every stage of their life.
Last year, I spoke about the fact that, when we came into office in 2010, 68% of schools were judged by Ofsted as good or outstanding. Today, that figure is 86%, but there is more to do as we drive forward our plans to level up opportunity throughout the country, tackling the 14% of schools still judged as inadequate and needing to improve.
In 2021-22, the Department for Education’s resource budget is about £89 billion, of which £59.9 billion is for estimate lines relating to early years and schools, £28.4 billion is for estimates relating primarily to post-16 and skills, and £1 billion is for other critical areas, including children’s services and departmental functions. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire was right to emphasise the importance of early years. The Government share that view. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is right that further funding is being provided through the supplementary estimate process.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow asked about the impact of the change of the census date from January to October. He is right that it is £90 million, but pupil premium will increase this year by £60 million, up to £2.5 billion.
Since the early months of the pandemic, we have been addressing the hugely important issue of ensuring that children are able to catch up on education missed during the lockdown period. Although we have spent £400 million on providing 1.3 million laptops and tablets, as well as internet access and advice, and although schools have responded swiftly and effectively in moving the curriculum to be taught remotely, children learn better in a classroom led by their teacher. In June 2020, the Prime Minister announced £1 billion of catch-up funding, £650 million of which was paid directly to schools as catch-up premium, and £350 million of which was for tutoring programmes, including establishing the national tutoring programme, which by the end of this term will have seen 250,000 enrolled, and the establishment of the 16 to 19 tuition fund. In February, we announced a further £700 million of catch-up funding, and in early June an additional £1.4 billion, bringing the total to over £3 billion.
Half of that money is being spent on tutoring programmes, which will mean that five to 19-year-olds will receive up to 100 million hours of tuition by 2024. It is targeted at those who need it most. As we speak, that money is providing a tutoring revolution, which we know from the evidence will have a significant impact on students’ education. No longer will tutoring be the exclusive preserve of families that can afford it.
This is an evidence-based approach that we know will achieve between three and five months’ progress for every pupil who takes one of these 6 million courses.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend will have to forgive me. We all want to get to the football match later.
We are providing £200 million for secondary schools to provide face-to-face summer schools this year, giving pupils access to enrichment activities that they have missed out on during the pandemic. We are investing up to £220 million in our holiday activities and food programmes.
In line with our evidence-based approach, a significant amount of that £3 billion will also be invested in teacher training. Building on a commitment since 2010, through the national professional qualifications and early career framework, we are putting £400 million into supporting teachers with 500,000 places over the next three years to help the profession be the best it can with all the benefits that great teaching has for pupils and catch-up. Some £153 million of that £400 million will provide professional development for early years. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) warmly welcomed that focus on early years, and I welcome his welcome.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow referred to the length of the school day. We are looking at the evidence behind extending the time that children spend at school and the benefits that could deliver, and we will be consulting parents, teachers and pupils about whether to introduce reforms. It would be a big change, which is why we are right to take a short period to review the evidence. That review will be ready in time for the spending review later this year.
We want all children back in school, because that is where they receive the best education. Schools across the country continue to have robust protective measures in place, including regular, twice-weekly testing to break chains of transmission, as well as smaller group bubbles. I reassure the House that we are also taking additional measures in areas where there is a high prevalence of the virus, including increasing the availability of testing for staff, pupils and families, and working with local directors of public health. Absence in schools continues to reflect wider community transmission, and where students have to self-isolate, schools are providing high-quality remote education.
The Government are providing the biggest funding increase for schools in a decade, which will give every school more money for every child. Following an increase of £2.6 billion in 2020-21, we are increasing core schools funding by a further £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared with 2019-20. We have put record funding into high needs, increasing funding for special educational needs and disabilities by £1.5 billion over the last two years, a 24% increase.
During the pandemic, the Government have attached the highest priority to education, schools being the last to close as we tackle the spread of the virus and the first to open as we cautiously travel along the route of the road map. Would my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) like to intervene at this point?
Richard Graham
The Minister is very kind. I was simply going to ask him for a little elucidation on who will decide which pupils get what help, and whether he will share more details with us as soon as possible.
Nick Gibb
All our schemes are targeted towards the disadvantaged, but we also give schools flexibility so that they can use their pupil premium money and covid recovery catch-up money to help those pupils who are in most need. We give flexibility to schools because they know their pupils best.
We continue to progress our education reforms as we seek to level up opportunity across the country. We will continue to drive the academisation programme, which is delivering high academic standards through greater professional autonomy, accompanied by strong accountability. We will continue to ensure that no child suffers long-term damage to their prospects as a result of the pandemic, ensuring that young people move on to the next stage of their education and careers. We will ensure that schools continue to be able to support children in catching up lost education caused by the lockdown. The most vulnerable children are always at the heart of our concerns and central to our policy making and decisions.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call Robert Halfon to wind up briefly.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is important that pupils are well prepared to manage their money, make sound financial decisions and know where to seek further information. Financial education forms part of the citizenship curriculum, which can be taught at all key stages but is compulsory at key stages 3 and 4.
Alex Cunningham
In 2013, the Money and Pensions Service found that our money habits and attitudes towards finance are formed by the age of seven. However, eight years later the Government have still not made financial education compulsory within the primary school curriculum. Does the Minister agree that teaching our children positive saving habits at a young age is vital to their financial futures, and that dormant assets from the savings and investment sector could fund initiatives such as KickStart Money to deliver primary financial education for all?
Nick Gibb
The priority at primary school must be to ensure that all children have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of arithmetic: that they can add, subtract, multiply and divide; that they know their times tables by heart; and that they can add, subtract and multiply fractions. In 2013, the Government introduced a new primary maths curriculum that includes ratio and proportions, that teaches pupils to use percentages and that introduces them to algebra. In year 2, pupils are introduced to the values of our coinage. That is all fundamental to being secure in handling finances and being taught financial education at key stage 3.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Over 1.3 million laptops and tablets and 75,000 4G wireless routers have been distributed to schools and local authorities. We are building on the Department’s significant investment in devices, platforms, training and digital services to develop an evidence-based strategy for the most effective long-term approach to digital technology in education.
