Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to encourage pupils to read at breakfast clubs in primary schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department wants to give schools the flexibility to deliver their breakfast club in the way that best meets the needs of their pupils, as well as their parents and local community, and gets the school day off to a strong start.
The non-statutory guidance for early adopters will help schools on how they go further than just the minimum requirements, including ways to incorporate enriching activities into a breakfast club.
The early adopter schools will test and learn how to deliver new breakfast club provision, and the learning from these, including on enrichment, will inform a national rollout.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the guidance entitled The reading framework, published on 10 July 2021, what steps her Department plans to take to help ensure that schools develop a strong reading-for-pleasure culture.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High and rising school standards, with excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics, are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.
We know that reading for pleasure is hugely important and brings a range of benefits. There are a number of strong links between reading for pleasure and attainment. The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study report found a 34 point difference in reading performance between pupils in England who “very much” like reading and pupils who “do not” like reading. Additionally, the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment study found that enjoyment of reading links to pupils’ reading engagement and that reading engagement was strongly positively correlated with reading performance. There is also a strong evidence base linking reading for pleasure to other positive effects, such as improved text comprehension and grammar, increased general knowledge and character development. Wide recreational reading expands pupils’ knowledge about the world and about language, as well as their understanding of subject-specific academic and technical vocabulary.
In recognition of this, the department has implemented a range of measures to support reading for pleasure. The English Hubs programme supports the teaching of phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure with funding continuing and £23 million committed for the 2024/25 academic year to support what is set out in the reading framework. For example, through the Transforming Schools Reading Culture, which is a continuous professional development offer delivered via the English hubs to support reading for pleasure.
The current national curriculum states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people. This is in line with the government’s ambition for a curriculum that delivers excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on adding the collection of school library data to the school census.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
School libraries complement public libraries by giving pupils access to a range of books and other kinds of texts, both in and out of school. The national curriculum states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
There are a number of strong links between reading for pleasure and attainment. For example, the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study report found a 34-point difference in reading performance between pupils in England who “very much” liked reading and pupils who “do not” like reading. Additionally, the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment study found that enjoyment of reading links to pupils’ reading engagement, and that reading engagement was strongly positively correlated with reading performance. There is also a strong evidence base linking reading for pleasure to other positive effects, such as improved text comprehension and grammar, increased general knowledge and character development.
It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils. Headteachers have autonomy to decide how best to spend the core schools funding that is allocated to them by the department. The Autumn Budget 2024 announced an additional £2.3 billion for schools for the 2025/26 financial year, compared to 2024/25, bringing the total core schools budget to almost £63.9 billion in 2025/26. Given this autonomy, the department has no current plans to collect information on the number of school libraries or school librarians as part of the school census.
The government’s reading framework offers non-statutory guidance for teachers and school leaders, including helpful guidance for schools on how to organise their school library, book corner or book stock to make reading accessible and attractive to readers.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps she has taken to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Recent data shows that there are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest number of FTE teachers on record since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and ensuring teachers across England stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department recently announced that the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and head teachers have been accepted in full. This means that teachers and head teachers in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years. The award also delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions in England.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department is also providing a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas (EIAs). The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by the Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Core Content Framework (CCF) and the Early Career Framework (ECF). Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction. The Department is currently reviewing the evidence base of the frameworks to ensure they are informed by the latest developments to provide the best up to date support for teachers at the start of their careers. Further information on the CCF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-core-content-framework and more information on the ECF is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework.
To support teacher retention, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the education staff wellbeing charter. More than 2,800 schools have signed up to the charter so far. The education staff wellbeing charter is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The workload reduction toolkit is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit.
The Department recently announced that it will also convene a workload reduction taskforce to explore how we can go further to support trusts and head teachers to minimise workload.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) occasions that schools in Birmingham, Erdington constituency have screened pupils using metal detectors and (b) weapons that have been recovered as a result of screening pupils in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not collect data on how many schools use screening or how many weapons are collected as a result of screening.
The Department updated its guidance, ‘Searching, screening and confiscation’, in July 2022.
Headteachers are encouraged to consult with local police who may be able to advise on whether installation of screening devices is appropriate. Any weapons that are found as a result of screening or a search must be passed to the police.
Schools are advised that any search for a prohibited item by a member of staff or police officers should be recorded in the school’s safeguarding reporting system. This allows the designated safeguarding lead to identify possible risks and initiate a safeguarding response if required.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support (a) Wilson Stuart School in Erdington and (b) other special academies to cover the costs of higher energy bills to ensure that they do not have to make cuts to other parts of their budget.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is aware schools are facing cost pressures, especially around energy costs. Cost pressures should be seen in the wider context of funding for schools. This government continues to deliver year on year increases to the core schools budget with a £7 billion cash increase in funding by the 2024/25 financial year, compared with the 2021/22 financial year, taking total funding to £56.8 billion by 2024/25. As a result, we can announce that high needs funding for children and young people with complex needs, including funding for the special schools in which many of them are educated, is increasing in the 2022/23 financial year by £1 billion, to a total of £9.1 billion.
Special schools, including Wilson Stuart School, should discuss with the local authorities placing pupils in their schools, how much high needs funding is passed on to them for helping with energy and other cost increases. Birmingham will attract a high needs funding increase of 15.6% per head of their population aged 2 to 18 this year, compared to the previous financial year’s allocation, bringing their total high needs funding allocation in the 2022/23 financial year to £243.5 million.
In addition, all schools can access the department’s schools resource management (SRM) offer. This includes a range of practical tools and information to help schools unlock efficiencies, for example, by saving money on regular purchases and avoiding paying ‘over the odds’ for services like energy, insurance, or recruitment advertising, which they can then reinvest in line with their own priorities.
The SRM offer includes the Get Help Buying for Schools service, which provides specialist support, advice, and guidance for schools around their procurement activity. The service signposts schools to ‘department-recommended’ frameworks for schools and trusts to recommended deals for energy costs and services relating to energy, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buying-for-schools/energy.