Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The accreditation of teacher training providers resulted in 179 very high-quality teacher training providers being accredited. A number failed the accreditation, but we want to ensure consistency of teacher training in our system. In terms of teacher recruitment, there have been challenges with secondary education teacher recruitment this year post covid. Recruitment is a problem right across the economy, not just in teaching, but prior to the covid pandemic we were recruiting near to our targets, and in primary education we exceeded those targets.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

11. What steps she is taking to improve support for children with special educational needs and disabilities and their families.

Educational Settings: Reopening

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend and neighbouring MP in paying tribute to the teachers in his constituency, and if I may, as he is a neighbour, I would like to add my thanks to all the teachers in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for the sterling work that they are doing, as are his teachers, in supporting children during a very challenging period.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

Schools are currently doing a fantastic job of providing remote education and reaching out to vulnerable families, but inevitably some pupils will fall through the cracks. As our 2020 Youth Violence Commission report highlights, the links between young people disengaging from school and an increase in the likelihood of them being victims or perpetrators of serious violence are well established. Until our schools reopen, what extra support can the Minister put in place to ensure that schools are able to support those most at risk?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Member raises an important point. This is why we have kept alternative provision and special schools open, and it is why we keep schools open to vulnerable children to ensure that they are in a school where they can be protected. I share her view that the most important risk factor for young people, leaving aside the pandemic, is not being in school, so we need to do everything we can to help children remain in school in normal times. That is why we want to reopen schools for all pupils as soon as the science allows.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The Government want to ensure that all children get an active start in life and engage in daily physical activity, which is why we launched the school sport and activity action plan last year. We will confirm arrangements for the primary PE and sport premium in the 2020-21 academic year as soon as possible.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]]

As a condition of its funding support for Transport for London, the Government are requiring TfL to withdraw free school travel for under-18s. That will make it even harder to get children and young people back into education, 60% of whom, in London, are from black and minority ethnic communities. Why are the Government so intent on making life harder for my constituents?

[Nick Gibb]

The key is to get more children walking and cycling to school, and using other forms of transport other than public transport, but we are working across Government, with the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to address the necessary transport issues in order to get children back to school in September.

Secondary School Opening Hours

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Monday 11th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on the way he introduced the debate. We can all agree that every child’s experience at school should be a happy one. The Government want them to do well at school and be alert and receptive to what is taught. Clearly, ensuring that teenagers are refreshed and ready to work when they arrive at school is hugely important.

The e-petition states, bluntly, as the hon. Gentleman said:

“School should start at 10am as teenagers are too tired”.

I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) that there is insufficient evidence at present to suggest that allowing teenagers to start school at 10 am across the board would necessarily be beneficial. A timely start to the school day in secondary school helps prepare pupils to enter the world of work after they leave school. Workplaces expect their employees to start and finish work at a set time and to demonstrate the value of hard work and application.

As the hon. Member for Cambridge acknowledged, delaying the start of the school day for teenagers might also cause difficulties for working parents, for example those with younger children at primary school, if start times were different from those for siblings at secondary school and finishing times were correspondingly different. That would present problems for working families, particularly those where both spouses are working.

The Government have high ambitions for all pupils, and we want to encourage and support greater social mobility. We want to ensure that pupils have excellent opportunities to thrive and to excel. There is broad, though not universal, agreement that teenagers generally need more sleep than they currently get, and while some results have shown a benefit from a later start to school, particularly in the United States, where schools typically start significantly earlier than in the United Kingdom, the effects of delaying school start times are as yet unproven here.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk cited research conducted by the University of Surrey and Harvard Medical School in 2017, which found that delaying school start times is unlikely to reduce sleep deprivation in teenagers. The research predicts that turning down the lights in the evening would be much more effective at tackling sleep deprivation. The research went on to say:

“The mathematical model showed that delaying school start times in the UK would not help reduce sleep deprivation. Just as when clocks go back in the autumn, most teenagers’ body clocks would drift even later in response to the later start time, and in a matter of weeks they would find it just as hard to get out of bed. The results did, however, lend some support to delaying school start in the US, where many schools start as early as 7am.”

It continued:

“The mathematical model shows that the problem for adolescents is that their light consumption behaviour interferes with the natural interaction with the environmental clock—getting up late in the morning results in adolescents keeping the lights on until later at night. Having the lights on late delays the biological clock, making it even harder to get up in the morning. The mathematics also suggests that the biological clocks of adolescents are particularly sensitive to the effects of light consumption.”

Finally, it said:

“The model suggests that an alternative remedy to moving school start times in the UK is exposure to bright light during the day, turning the lights down in the evening and off at night.”

A further study, the Teensleep Project, looks at adolescent sleeping patterns and the impact of sleep education on teenage students. Professor Foster from the project says:

“Our pilot study showed that about 25% of teenagers had clinically poor sleep—can we justify late starts when it might only benefit 25% of students? Instead, we must introduce sleep education with parents, teachers and students. We are not ruling out a later school start, but we need a good set of data to show this is having a huge impact on adolescents. Unless later starts are combined with sleep education, it may actually worsen the issue”.

That conclusion tallies very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Henley and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk said.

The Government welcome the chief medical officer’s report into screen time, which was published on 7 February and includes advice on managing screen time and social media use in a sensible and effective way. The report is clear that scientific research is currently insufficiently conclusive to support the chief medical officer’s evidence-based guidelines on optimal amounts of screen use or online activities, such as social media use. However, the report provides advice for parents and carers based on child development research. It includes leaving phones outside the bedroom at night time or taking screen-free meal times, which I am sure that the shadow Minister also does.

