Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of (a) mental health and (b) suicide prevention provision in secondary schools.
Answered by David Johnston
Schools are best placed to decide what mental health and wellbeing support to offer to pupils. The department does not collect detailed data on suicide prevention provision in schools, but asks questions about schools’ perceptions of mental health support, as part of its regular omnibus surveys, the results of which are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-college-panel-omnibus-surveys-for-2022-to-2023.
The department is supporting effective whole school approaches to mental health through our commitment to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025. This includes training on how to make sure they are including processes for identifying individuals or groups who need additional mental health support. There are 14,400 settings that have claimed a grant up to 31 August 2023, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools.
To expand access to early mental health support, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to schools and colleges. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 47% of pupils in secondary schools in England. The department is extending coverage of MHSTs to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners in all schools and colleges by the end of this financial year and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
Suicide prevention is part of school and system wide approaches to mental health and wellbeing, where schools should promote good mental health in children, provide a supportive environment for those experiencing problems, and help secure access to more specialist help for those who need it.
Schools can teach older pupils about suicide in an age-appropriate and sensitive way. The Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance advises that schools should approach teaching about self-harm and suicide carefully and should be aware of the risks to pupils from exposure to materials that are instructive rather than preventative, including websites or videos that provide instructions or methods of self-harm or suicide.
To support schools to deliver this content effectively, the department has produced teacher training modules. The mental wellbeing module contains key knowledge and facts to help teachers understand what they must teach, and is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-mental-wellbeing.
The department has started work on the review of the RSHE statutory guidance. Suicide prevention is one of the key subjects that the department will explore as a priority area, and it will work with a range of experts and those with lived experience to do this.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to provide additional funding to schools that temporarily enrol children who are temporarily residing in domestic abuse refuge accommodation.
Answered by David Johnston
The National Funding Formula (NFF) is used by the department to distribute funding fairly, based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. Through the NFF, schools are funded on a lagged system, based on their pupil numbers in the previous October census. The department does not adjust school funding in-year based on the arrival or departure of individual pupils. This helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels and aids their financial planning.
Under the Children Act 1989, local authorities are required to provide services for children in need for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting their welfare. It is important that every local authority have clear criteria for taking action and providing help across the full continuum of need. The Local Safeguarding Children Partnership should agree with the local authority and their partners what services are to be commissioned and delivered so that the right help is given to children at the right time.
In addition to the role played by the police in investigating and intervening, the following agencies have a duty to assist local authorities in their enquiries by providing relevant information and advice if called upon to do so (unless it would be unreasonable, given all the circumstances of the case):
The statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ (2018) is also clear that effective sharing of information between professionals and local agencies is essential for effective identification, assessment and service provision. In the case where a parent may deny the existence of a partner, the social worker should use probing, challenging questions and work closely with other agencies, for example, the police.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to strengthen the training for local authority SEND officers and mediators on helping to ensure that correct decisions are made on education, health and care plans.
Answered by David Johnston
Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) casework teams in local authorities play a vital role in supporting families to navigate the SEND system and ensure they have good experiences.
As set out in the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, the department is considering the skills and training that local authority caseworker teams require and will, following consultation, issue new guidance on delivering a responsive and supportive SEND casework service to families.
The department is also working with the Civil Mediation Council and the College of Mediators to strengthen the professional standards for SEND mediators to help ensure the service they provide is of a high-quality.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the adequacy of the time taken for school admission decisions to be made for pupils temporarily residing in domestic abuse refuges; and if she will take steps with local authorities to reduce that time.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The government has not carried out a recent assessment of the time taken to secure a school place for children living in domestic abuse refuges, but has changed the School Admissions Code in 2021 to improve support for the in-year admission of vulnerable children and help to reduce to a minimum any gaps in their education.
The 2021 Code requires admission authorities to inform parents of the outcome of their in-year application within 15 school days. Where a parent is having difficulty securing a place following the in-year process, each local authority must have a Fair Access Protocol (FAP) which requires an eligible child to be allocated a school place within 20 school days. The government extended eligibility for the FAP in the new Code to children who are living in a refuge or other relevant accommodation.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans to publish the results of the Children's social care: stable homes, built on love consultation.