Siobhain McDonagh
Before the lockdown, children on the wrong side of the digital divide were already leaving school behind their classmates. Schools closed, and despite the Government’s tech roll-out and the great community effort right across the country, a quarter of children on free school meals did less than one hour’s school work a week. This is not a problem for the past; closing the digital divide will be critical to genuinely levelling up our tech-reliant society. Will the Government support my campaign calling for every child entitled to a free school meal to have internet access and an adequate device at home?
Nick Gibb
I read the joint article in The Times this morning by the hon. Member and my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) about the UNICEF report and her objectives, and I agree with much of what they have both written, particularly about the importance of closing the digital divide. I am grateful for the acknowledgement in that article of the much needed support to disadvantaged children that the provision by this Government of 1.3 million laptops and tablets gave. One should not underestimate the size and scale of that procurement: 1.3 million devices built to order, shipped, configured and delivered to schools and local authorities, all at a time of peak international demand for such computer equipment.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We published guidance in 2020 on the delayed admission of summer-born children to a reception class where that is what parents want. In May, the Secretary of State issued a statement to ensure admissions authorities take these decisions in the best interests of the child, and we will legislate when parliamentary time permits.
Stephen Hammond [V]
I thank my right hon. Friend and the Department for their continuing support for my campaign to recognise the need for summer-born children to have that flexibility. He rightly says that the Department will legislate as and when is appropriate, but can I urge him to speak again to the Treasury to point out that it would be one of the most effective ways of levelling up and creating levelling-up opportunities? Will he meet me to discuss what the Treasury’s response might be and what more can be done to ensure that legislation is brought forward?
Nick Gibb
Yes, of course, I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. Summer-born children who defer entry to school by a year continue of course to be entitled to a childcare place before they start school, so the costs will depend on the number of parents who choose to delay entry and the need for childcare. However, I should say to my hon. Friend that, in the surveys we have been carrying out with local authorities, the vast majority of requests to delay entry and to return to school in reception rather than year 1 are granted by local authorities.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Ministers failed to secure over 90% of the funding called for by Kevan Collins for the catch-up fund, and we have just discovered that 100,000 vulnerable students and disadvantaged students will miss out on the pupil premium because Ministers have failed to secure the funding. Over the weekend, when the Chancellor was asked, he gave the reason why: because he cannot fund every cause that
“comes knocking on my door.”
Do students in this country not deserve a set of Ministers with the skill and determination to get through the front door of the Treasury and come out with the investment that our schools, students and teachers need?
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We have announced a £1.4 billion education recovery package, which is the third announced in the last 12 months, coming on top of £1 billion announced in June 2020 and £700 million announced in February last year. That £1.4 billion will provide an extra £1 billion for tutoring, which will provide up to 100 million hours of tutoring. That is 6 million 15-hour courses for five to 16-year-olds and 2 million 15-hour courses for 16 to 19-year-olds. This is a huge package. We are now reviewing the time aspect of the recommendations made by Sir Kevan, and that will report into the spending review later this year.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. A few moments ago, the Secretary of State—I am sure inadvertently—in answer to me said that he and the Prime Minister had a plan to roll out tutoring to 6 million children across the country. That is an error that was also made last week by the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions. As I am sure the Secretary of State will wish to make clear to the House, the correct figure is 6 million tutoring sessions. That is slightly different.
Catch-up Premium
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Well, here we are again. As I said last week, once again we have heard nothing from Opposition Front Benchers but
“warm words and hot indignation”,
with no serious plan, while
“the Government are getting on with the challenging job of tackling the pandemic, keeping our economy alive, supporting people’s incomes, supporting the NHS and our doctors and nurses, vaccinating the nation, and providing education and support to 8 million children and young people.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2021; Vol. 696, c. 967.]
However, once again I welcome the debate and the opportunity that it provides to set out clearly our commitment and action to ensure that no child will suffer damage to their long-term prospects because of the pandemic.
The motion’s title on the Order Paper is “Allocation of funding for the catch-up premium”. The catch-up premium—£650 million of additional funding for schools—was announced by the Prime Minister in June 2020. It provided £80 per pupil in mainstream schools, both primary and secondary, and three times that rate—£240—for each place in special schools, special units and alternative provision. Even in the early days of the pandemic, the Government knew that closing schools to most pupils would have an impact on children’s education, so alongside the action that we took to secure jobs, support the economy and back the NHS, the catch-up premium ensured that schools could respond to the challenges that children and young people faced.
At the same time, in June last year, we also announced the £350 million national tutoring programme and, with the support of the Education Endowment Foundation, evaluated and procured 33 tutoring organisations to provide one-to-one and small group tuition to disadvantaged and other children who were in need of the kind of support that we know from the evidence is highly effective in helping children to catch up. Establishing the national tutoring programme was a major undertaking and is on track to have helped 250,000 pupils by the end of this academic year. The plans that we announced two weeks ago will extend that to up to 6 million courses of 15 hours of tutoring over the next three years.
I turn to the motion itself, which calls for
“all papers, correspondence and advice”
given to Ministers to be disclosed to the Public Accounts Committee. The Government recognise and respect the fact that this House has rights regarding the publication of any papers, but effective government also relies on some key principles, such as the need for confidential and frank discussions among Ministers, Cabinet Committees and any advisers that the Government appoint to help to improve the quality of policy making.
This is not a partisan issue. It has been the long-standing position of previous Governments, including Labour Governments, that any papers or analyses created for the Cabinet or for Ministers are, rightly, confidential. The motion fundamentally undermines that principle. Tony Blair, in his autobiography “A Journey”, in the section on the Freedom of Information Act, sets out in clear terms that
“governments, like any other organisations, need to be able to debate, discuss and decide issues with a reasonable level of confidentiality. This is not mildly important. It is of the essence. Without the confidentiality, people are inhibited and the consideration of options is limited in a way that isn’t conducive to good decision-making.”
To repeat:
“This is not mildly important. It is of the essence.”
That is why we oppose the motion tabled by the Opposition today. We believe in good government and good decision making.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I am grateful for the plug for the former Prime Minister, who made “education, education, education” a mantra. I was and remain very proud of the difference it made to kids in Bristol South. I accept the Minister’s point about confidentiality, but will address the key questions in the motion? What do the Government think is not good about Sir Kevan’s recommendations, why do the Government not think they need to be funded, and what would be the impact of that decision? If the Government do not want to disclose the documents, we would be happy if we understood what they think about not taking that action.
