Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding his Department has provided to schools to improve classroom ventilation since January 2021.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has not provided specific additional funding for schools to improve classroom ventilation since January 2021.
The Department provided additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover unavoidable costs incurred between March and July 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak that could not be met from their budgets. This funding was targeted towards the costs that we identified as the biggest barrier to schools operating as they needed to. It covered claims for the premises costs of staying open over Easter and summer half term holidays, support for free school meals, and additional cleaning costs.
Schools have continued to receive their core funding throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, regardless of any periods of full or partial closure. This financial year marks the second year of the Department’s investment of £14.4 billion in total over the three years to 2022/23, compared to 2019/20. This is the biggest increase in a decade.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to answer of 29 June 2021 to Question 21978 on National Tutoring Programme, how many and what proportion of the 234,000 pupils enrolled in the National Tutoring Programme are in each local authority.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) provides additional, targeted support to disadvantaged pupils by providing schools with access to high quality, subsidised tuition from a selection of approved Tuition Partners.
Since its launch in November 2020, over 234,000 pupils have enrolled to receive tutoring and, of those enrolled, over 186,000 pupils have already commenced tutoring. The Department does not have information on the split of the 234,000 pupils who have enrolled on the NTP at local authority level.
The programme ensures that additional support has been allocated to regions with the largest numbers of disadvantaged pupils and in regions where access to tutoring has been historically lower.
The NTP is led by demand by schools, and the Department has undertaken a range of activities with schools to ensure maximum awareness within the sector and to encourage schools to sign up to the programme. We are engaging directly with school leaders, local networks of schools, and national stakeholders to ensure that the NTP reaches as many disadvantaged pupils as possible. We will continue focusing on those areas with the most disadvantaged pupils, and where we would like to see more schools take up the opportunity.
Building on the successful first year of the programme, we aim to reach 750,000 disadvantaged pupils during the academic year 2021/22.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money has been provided to schools for art materials in each of the last 10 calendar years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is delivering the largest cash boost for schools in a decade. Core school funding increased by £2.6 billion in the 2020/21 financial year and is increasing by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion in the 2021/22 and the 2022/23 financial years respectively, compared to 2019/20. In 2021/22, mainstream school funding is increasing by 3.5% overall.
The National Funding Formula (NFF) continues to distribute this funding fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts. It is for head teachers to decide how they use their core funding distributed through the NFF, and no separate allocation is made specifically for arts materials.
This Government values the arts and supports the creative arts throughout the education system. Alongside funding for schools, the Department has invested nearly £620 million from 2016 to 2021 in a diverse portfolio of music and arts education programmes to ensure all children, whatever their background, have access to a high-quality education in music and arts. A further £84 million has been made available for music programmes and a range of arts and cultural programmes in this financial year.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools lack a qualified teacher in (a) art and design, (b) drama and (c) music.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of state-funded schools in England with no teachers holding a relevant post-A level qualification in art and design, drama or music is provided in the attached table.
To reduce burden during the COVID-19 outbreak, schools and local authorities were not required to provide information on teacher qualifications in 2020. Therefore, the information provided relates to the November 2019 School Workforce Census.
Please note that this information relates to qualifications of teachers, not the subjects taught. Information on subjects taught and teacher post-A level qualifications is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of pupils achieved GCSEs in (a) art, (b) design and technology, (c) music and (d) drama in each of the last 10 calendar years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is published at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-4-performance-revised. This shows the number of entries to the Art Design, Applied Art and Design, Design and Technology, D & T: Electronic Products, D & T: Food Technology, D & T: Graphic Products, D & T: Resistant Materials, D & T: Systems & Control, D & T: Textiles Technology Music and Drama, as well as the percentage of pupils achieving A*-G/9-1 and A*-C/9-4 in these subjects: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/b4bd53da-dbea-4f25-804b-d61e0bac8987.