Answered by David Johnston
The department published ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, an implementation strategy and consultation, setting out plans to reform children’s social care on the 2 February 2023. It set out how the department will help families overcome challenges, keep children safe, and make sure children in care have stable loving homes, long-term loving relationships, and opportunities for a good life. The consultation closed on the 11 May 2023, and a response was published on the 21 September 2023.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to ensure that the re-inspection of schools is carried out by the original assessor where practicable.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to my hon. Friend, the Member for Darlington, and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to ensure that the categorisations used by her Department for collecting data on the ethnicity of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma people are consistent with those used by the Office of National Statistics.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department follows the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and Government Statistical Service (GSS) harmonised standards for collecting and/or presenting statistics. More details about codes, along with information on how the codes were chosen, is available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/ethnic-groups.
The ONS lead cross Government work to harmonise data, including on ethnicity. The Department continues to be part of this ongoing work and will look to introduce any recommendations when they are made. Further information is available at: https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/gss-harmonisation-team-workplan/#ethnicity.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support schools to increase the level of pupil attendance.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has a comprehensive attendance strategy to improve school attendance. Guidance has been published setting out how the Department expects schools, trusts and Local Authorities to work together to improve attendance. This can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1099677/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance.pdf.
The Department’s guidance is clear that schools should develop and maintain a whole school culture that promotes the benefits of high attendance, have a clear school attendance policy and have effective day to day processes in place to follow-up absence. The guidance sets out that schools are expected to rigorously use attendance data to identify patterns of poor attendance, at individual and cohort level, as soon as possible so that all parties can work together to resolve them before they become entrenched. To help schools to do this, the Department has recently launched new functionality which allows mainstream schools that are sharing daily attendance data to compare attendance with other schools within their Local Authority. This can be seen under the ‘compare your attendance tab’ in view your education data, at: https://viewyourdata.education.gov.uk/. The tool will help schools to identify strengths and priorities and signpost to additional guidance and support.
The Department has employed expert attendance advisers who are playing an important role working closely with Local Authorities and a number of multi-academy trusts with higher levels of persistent absence to review their current practice and support them to develop plans to improve. The Department has also recently launched a £2.32 million attendance mentor pilot to deliver intensive one to one support to a group of persistently and severely absent pupils. The pilot will run for three years supporting a total of 1,665 pupils. The findings from this pilot should enable schools, trusts, and Local Authorities to address persistent and severe absence more effectively.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has established an alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care and other relevant services to work together to raise school attendance and reduce persistent absence.
Schools and Local Authorities can also use a range of measures to provide support for and/or sanctions against parents when their child’s irregular attendance in school becomes a problem. These measures are used to reinforce parents’ responsibilities and to support them in improving their child’s attendance at school.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure attendance levels in school recover to pre-covid-19 pandemic levels.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is clear that being in school and ready to study is crucial to pupils’ attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances.
The Department is focusing on supporting pupils to recover from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic through an ambitious multi year programme and almost £5 billion has been made available for education recovery. This funding for education recovery includes up to £1.5 billion on tutoring and nearly £2 billion of direct funding to schools so they can deliver evidence based interventions based on pupil needs. It also includes £400 million on teacher training opportunities, and over £800 million for additional hours in 16-19 education.
In addition, the Department has brought together an Action Alliance of lead professionals from key frontline services that support families. Members from education, health, justice, the third sector and parent organisations have collectively committed to use their roles and organisations to undertake activities to improve attendance.
The Department has also published new ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance which makes clear the importance of addressing the barriers to attendance through strong multi agency working at school, multi academy trust and Local Authority levels.
This guidance intends to ensure greater consistency in the attendance support offered to pupils and families, regardless of where they live, and emphasises the importance of providing attendance support in an earlier and more targeted way to respond to pupils’ individual needs.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the early termination of energy contracts for education providers on the basis of assessments made by suppliers of the credit worthiness of those providers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not hold information centrally about the status of each education provider’s energy contracts. Schools are autonomous and have the freedom to make their own buying decisions based on individual need and circumstances. Schools should conduct their own risk assessment against the specifics of their own contract with their energy supplier.
If a school needs help securing an energy contract, more information on buying guidance and procedures for schools is available online at: www.gov.uk/guidance/get-help-buying-for-schools.