Nick Gibb
We did take the advice of Sir Kevan Collins, who supported our introduction of more funding for the national tutoring programme and the £400 million to improve the continuing professional development and training of teachers. We set up a review into the time element of the advice that Sir Kevan gave Ministers, which will report later this year in time to inform the spending review.
The House has a number of opportunities to scrutinise the work of the Treasury in oral questions, and the annual supply and appropriation legislation will be debated before the summer recess. There are also regular appearances by Treasury Ministers and officials before the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Committee.
Since the Government came into office in 2010, we have been focused on our mission of raising school standards for all pupils. Successive Prime Ministers and Education Secretaries have put in place ambitious plans to make sure that, no matter where you are born or where in the country you live, you will receive a world-class education. That is not a programme for a single term of Government; nor is it an initiative to get headlines. It is generational reform—long, steady, painstaking and difficult. We have much still to achieve, but we are making progress.
Before we came into Government in 2010, the correlation between parental wealth and pupil achievement was stubbornly entrenched. Children from poorer homes, who were already behind in their development when they started school, were falling further behind their peers. Rather than being an engine of social mobility, our school system was calcifying inequality. For Conservatives, for whom education is the gateway to opportunity, this was unacceptable.
We took bold, decisive action that was opposed all the way by the Opposition, but which has led to better schools and better life chances for young people. We overhauled Labour’s national curriculum, which was unnecessarily bureaucratic and too focused on a range of generic skills rather than rich, subject-based content, and replaced it with a new national curriculum, which provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge they need to be educated citizens, immersing them in the best that has been thought and said. We took action to make sure that teachers got better training, and we introduced the pupil premium to give schools the funding they need to support disadvantaged pupils.
Our reforms are turning the tide, rebuffing the fatalistic assumptions of too many who seemed to accept that the gap between rich and poor is inevitable—the soft bigotry of low expectations, which for years was writing off pupil’s lives rather than striving to give them the education needed to influence their own destiny. Academic standards have been rising and the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils has been closing. Thanks to our reforms, more pupils are taking core academic GCSEs, more children are reading fluently and more children are attending good and outstanding schools.
We have taken action throughout this pandemic to ensure that children are supported, but our commitment to provide a good education for every child pre-dates covid-19 reaching our shores. We produced the best schools budget settlement for many years at the 2019 spending review. Totalling £14.4 billion, that is the largest cash boost for schools in a decade.
Core school funding increased by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, and is increasing by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion in 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively compared with 2019-20, including significant additional funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities. That unrelenting drive to give children and young people the best start in life meant that we were in a better place to handle the unprecedented challenges that the pandemic posed.
We know that the pandemic, as the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) said, has disproportionately affected children, with most missing at least 115 days of school. That is precisely why we took immediate action to provide education remotely, delivering more than 1.3 million laptops or tablets alongside wireless routers and access to free mobile data for disadvantaged families.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the best place for a child has always been in school, and when Opposition Members, and indeed their councils and councillors, were calling for schools not to reopen last year that did a disservice to not only the country but our children, who matter the most, and does he agree that they should apologise for that?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no substitute for pupils being in the classroom with their teachers and friends.
This month, we published a report from Renaissance Learning and the Education Policy Institute, which presented a sobering reminder of the ongoing scale of the recovery challenge. Clearly, there is much work to do and we do not shy away from it, because the Government will always do whatever it takes to support children. That is why schools were the last to close and the first to open in tackling the spread of covid, because we know that getting children back in the classroom is vital to supporting catch up.
That it is why schools have access to both a catch-up and a recovery premium to enable them to assess what will help their pupils to catch up their missed education and to make provision available to ensure that they do so. It comes on top of our £200 million investment in summer schools, which is creating the opportunity for up to 600,000 pupils to take part in educational and enrichment activities. Over 80% of eligible mainstream schools have already signed up and a £220 million investment in the expansion of the holiday activities and food programme, which will operate across England over the summer and Christmas holidays, will provide eligible children with enriching activities and nutritious food.
Owing to the swift action that we took last June, children are already benefiting from the newly established national tutoring programme, with the £1 billion announcement in June last year, a further £700 million announced in February and, two weeks ago, a further recovery package of £1.4 billion. That brings our total recovery package to more than £3 billion. The next stage of our recovery plan will include a review of time spent in school and 16-to-19 education, and the impact that that could have on helping children and young people to catch up. Schools already have the power to set the length of the school day, but there is a certain amount of disparity in approach across the sector. The findings of the review will be set out later in the year to inform the spending review.
We all know what a superb job our teachers and support staff are doing and have done throughout the crisis, supporting and continuing to educate children and young people despite all the challenges that the pandemic has caused. We owe them our gratitude. Our teachers are the single most significant in-school driver of pupil attainment, which is why we have taken steps to give them more support and access to the very best training and professional development. We are investing £400 million to help to provide 500,000 teacher training and development opportunities across the country, alongside the support for those working in early years.
Some £153 million will provide professional development for early years staff, including through new programmes that focus on key areas such as speech and language development for very young children, and £253 million will expand our new teacher development reforms to give school teachers the opportunity to access world-leading training tailored to whatever point they are at in their careers, from new teachers to leaders of school trusts. That is a significant overhaul of teacher development in this country, giving teachers and school leaders the knowledge and skills that they need to help every child to fulfil their potential.
We are determined to ensure that children and young people catch up on the education they missed as a result of the pandemic. We have announced more than £3 billion to date, and the Prime Minister has been clear that there is going to be more coming down the track. We will do what it takes. While the Opposition are chasing papers, we are getting on with the job of reforming England’s education system, empowering teachers to transform lives through a knowledge-rich and rigorous curriculum in calm, disciplined and supportive schools. We want every child to attend a great school. It is a bold, audacious ambition. We have begun the journey. We have made great progress. We have further to go. We will not give up.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The limit is four minutes for Alison McGovern and Robert Halfon, and three minutes from then on. May I ask those who are participating remotely please to have a timing device if you cannot see the one on your screens? We cannot extend it beyond the three minutes because a lot of people want to participate in this debate. Everybody else physically here of course has the timers in the Chamber.