The information is available for each academic year between 2009/10 and 2019/20 in state funded schools.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers are employed to teach (a) art, (b) design, (c) music and (d) drama in each English region.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is not possible to provide information on teachers by subject taught at a regional level due to the manner in which data is collected from a sample of secondary schools.
A national level headcount of teachers by subjects taught is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers were employed in (a) art and design, (b) drama and (c) music in schools in England in each of the last 10 calendar years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The headcount of art and design, drama and music teachers in service in state funded secondary schools in November 2011 to November 2020 is provided in the attached table and published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
While there is no formal register for teachers of these subjects, for context, information is also shown on the percentage of hours spent teaching each subject in each year and the percentage of hours of which are taught by a teacher with a relevant post A level qualification.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 June 2021 to Question 18546 on the National Tutoring Programme, of the 173,000 children who have commenced tutoring, how many were located in (a) the South East, (b) the South West, (c) London, (d) East of England, (e) East Midlands, (f) West Midlands, (g) Yorkshire and Humber, (h) the North West and (i) the North East.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) provides additional, targeted support to disadvantaged pupils by providing schools with access to high quality, subsidised tuition from a selection of approved Tuition Partners.
Since its launch in November 2020, over 234,000 pupils have been enrolled to receive tutoring and over 26,000 tutors are available to support schools. Of those enrolled, over 186,000 pupils have already commenced tutoring. We are on track to meet our ambition to support 250,000 pupils this academic year. The programme ensures that additional support has been allocated to regions with the largest numbers of disadvantaged pupils and in regions where access to tutoring has historically been lower. The Department does not have information on the regional split of the 186,000 pupils who have received tutoring.
The NTP is led by demand by schools, and we have undertaken a range of activities with schools, to ensure maximum awareness within the sector and encourage schools to sign up to the programme. We are engaging directly with school leaders, local networks of schools and national stakeholders to ensure that NTP support reaches as many disadvantaged pupils as possible. We will continue focusing on those areas with the most disadvantaged pupils, and where we would like to see more schools take up the opportunity.
Building on the successful first year of the programme, we aim to reach 750,000 disadvantaged pupils during the academic year 2021/22.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the level of awareness in schools of the National Tutoring Programme.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Since its launch in November 2020, over 230,000 pupils have been enrolled to receive tutoring and over 26,000 tutors are available to support schools. Of those enrolled, over 170,000 pupils have already commenced tutoring.
The Department is on target to offer tuition to 250,000 pupils in this first year. Through the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), the Department is investing over £1 billion to deliver up to 6 million, intensive 15 hour tutoring courses for 5 to 16 year olds by 2024, and the equivalent of 2 million, 15 hour courses for 16 to 19 year olds.
Evidence suggests that pupils who receive a course of small group tutoring can make between three and five months additional progress. The Department has continued to build on this successful engagement through a range of targeted communication activities with schools to increase awareness and continue to encourage pupils to enrol in the programme.
Alongside the NTP website, the programme is featured in regular communications to schools from the Department, and we continue to engage with school leaders, local school networks and national stakeholders to ensure that the NTP continues to reach as many disadvantaged pupils as possible. Communications include key programme updates, information to dispel myths about the programme and sharing evidence for the efficacy of the tutoring model. The Department also gathers and shares case studies of participating schools and successes to illustrate the impact of the programme.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the strength of the inspection regime for multi-academy trusts.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department requires a high level of accountability and transparency of all academy trusts. The Department’s Regional Schools Commissioners and their teams, together with the Education and Skills Funding Agency, provide robust educational and financial oversight of all academy trusts. Their status as companies, charities and public sector bodies means they are all subject to rigorous accountability systems.
Ofsted also plays a vital role in trust accountability by providing independent judgement on the educational performance of schools within a trust and through its process of trust summary evaluations. Ofsted’s summary evaluations are not currently being undertaken due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the Department will confirm details on when they will return shortly. Whilst these are still relatively small scale, the Department anticipates future findings from Ofsted’s summary evaluations as the programme continues and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, will continue to talk to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector about their robustness.