We recently consulted on the draft regulations and guidance for relationships education, relationships and sex education and health education. The guidance sets out the content for the subjects, including health and prevention. It says that pupils should know the importance of sufficient, good-quality sleep in promoting good health, and that a lack of sleep can affect their weight, mood and ability to learn. It also sets out that teachers should make sure that pupils are aware of the benefits of physical activity and time spent outdoors, which should be linked to information on the benefits of sufficient sleep and good nutrition.

Good mental health is a priority for the Department and for the Government. It can have a profound impact on the whole of a child’s life, not just their attainment. Schools and colleges have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people by putting in place whole-school approaches tailored to the particular needs of their pupils and students.

The decision on when to start the school day lies with individual schools, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Cambridge. All schools have the flexibility to decide when their school day should start and finish. Most schools start their days at 9 am or earlier. That is not to say that a later start time can never work, and some schools have decided to begin their school day later. Monkseaton High School in North Tyneside trialled a 10 am start, but has since reverted to 8.55 am.

In 2011, we revoked the regulations prescribing the procedure for changing school opening times. Since then, maintained schools and academies have had the autonomy to change their own school opening times. The Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999 require all maintained schools to be open to educate their pupils for at least 380 sessions—190 days—in each school year, with every school day consisting of two sessions separated by a break in the middle of the day. Academies and free schools are not bound by these regulations, but their funding agreements state that the duration of the school day is the responsibility of the trust.

There are no specific legal requirements for how long the school day should be. Governing bodies of maintained schools are responsible for deciding when sessions should begin and end on each school day, the length of each lesson and the timings for the morning sessions, the midday break and afternoon sessions. The governing body has the power to revise the length of the school day as it sees fit. Schools are also responsible for setting the timetable for their school day, and so could, for example, schedule more intellectually challenging subjects later in the day if they decide that that is when their students are more receptive to being taught.

Schools also have the autonomy to extend the length of the school day or offer provision after the end of the school day if they believe that it would be beneficial to their students. Extending the school day, or offering extra education activities around the school day, can help children—particularly from the most disadvantaged backgrounds—to improve attainment and social skills, raise aspiration and help parents with childcare.

We expect schools changing the length of their school day to act reasonably when making those decisions, including by consulting parents, giving parents notice and considering the impact on pupils and teachers, and on parents’ work commitments and childcare options. They should also consider the impact of reducing students’ time in school. Our evidence shows that every extra day of school missed can affect a pupil’s chances of achieving good GCSEs, which has a lasting effect.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge for highlighting this issue. The Government cannot, and should not, insist that schools delay the start time of the day. Schools already have the power to do so themselves, if they feel that it would be in the best interests of their pupils. That is a key point: schools know what is in the best interests of their pupils. They are best placed to make a decision on whether to change the content, structure and duration of their school day to get the best outcomes for their pupils, and they know the individual circumstances of their pupils and of the local area.

We would not want to take away the freedom of any school by requiring them to start the school day at a set time, especially when evidence on delaying school start times in the United Kingdom is, at best, inconclusive.

[Vicky Foxcroft]

I have listened intently to the Minister’s speech, and he is absolutely right about the lack of evidence on delaying start and finish times. However, I mentioned the BMJ research on young people and their likelihood of being stabbed or facing violence, and the lack of evidence around that. Will the Minister commit to getting more research on delaying start and finishing times, to make sure that our kids are kept safe?

[Nick Gibb]

I am interested in the staggered end times of schools, as mentioned in the BMJ research that the hon. Lady cited. That feeds into schools’ autonomy to decide when to start and finish. We trust headteachers to make those decisions, which will be based very much on local circumstances, including when other schools in the area finish for the day and so on. We are always open to more research being conducted on these issues. We certainly want to make sure that children are safe when they leave school and walk home in the evenings.

The focus should be on ensuring that children and young people understand the importance of sleep and how best to get sufficient sleep at night, to enable them to achieve their best.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

That is an example of our taking swift action when an academy or free school is not working—that was why it was closed swiftly. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the future of that site.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

T8. Lewisham has the highest level of hospital admissions in London for self-harm among 10 to 14-year-olds. With an average of three children in each classroom currently suffering from a mental health condition, how long will it be before we see the publication of the promised Green Paper on children’s mental health? When we will see real action backed up by proper funding?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Vicky Foxcroft

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I accept my hon. Friend’s comments. Schools in his constituency will gain about £300,000 of funding overall—a 0.6% increase. On the basis of illustrative figures for 2016-17, 70.6% of schools in his constituency will actually gain funding, compared with 29% that will lose a small amount.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

20. By 2020, the national funding formula will lead to a loss of £339 for every primary pupil and £477 for every secondary pupil. In my constituency, the figures are even higher, with primary schools losing £558 per pupil and secondary schools losing £717 per pupil. How can the Minister justify that when the child poverty level in my constituency is 36%?

[Mr Gibb]

Because the hon. Lady’s constituency will remain one of the highest-funded areas of the country. She is right that the per pupil funding rate in Lewisham, Deptford will fall from £5,708 to £5,550 as a result of the national funding formula, but that is still one of the highest in the country. The prosperity of London as a whole has increased over the past 10 years, with the proportion of children on free school meals falling from 27% to 18%, but it still has some of the highest levels of deprivation. That is why, under the new national funding formula, London’s funding remains 30% higher than the national average.