Teacher Training Application System
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The teacher recruitment and retention strategy, published in January 2019, committed to helping people become teachers by introducing a new streamlined application system for postgraduate initial teacher training. This application system, known as the Apply for Teacher Training service (Apply), is easy to use and designed to better meet the needs of potential trainees. The new service also ensures teacher training providers can make accurate decisions on whether their applicants are right for the courses they are offering.
During the October 2019 admissions cycle, this digital service was piloted by a number of school-centred initial teacher training providers and schools across England. In October 2020, the pilot was extended to 11 universities offering initial teacher training courses. The service has been designed and developed based on ongoing feedback from candidates, universities, and schools to ensure it is as efficient and easy to use as possible.
The new Apply service will fully replace the existing UCAS teacher training service from the October 2021 admissions cycle. I have instructed UCAS to decommission its teacher training service and all applications to postgraduate initial teacher training courses in England will be processed through the Department’s new Apply service from October.
[HCWS89]
Investing in Children and Young People
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I welcome this debate and the opportunity that it gives us to set out clearly what we have done and what we plan to do to ensure that no child—no child, Mr Speaker—will suffer damage to their long-term prospects because of the pandemic. As I listened to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talk about vision and ambition, I asked myself, where was she—where was the Labour party—on all the big strategic decisions we have taken since 2010 to transform our education system and drive up academic standards in our schools?
Where was the Labour party in 2010, when we reformed the national curriculum, replacing Labour’s dry, bureaucratic, competence-based curriculum with a curriculum rich in the knowledge that children need to succeed? Where was Labour when we transformed the teaching of reading and introduced the phonics screening check, ensuring that every child is set on the path to becoming a fluent reader? Where was Labour when we extended the academies programme to primary schools and to good and outstanding schools to give them the autonomy to drive up standards even further and to help underperforming schools improve? Where was Labour when we introduced the EBacc performance measure, ensuring that more young people are studying the core academic subjects at GCSE—English, maths, science, history or geography and a foreign language —that are so fundamental to later progress and success?
It is this party’s vision, ambition and actions that, under three Conservative Prime Ministers, have led to the attainment gap between those from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers closing by 13% in primary schools between 2011 and 2019 and by 9% in secondary schools. It is this party’s vision, ambition and actions that have resulted in 86% of schools being judged by Ofsted as good or outstanding, compared with just 68% when we came into office, despite the bar of what makes a good or outstanding school being raised. It is this party’s ambition, vision and actions that have led to this country rising in the international league tables of children’s reading ability—we were up to joint eighth place in the progress in international reading literacy study published in 2016—with nine to 10-year-olds from this country scoring our highest ever results and low-attaining pupils improving the most.
The commitment of Conservatives to educational standards and to the success of our school system was demonstrated clearly when, in 2010, even as we had to tackle the crisis in the public finances after the global financial crisis, school funding was one of just three areas of public spending that were protected from the spending constraints needed at the time to restore confidence in our public finances and our economy. At every stage of this appalling pandemic, it is the commitment of this Conservative Government, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Education Secretary to education standards and to the success of our schools that has meant that we have taken every step possible to protect the education and life chances of young people.
Our commitment to education has been at the core of the Government’s decision making, only closing schools when absolutely necessary and reopening them before any other sector of society and the economy, and ensuring that the most vulnerable children and the children of critical workers have been able to attend school throughout the pandemic. What a debt of gratitude we all owe to the thousands of teachers and support staff who have kept our schools open, even during the darkest days of this pandemic.
In 2019, we secured the biggest school funding settlement in over a decade—a three-year settlement adding £14.4 billion in total to school funding—and we reconfirmed the 2021-22 school funding settlement, even as the Treasury faced enormous bills as we fought the pandemic, while protecting people’s incomes and jobs.
Kate Green
Surely the Minister accepts that the figures he suggests for school funding ignore and overlook the fact that we have seen a real-terms funding cut for schools of 9% over the last 10 years.
Nick Gibb
That is not what the Institute for Fiscal Studies says is the record of our spending on schools once we reach the end of the three-year financial settlement for schools.
When schools were closed to most pupils in March last year, we continued to provide support to pupils eligible for free school meals, even though they were at home, and we extended it to the Easter holiday, to the Whitsun half-term and, with inspiration from Marcus Rashford, to the long summer break. Altogether, over £450 million has been spent through the food voucher scheme. We invested more than £400 million to provide laptops, tablets and internet access, with over 1.3 million computers built to order, imported, configured and delivered to schools, so that every child, regardless of means, could continue to study and be taught while locked down at home. Again, what a debt of gratitude we owe to our teachers, who have developed lessons and learned how to teach remotely and to engage their pupils while confronting their own challenges in working from home.
We supported the inception of the Oak National Academy, helping schools to provide high-quality online lessons. Thanks to the hard work and brilliance of scores of highly talented teachers, that has led to over 94 million views and downloads of those lessons, and Oak will continue to have a critical part to play in helping schools and helping pupils to catch up.
We put in place a system of controls in schools to ensure that as they reopened after the summer, they would be as safe as possible from the spread of the virus. We also provided £139 million to help schools cope with the exceptional costs that they faced during the first lockdown. Again, I thank teachers and support staff for all their hard work last summer to adapt their schools and introduce the new safety measures.
In June 2020, while we were still in lockdown, the Prime Minister announced the first £1 billion commitment to ensuring that pupils were able to catch up: £650 million of catch-up premium and £350 million for a teaching programme—a new initiative to provide private one-to- one or small-group tuition for the children most in need. We created a market. We worked with the Education Endowment Foundation to identify and evaluate the best tutoring companies—33 in all—and asked them to expand their number of tutors. So far, more than 230,000 pupils have been enrolled, and our announcement last week extends that further still to 6 million courses. This is an evidence-based approach that research suggests that could help to boost progress by up to three to five months for every pupil who takes one of those 6 million courses. Combined with our provision through the 16 to 19 tuition fund, it will amount to 100 million hours of tutoring over the next three years.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Would the money not be better spent through the schools themselves? Are teachers not in the best position to identify the pupils who are in the greatest need of additional tuition? Could teachers not work in small groups with children to advance them through the school curriculum, rather than involve outside companies that have no idea of the history of the children or their records?
Nick Gibb
We want to have both. In the package that we announced last week, £579 million is allocated to schools to do just that. They can use that money either to employ local tutors or to free up their own teachers to tutor the pupils who they know need the most help. The idea behind the hon. Gentleman’s exhortation was announced last week.
