Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Gill Furniss

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Many parents who educate their children at home do so extremely well, but in some cases children are not provided with a suitable education and we have provided support to help local authorities’ engagement with parents who have recently decided to home-educate. We also remain committed to a registration system for children not in school.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the variation in the proportion of top grades awarded for GCSEs and A-levels between (a) private, (b) free and (c) other state schools in 2021.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We saw success this year for young people from all types of school who were aiming for top grades. Every year there are variations between types of school; as I said earlier, before the pandemic we were closing attainment gaps and we will redouble our efforts through our catch-up plans and broader work to level up.

[Gill Furniss]

On this Government’s watch the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students has rocketed. Since 2019 alone, GCSE students on free school meals have fallen behind their peers by almost a third. This adversely affects pupils in my constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, who are significantly more likely to receive free school meals. When will the Minister ditch this empty rhetoric and step up to the plate to resolve the fundamental underlying issues?

[Nick Gibb]

We totally understand the challenges many young people have faced during the pandemic. Up until the pandemic we had closed the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers by 13% in primary school and 9% in secondary school, and the hon. Lady ought to look back at the Labour record we inherited in 2010. We accept, however, the challenges faced by young people during the pandemic, which is why we are committing £3 billion to catch-up funding and introducing a tuition revolution with 100 million hours of small group tuition for young people, because this Government will do everything we can to ensure that children can catch up from any lost education they have suffered during the pandemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Gill Furniss

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My right hon. Friend raises some important points. Of course, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities said, universities are being flexible on entry to universities this year. Schools, colleges and further education colleges are able to provide additional support to students sitting their exams in the autumn if they have the capacity to do so. Schools can also now use their pupil premium funding to support these pupils. The autumn exams are an important backstop to the summer grade process, and we are helping schools to offer them to students by assisting with additional space and invigilators, where required.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of further education college finances.

Department for Education

Debate between Nick Gibb and Gill Furniss

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss]

I said that there would be differences. The nub of the matter is the differences between northern areas where there is an educational divide: resources should be given to make up those differences. They should not be taken away from us, as we are now seeing.

Some of our headteachers are even warning of mass redundancies as a last resort to balance their budgets by 2020. This is not a war-torn country in 1945: this is Sheffield in 2018, and it is simply not fair. The Government’s national funding formula is not working. The Department for Education claimed it would redistribute funding from local authority control, focusing on historically deprived and isolated areas, but schools in pockets of some of the greatest deprivation, which have fought against the odds to improve their funding situation, are suffering the most. Now, after a continual uphill struggle to secure sufficient funding, Sheffield school budgets are being decimated once more.

Some schools in Brightside and Hillsborough are being pushed to the limit. One is predicted to lose a staggering £190,000 by 2020, meaning a reduction in teachers, teaching assistants and other crucial resources. At a time when the Sheffield school-age population has increased by 7% across the decade, which has also led to a greater demand for specialist services and special educational needs, the Government ought to be putting more much-needed resources into the system. They have consistently failed to do so. Instead, they are pumping money into grammar schools—so much for helping the “just about managing”. We need an alternative.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I have been listening patiently to the hon. Lady, but I must tell her that under the national funding formula, schools in Sheffield city will attract 6.6% more funding once the formula is fully implemented. By the way, that compares with a figure of 0.9% for Manchester.

[Gill Furniss]

Well, we have done our figures up north. I am telling the Minister the figures that we have got—and they do not match his.

We know that an alternative is possible. We, on this side of the House, have pledged to reverse the cuts and replace the national funding formula with a fairer funding system; to cap class sizes at 30; to give back control to local councils; to implement an effective accountability framework in schools; and to invest in comprehensive SEN training, ensuring that all staff are able to support the diverse needs of their students.

I am extremely proud of my city and its resilience. Teachers, parents, trade unions, councillors and even the local newspaper have come together to resist these changes; last week a petition was launched by The Star to demand that the Government deliver a fairer funding system for the city’s schools. I will support that and continue to campaign locally as well as nationally to make sure that the voices of my constituents are heard. It is time that the Government stopped imposing a postcode lottery on our children’s education and stopped taking the risk of destroying their chances of success.