Tim Farron
I have raised with the Prime Minister the issue of the Government directly commissioning outdoor education centres—of which there are dozens of excellent examples in Cumbria—to make use of their skills and talents to help re-engage young people with a love of learning. It is not about cramming subject-wise. Will the Minister engage with me and Brathay, the charity in my constituency that has written a draft proposal for the Prime Minister, to see whether we can make that a reality in schools right throughout the country, not just in Cumbria?
Nick Gibb
Yes; we share the hon. Gentleman’s ambition. Outdoor education centres are wonderful places, and none are more wonderful, of course, than those in the Lake district, which the hon. Gentleman represents. I would be happy to discuss those issues with him further. He will know that residential courses are now available for schoolchildren as a result of our moving to step 3 of the road map.
In February this year we announced £700 million of funding to extend the tutoring programme, to provide extra funding to schools through the recovery premium, and to fund a summer school programme aimed at year 6 pupils who are about to start secondary school.
But of all the catch-up and education recovery initiatives and funding that we have announced and provided this year and last year, the most important catch-up is happening every day in tens of thousands of classrooms throughout the country. Eight million pupils are back in school—back to the routines and disciplines of study and to being taught by 450,000 highly qualified and committed teachers. That is why the Government have been so determined to reopen schools to all pupils at the earliest, safest moment, and it is why the £400 million of funding for continuing professional development and teacher training is probably the most important element of the package of measures that we announced last week. We are supporting teachers with 500,000 courses over the next three years, helping the profession to be the best that it can be, and supporting the professional development of early years practitioners, with all the benefits that great teaching will bring for pupils and for catch-up.
If having pupils back at school and benefiting from great teaching is key to catch-up, why would not a proposal to extend the time that children spend at school be a highly effective measure to increase attainment and help children to catch up what has been lost during the pandemic? That is why we are reviewing the evidence of the benefits of a longer school day and consulting with parents, teachers and pupils about how and whether to introduce such measures. It would be a big change and would require significant funding and more teachers, which is why we are right to take a short period of time to review the evidence and consult. The review will be ready in time for the spending review later this year.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Minister has been on his feet for over 10 minutes now. Does he share my concern and that of the Disabled Children’s Partnership that disabled children and parent carers have been completely missed out of the Government’s plans for education catch-up? What message does he send to parents of disabled children?
Nick Gibb
I do not accept the hon. Member’s views. We have put disabled children and children with special educational needs absolutely at the core of our decision making. We have enabled vulnerable children to remain in school—in special schools or in mainstream schools—throughout the pandemic. As for all the funding that we have allocated to schools, particularly through the £650 million catch-up premium, three times as much funding per pupil was allocated to children with special educational needs and disabilities through that programme, demonstrating our understanding and concern about those children, in particular, in our school system.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
May I put on record my thanks to the Minister for taking a personal interest in Joseph Leckie Academy? The building is looking absolutely fantastic, and I hope he comes to visit. However, I want to pick him up on funding, because some of my heads in Walsall South do not recognise the extra funding that the Government say they are giving. Many are operating on a deficit. Will he write to me and set out exactly which schools are operating on a deficit and which are operating on a surplus?
Nick Gibb
Yes, I would be delighted to write to the right hon. Member. We know that schools are spending considerable sums during this period. As I have set out, we have all the different funding provisions that we have allocated to schools for catch-up and, indeed, through the exceptional costs fund during the period from March to July. There have been other schemes—when there have been excessive numbers of staff off, for example—in which we have provided funding for schools. Schools that are in serious trouble with their finances will always have recourse to their local authority or to the Department, if they are an academy, to tackle those particular challenges.
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The Minister is right about the importance of face-to-face and in-school education. I welcome a lot of the funding announced for England, but as a Welsh Member of Parliament, I note that our school attendance is the worst in the Union. I implore him to work with the Welsh Government, on the review, the funding and the tutors that he is making available, on a cross-border basis to address this issue. We need to work with the Welsh Government and help them with schemes such as the ones he is announcing today, which we look enviously over the border at.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Will the Minister give way?
Nick Gibb
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I would like to try to conclude my remarks, so that other people can speak.
As we have shown throughout this crisis, the Government are ready to spend to deliver on our commitment to education. We announced £1.4 billion only last week, and as the Prime Minister said then,
“there is going to be more coming down the track, but don’t forget this is a huge amount that we are spending.”
Behind the Opposition’s warm words and hot indignation, there is no substance and no real plan, but the Government are getting on with the challenging job of tackling the pandemic, keeping our economy alive, supporting people’s incomes, supporting the NHS and our doctors and nurses, vaccinating the nation, and providing education and support to 8 million children and young people. Working with tens of thousands of able civil servants and supported by Conservative Back-Bench MPs, we are doing every day what we believe to be right in order to get the country through this crisis. We know that there is more to do, not just to tackle the impact of the pandemic, but to continue to spread the benefits of our reforms since 2010 across the country to ensure that all children are taught an extensive, knowledge-rich curriculum by well-trained teachers in a disciplined and caring environment, with high expectations and where success is rewarded and celebrated. That is our vision, that is our commitment, and that is our ambition.
Mr Speaker
May I remind hon. Members that there is a speaking limit of six minutes for Back Benchers? The countdown clock will be visible on the screens of hon. Members participating virtually and on the screens in the Chamber. For hon. Members participating physically in the Chamber, the usual clock in the Chamber will operate. Is Jeff Smith ready?
Anderson School (Chigwell)
Nick Gibb Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) on securing this important debate about the closure of the Anderson School in Chigwell, an independent school for young people with autism. I have listened very carefully to his powerful speech and will ensure that the very serious points that he makes are taken on board by the Department.
As my hon. Friend said, the Anderson School opened in 2017 and was approved for 55 pupils, aged between 11 and 19, whose special educational needs relate to autism spectrum disorder, but who are of broadly mainstream academic ability. The cost of the site and the building was funded by the Anderson Foundation and gifted to the National Autistic Society. At the Anderson School’s first inspection in May 2018, Ofsted judged the school’s overall effectiveness as requiring improvement, with two independent school standards relating to teaching and to leadership and management not being met. In accordance with the Department’s procedure, the school submitted an action plan to the Department setting out how it was going to address the unmet independent school standards. That plan was not considered acceptable in July 2018, and subsequently a new plan was accepted in December 2018.
In October 2019, the Department commissioned an additional Ofsted inspection to assess progress against the agreed action plan. The school did not meet all the standards expected, with Ofsted reporting that the standards relating to welfare, health and safety of pupils, and leadership and management were not met. A further action plan was submitted, but was deemed not to be acceptable in January 2020. Ofsted undertook a final inspection of the school in March 2020, as my hon. Friend said, and found the school to be inadequate. At that stage, before further regulatory action could be taken, the National Autistic Society announced the closure of the school, effective from the end of the summer 2020 term.
Following a thorough consideration of all the complaints from parents that have been submitted to the Department, the Department concluded that in the main the complaints appear to have been investigated appropriately at local level. Essex County Council has shared with the Department the results of its investigations and most of the complaints received triggered no further action, as they did not meet the appropriate thresholds. The conclusion was that two incidents were considered to have the potential to warrant referral to the Teaching Regulation Agency. That is consistent with Essex County Council’s re-examination of the complaints.
The Department is satisfied that there is no evidence in the complaints that we have seen to suggest that the problems at Anderson School were systemic to the National Autistic Society’s proprietorship rather than localised to the school itself. The National Autistic Society runs seven schools, four of which are independent. Of those, one is rated outstanding, five are rated good, and one is as yet unrated as it opened only in January 2020. Although the National Autistic Society owns the site, it will no longer be the education provider. It is in the process, as my hon. Friend said, of determining who is awarded the lease in line with its charitable obligations. The body that acquires the lease will have to go through all the standard relevant approval mechanisms before opening new education provisions.
I assure my hon. Friend that Department officials have been in regular contact with the National Autistic Society since the decision was taken to close the Anderson School and following representations from Essex County Council about the future of the site, although now that the school has closed the Department’s role is legally very limited. It is for the National Autistic Society to award the lease in a way that is consistent with the law governing charities, planning laws, and agreements with the original provider of the site. In conversations with the National Autistic Society, officials have received assurances that it has sought the necessary technical and legal advice on the process for awarding a lease and has been assured that it was fully in line with charity law and guidance issued by the Charity Commission.
The Department for Education is the regulator of independent schools in England. The Department registers independent schools, it sets the independent schools standards that those schools must meet, and it acts when schools fail to meet those standards. Due diligence checks are carried out on the proposed proprietors of any school; as part of that process, Ofsted is automatically commissioned to inspect the school prior to its opening and to come to a judgment on whether the school is meeting the independent schools standards. That is a rigorous process to ensure that the school meets the statutory requirements set by the Department. All owners of registered independent schools must meet all the standards at all times.
Registered independent schools are inspected on a regular cycle by inspectors from Ofsted or the Independent Schools Inspectorate, and the Department can commission additional inspections—for example, when there is a serious complaint or notification of a serious incident at a school. If the Department considers that any of the standards are not being met by a school, it may issue a notice to the proprietor of the school requiring the production of an action plan. If the school does not submit an action plan, or if the plan is rejected or inadequately implemented, the Department can take enforcement action, which means either imposing a relevant restriction on the proprietor of the school, or removing the school from the register of independent schools. It is always our aim to safeguard the education and wellbeing of children, so where schools do not meet the standards they must improve quickly or face enforcement action, which may result in closure.
Although the Department does not have a claim on the school site or a role in determining which provider the National Autistic Society chooses to award the lease to, I can assure my hon. Friend that the Department is working closely with Essex County Council through new free school provision to ensure that there is suitable and sufficient special educational needs provision in Essex. That includes two proposed free schools specialising in meeting the needs of pupils with autism spectrum disorder—Chatten Free School in Whitham, opening in September 2021, and The Hawthorns in Chelmsford, which is working toward opening in 2022-23. A new independent special educational needs and disabilities provision school opened in April 2021, The Tower School in Epping, which also offers additional places for children with autism spectrum disorder in Essex and the neighbouring area.
I thank my hon. Friend once again for calling this important Adjournment debate. As I said at the start of my response, I will ensure that his concerns and those of other right hon. and hon. Members are reflected on by the Department.
Question put and agreed to.
Schools Condition Funding
Nick Gibb Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Today, I am confirming £1.8 billion of capital funding allocations for financial year 2021-22 to maintain and improve the condition of the school estate in England, as announced at the spending review.
This funding is provided to ensure schools have well maintained facilities to provide students with safe environments that support high-quality education. This funding represents an increase of over 20% on last year’s annual allocations and supports the Government’s priority of ensuring that every child has the opportunity of a place at a good school, whatever their background.
For the financial year 2021-22, this funding includes:
£1.1 billion in school condition allocations for local authorities, large multi-academy trusts, academy sponsors, and dioceses, and other large voluntary aided school groups, to invest in maintaining and improving the condition of their schools.
£0.5 billion available through the condition improvement fund programme for essential maintenance projects at small and stand-alone academy trusts, voluntary aided schools and sixth-form colleges.
£0.2 billion of devolved formula capital allocated directly for schools to spend on capital projects to meet their own priorities.
Figures have been rounded to one decimal place. Full details of the allocations including the funding methodology for financial year 2021-22 have been published on the Department for Education section on the gov.uk website.
[HCWS944]
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
In the absence of statutory assessments, primary schools continue to assess children’s attainment and support the transition to secondary education. Guidance has been published to support secondary schools to determine grades for GCSE, A-levels and AS-levels, as well as vocational and technical qualifications. Students can be assured that grades will be as fair and consistent as possible and that they will be able to move on to the next stage of their education and careers.
Dr Evans [V]
I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I met students from years 11 and 10 and the staff from South Charnwood High School near Markfield. They are very concerned about the assessments not only for this year, but for next year as well. What work is going on to look at future assessments to make sure that what happens is fair not only this year, but next year and subsequently, because those pupils are anxious?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We remain clear that exams are the fairest method of assessment. We know that students at South Charnwood High School and elsewhere will be working hard to prepare for exams in 2022. We continue to monitor the impact of the pandemic, and we will announce our plans to ensure that pupils in years 10 and 12 can be awarded grades safely and fairly in 2022.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Like so many other aspects of the Government’s coronavirus response, the Department for Education’s handling of exams has been a total disaster. Schools are currently grappling with a whole series of challenges that could have been easily avoided if only the Department had planned ahead. Can we finally have the triumph of hope over experience, and the Government learn their lessons from last year’s disaster and the unfolding disaster this year and publish plans for next year so that those exams are not a disaster, too?
Nick Gibb
Given the disruption to children’s education over the past year, it would not be fair for exams to go ahead as normal. On 15 January, 11 days after the decision was taken to cancel exams, we consulted Ofqual on the details of alternative arrangements to ensure that students can be awarded a grade and can move on to the next stage of their lives, despite the fact that we have had to cancel exams. That consultation received more than 100,000 responses. This year’s students taking their GCSEs and A-levels and some vocational and technical qualifications will receive grades determined by their teachers based on a range of evidence, including in-class tests, course work and optional exam board-provided sets of questions. Robust internal and external quality assurance processes are in place to ensure fairness and consistency. We will monitor the position regarding 2022 and we will make a statement then.
Mr Speaker
Order. I say gently to the Minister that that must have been the longest answer. I am sure that he would like to get some other colleagues in.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I will try to be brief, Mr Speaker. In January 2020, the DFE commercial team conducted market research when considering the possibility of undertaking a commercial tender for the provision of solar installations and monitoring in schools. On 14 and 15 January, a two-day supplier surgery was held where officials met a range of organisations, including community energy groups.
Wera Hobhouse [V]
Community energy providers have successfully installed community solar on school roofs for many years, including in my constituency of Bath. This is one of the few remaining community energy models, but the Department’s proposed new framework to centralise procurement threatens to take it away. Will the Minister meet me and representatives of the community energy sector to discuss the impact of these proposals, plus a possible way forward?
Nick Gibb
Yes, of course I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member. The DFE is currently reviewing a variety of options for the most appropriate solutions for schools to assess the relevant supply chains for solar installation, and I look forward to having that discussion soon.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Our overriding objective is to keep covid out of the classroom and keep pupils and staff safe. All decisions will be based on that data, and on scientific and medical advice. Whether or not we continue to advise that face coverings should be worn in secondary school classrooms is subject to step 3 of the road map process, which will happen, as my hon. Friend mentioned, no earlier than 17 May.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) [V]
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con) [V]
Nick Gibb
On 8 April we announced that we are working with 16 colleges in some of the worst conditions, and we expect to announce the outcome of the first FE capital transformation fund bidding round in October. The condition improvement fund 2021-22 application round for schools closed on 14 January, and outcomes will be announced later in the spring.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab) [V]
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab) [V]
Nick Gibb
The essence of our academies programme is about delivering autonomy for schools, and it is that autonomy—the hon. Lady is quite right—that is driving up standards. We have also, since 2014, been addressing the workload issues of schoolteachers up and down the country, and that has proven successful in reducing the number of hours in addition to teaching time that schoolteachers face.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
Nick Gibb
I share my hon. Friend’s concern about this issue, and I pay tribute to him for his work on this matter and that of the APPG. We aim to attract and retain high-skilled, talented individuals, including men, into teaching through effective pay structures and financial incentives, and we have set out plans to increase starting salaries nationally to £30,000. We also intend to retain male teachers in primary schools by offering world-class support and development through the early career framework reforms.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con) [V]
Nick Gibb
We have invested £1.7 billion to help pupils get back on track, including through tutoring. We will continue to monitor the impact of the pandemic on all students, including those due to take their exams in 2022, to ensure that students in this cohort can receive a fair grade. We have appointed Sir Kevan Collins as recovery commissioner, and he is advising on further measures to ensure that all students catch up on the education that they have lost.
Mr Speaker
I am suspending the House for three minutes in order to enable the necessary arrangements to be made for the next business.
High Needs Provision Capital Allocations
Nick Gibb Excerpts(3 years ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
On 9 April, the Department for Education announced £280 million of capital funding to support local authorities to create new places and improve existing provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision (AP). This investment will support our manifesto commitment to deliver more school places for children with complex special educational needs and will help ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive a world-class education, whatever their background.
The funding announced today is for places required for September 2022 and will allow local authorities to invest strategically to ensure they deliver a good quality and appropriate place for every child who needs one. It is on top of the £365 million we invested between 2018 and 2021 to support local authorities to deliver new places for children with education, health and care plans, and the additional places we are creating through our continued investment in new special and AP free schools.
Full details of this announcement, including allocations broken down by local authority and the methodology used to distribute funding, have been published on the Department for Education section on the gov.uk website here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-provision-capital-allocations.
[HCWS909]
Education After Covid-19
Nick Gibb Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your chairing of a debate, Ms Rees. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this short debate, albeit one on a very important subject matter, and the passionate way in which he opened it.
Covid-19 has presented the education system with the educational challenge of the decade. I take this opportunity to thank, once again, all the teachers and support staff for the truly remarkable things they have achieved over the last year, and to echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to the teachers and support staff on the Isle of Wight. I also add my thanks to Brian Pope and Steve Crocker, who have both been working tirelessly with the Department for Education as we tackle the consequences of the pandemic on the island, and, of course, elsewhere in the country.
Our response to this unprecedented situation must be to build on the successful reforms this Government have introduced since coming to power in 2010. Over the last decade, we have worked tirelessly to drive up academic standards for all pupils, especially the most disadvantaged. We want every child to have access to a great school, where they can gain the knowledge, skills and qualifications they need for a prosperous future.
My hon. Friend raised the issue of higher education, and I would be happy to talk further to him about higher education courses on the island, and how they can and should be provided. He also raised digital technology, together with my hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby).
Digital technology has been essential in supporting high-quality remote education during the coronavirus outbreak. In the long term, it also has the potential, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight pointed out, to support teacher workload and flexible working, and to improve pupil outcomes. We are building on the Department’s significant investment in laptops, tablets, training, and digital services, to create a lasting legacy from that investment.
My hon. Friend also asked about teaching school hubs on the Isle of Wight. These are large-scale organisations operating in areas covering, on average, about 250 schools. The Isle of Wight is therefore covered by the hub area that also covers the districts of Eastleigh, Fareham, Gosport, Havant, and Portsmouth, and the teaching school hub lead is Thornden School in Eastleigh, which is an outstanding school.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) raised the important issue of children with special educational needs, and she will know, as she pointed out in her speech, that we have prioritised the most vulnerable children throughout the pandemic, including those with education, health and care plans, and special schools have remained open during that period for vulnerable children.
The hon. Member will also know that the Government have increased high needs funding by £780 million this year and by £730 million next year, so, over the course of two years, we will have raised high needs funding by 24%. The SEND review, which she referred to, is important, and we will publish it in due course. The delay has been caused by the challenges of the pandemic, and we want to get this very important review absolutely right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) raised the important issue of outdoor education and the importance of such activities for a child’s education, development, mental health and wellbeing. The Government continue to work with industry bodies and sector representatives to address the issues arising from the pandemic, and we will help outdoor education centres plan for the safe reintroduction of educational visits and outdoor education in line with the Prime Minister’s road map.
The covid pandemic has presented one of the greatest challenges to our society in recent times. It is undoubtedly true that extended school and college restrictions have had a substantial impact on the education of children and young people, and we are committed to helping pupils make up the education that they missed during the pandemic. In February, the Prime Minister outlined the road map out of lockdown, and reopening schools was one of the first steps on that road map.
We have evidence of the extent of education lost during the covid-19 pandemic, which shows that there is an impact on all children and young people, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight pointed out, those from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds are among the hardest hit. As part of the Renaissance Learning data, on 24 February, we published interim findings based on more than 400,000 assessments taken in the autumn of 2020, which show that in reading, pupils in years 3 to 9 were, on average, between 1.6 months and two months behind where we would have expected them to be.
Emma Hardy
I have a quick question: has the Department done any analysis of how many children are now choosing to home educate, and have not returned to either mainstream or special educational needs schools? It is of considerable concern to me, especially when considering parents of children with SEND.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Member will be pleased to know that attendance is very high in primary and secondary schools since we returned to school on 8 March, and of course, attendance in secondary schools increased over the course of that first week. I will write to her with the details of special schools’ attendance rates, and about the proportion of children with ECHPs and children with a social worker—we have attendance rates for those children as well. Again, the figures are good, but of course, they could always be improved. I will write to her, and we can then discuss further her views about that.
In January 2021, the Prime Minister committed to working with parents, teachers and schools to develop a long-term plan to help schools support pupils to make up their education over the course of this Parliament. As part of this, we appointed Sir Kevan Collins as education recovery commissioner in February to advise on the approach for education recovery and the development of a long-term plan to help pupils make up their education. Last June, we announced a £1 billion catch-up package, including a national tutoring programme and a catch-up premium for the current academic year, and in February 2021, we committed to further funding of £700 million to fund summer schools, expansion of our tutoring programmes, and a recovery premium for the next academic year. That funding will support pupils in early years, in schools and in colleges.
The £1 billion catch-up package for 2020-21 includes a £650 million catch-up premium to support state primary and secondary schools in making up for lost teaching time. The package includes £350 million for the national tutoring programme to deliver one-to-one and small group tuition to hundreds of thousands of pupils, which the evidence says is an effective way of helping disadvantaged children, in particular, to catch up. Building on this £1 billion catch-up package, a further £700 million for the 2021-22 academic year was announced in February, and that includes a one-off £302 million recovery premium and £22 million to scale up well-evidenced programmes, building on the pupil premium. That funding also includes an additional £83 million for the national tutoring programme, and a £102 million extension to the 16 to 19 fund.
Mr Perkins
The Minister has announced many different pots of money. One of the things that really concerns us is that he will allocate money, but these chunks of money will not end up getting spent because the mechanisms, or systems, to get them utilised will end up with those funds not being used. What assurances can he give us that the amounts he is announcing will actually be spent on the things he is announcing they will be spent on?
Nick Gibb
The £650 million, of course, is allocated to schools on a per pupil basis—£80 per pupil—and most of that money has now been distributed. For the £300 million that we announced as part of the £700 million, again, the recovery premium is being allocated to schools on the basis of the pupil premium eligibility in those schools, so that will be allocated to schools to use at their discretion. The national tutoring programme is run by the Education Endowment Foundation, and we have approved 33 tutoring companies: we wanted to make sure that the quality of tutoring was there. So far, 130,000 pupils have been signed up for the programme, but we envisage reaching significantly more—something like three quarters of a million students—in this coming academic year.
Through the get help with technology programme, the Government are investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including making 1.3 million laptops and tablets available for disadvantaged children. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) raised this issue today, as she has done in other debates. She will be aware that we are procuring 1.3 million laptops that have to be built from scratch. They have to be ordered, shipped in, checked and have software added. On top of the 1.3 million that we have acquired and procured, there are the 2.9 million devices in schools ready to be lent to pupils that schools had before the pandemic.
Siobhain McDonagh
The Minister will know that 1 million of those laptops have been distributed. Where is the balance of the 300,000? Where are they right now? How does he address the matter of the 880,000 households that do not have any internet connection, given that only 45,000 MiFis or other routers were provided?
Nick Gibb
Actually, 1.2 million of those computers have already been delivered and the remainder will be delivered before the end of March. The hon. Member will also be aware that we have worked with mobile operator companies to provide free uplift data to disadvantaged families who do not have access to wi-fi in their homes. They can use their mobile phones to get some educational material without paying the hefty charges for data use. We have partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators, as I said, to offer free data, as well as delivering over 70,000 4G wireless routers for pupils without connection at home. The programmes I have outlined are focused on helping the most disadvantaged pupils, targeting them for support.
Alongside those catch-up programmes, we also continue to learn and understand what more is needed to help recover students’ lost education over the course of this Parliament, and we will ensure that support is delivered in a way that works for both young people and the sector.
We are also concentrating on the quality of teaching and making sure that teachers are supported in the early years of their careers through the early career framework. We are transforming the training and professional development that teachers receive at every stage of their careers to create a world-class teacher development curriculum and career offer for our teachers. That is one of the most important things we can do as we support schools in recovering.
Ultimately, the Government want all pupils to make up for the education they lost as a result of the pandemic. We are doing everything in our power to ensure that pupils get the opportunity they deserve to redress the balance. We are absolutely determined as a Government that no child will suffer any damage to their long-term prospects as a consequence of this terrible pandemic that we are all fighting to defeat.
Christina Rees (in the Chair)
Bob Seely, would you like a couple of minutes to sum up?