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 April 2021 to Question 183135, how many children are currently receiving tutoring by (a) local authority and (b) region.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Tutoring Programme will provide additional, targeted support for children and young people who have been hardest hit by disruption to their education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the launch of the programme in November 2020, over 232,000 pupils have been enrolled to receive tutoring, and of those enrolled over 173,000 have already commenced tutoring.
For this year’s programme, which is on track to meet its target of reaching 250,000 pupils, the Department will ensure there is good provision of tutoring across the regions so that schools can provide tutoring to pupils who need it most. We will also ensure that tutors offer a mix of both face-to-face and online tutoring to allow remote access to pupils if required.
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 10 June 2021 to Question 11547, what the anticipated regional breakdown is of the 750,000 pupils expected to receive tutoring under the National Tutoring Programme in academic year 2021-22.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Tutoring Programme will provide additional, targeted support for children and young people who have been hardest hit by disruption to their education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the launch of the programme in November 2020, over 232,000 pupils have been enrolled to receive tutoring, and of those enrolled over 173,000 have already commenced tutoring.
For this year’s programme, which is on track to meet its target of reaching 250,000 pupils, the Department will ensure there is good provision of tutoring across the regions so that schools can provide tutoring to pupils who need it most. We will also ensure that tutors offer a mix of both face-to-face and online tutoring to allow remote access to pupils if required.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide a breakdown of planned funding for school sports in 2021-22 by local authority.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has confirmed the overall funding for the Primary PE and sport premium will continue at £320 million for the 2021/22 academic year. Schools will also be permitted to carry forward any unspent PE and sport premium funding from the current academic year to ensure that this is spent to benefit primary pupils’ physical education, school sport and physical activity recovery. Funding will be allocated according to a formula and details will be confirmed in the autumn as in previous years.
The Department publishes PE and sport premium allocations by local authority. Information on allocations for the current academic year is available here: https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/view-latest-funding/national-funding-allocations/PSG/2020-to-2021.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many PE teachers were employed by schools in each of the last 10 calendar years, by local authority.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The headcount of physical education (PE) teachers in service in state-funded secondary schools in November 2011 to November 2020 is provided in the attached table. It is also published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
While there is no formal register for PE teachers, for context, information is also shown on the percentage of hours spent teaching PE in each year and the percentage of hours of PE which are taught by a teacher with a relevant post A level qualification. A relevant post A level qualification is a level 4 qualification or above in physical education, sports science, sports physiology, sports psychology or dance (including ballet).
Information for teachers in primary schools and broken down by local authority is not available due to the manner in which data is collected from a sample of secondary schools.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report, Fight or flight? How stuck schools are overcoming isolation: evaluation report, published by Ofsted in January 2020, what is his latest estimate of the number of schools defined as stuck which have been rated by Ofsted as less than good for 13 years or more; and how many pupils are enrolled in those schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As of 31 March 2021, there were 412 schools that have been rated by Ofsted as less than good for 13 years or more. Around 210,000 pupils were enrolled in the schools, rounded to the nearest 10,000.
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 potential merits of the requiring the installation of sprinkler systems in schools in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government attaches the highest priority to the safety of pupils and staff, and to ensuring that the owners of school buildings take the necessary action to protect those buildings.
The Department’s policy, set out in Building Bulletin 100, is that sprinklers must be fitted where they are deemed necessary to keep pupils and staff safe. This is in accordance with the Building Regulations and all new school building projects must comply with building regulations on fire safety.
The Department is currently updating its guidance, Building Bulletin 100, on fire safety design for schools. To support this review, a call for evidence was issued asking for stakeholder views and supporting evidence on the benefits of multiple fire safety features, including sprinkler systems. A comprehensive review of the responses has been undertaken along with any information submitted subsequently. This included the merits of various fire safety systems, such as upgraded fire alarms, installation of evacuation lifts and sprinkler systems.
The Department’s consultation on the revised version of Building Bulletin 100 is currently live. Once the consultation has concluded, Ministers will review all responses to the consultation, particularly any new evidence, before agreeing a final version.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much covid-19 recovery funding has been allocated to school sports.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Physical education (PE) and school sport play an important part in supporting pupils to recover from the effects of school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The Government has confirmed that the Primary PE and sport premium will continue at £320 million for the 2021/22 academic year. Schools will be permitted to carry forward any unspent PE and sport premium funding from the current academic year to ensure that this is spent to benefit primary pupils’ physical education, school sport, and physical activity recovery.
In June 2021, the Department announced £1.4 billion of additional funding for education recovery. This is in addition to the £1.7 billion already committed, bringing total investment announced for education recovery over the past year to over £3 billion. Schools have the flexibility to determine how they choose to spend some of this funding to support the needs of their pupils, including on activities to support health and wellbeing where needed. The Government has also provided £10.1 million of funding to support schools to reopen their sports facilities and increase the opportunity for children and young people to take part in extra-curricular and community sport.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of school-age children who receive at least 30 minutes of sport and physical activity each school day.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Sport England collects data on activity by children and young people through the annual Active Lives Children and Young People Survey. The data for the 2019/20 academic year showed that 44.9% of children and young people (3.2 million) met the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines of taking part in sport and physical activity for an average of 60 minutes or more every day. Data for the 2018/19 academic year showed that 40% of pupils did an average of 30 active minutes during the school day. School closures mean that it is difficult to produce a comparable figure for the 2019/20 academic year, but the Government will continue to collect data for future years.
Physical activity and school sport play an important part in supporting pupils to recover from the effects of school closures due to the COVID-19 outbreak. To support this, the Government has confirmed that the Primary PE and Sport premium will continue at £320 million for the 2021/22 academic year. Schools will also be permitted to carry forward any unspent PE and sport premium funding from the current academic year to ensure that this is spent to benefit primary pupils’ physical education, school sport and physical activity recovery. In addition, in February the Department announced a £10.1 million investment into schools across England to help them to open their school sports facilities outside of the school day. This will allow them to open their facilities and run more sports activities and clubs before school, after school and during the summer holidays.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school playing fields have been converted under section 77 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Both changing the use of playing field land and disposals of playing field land require the Secretary of State’s consent for local authority owned land under section 77 of School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (“SSFA”).
The majority of change of use cases involve building on existing playing field land in order to build new or expand existing classrooms, either permanently or temporarily, to accommodate pupil numbers. Whilst this will change the area into non-playing field land, it remains educational land.
The Department has a clear policy presumption against the loss of publicly funded school land, particularly in the case of playing field land. Applicants are required to provide evidence that alternative proposals have been considered and consent is normally only given where an applicant provides sufficient sports and/or recreational mitigations to compensate for the loss of existing playing field and the department is satisfied that the benefits of the proposed change of use outweigh the loss of playing field land.
Whilst the Department has recorded information on change of use applications on its central database since 2017, this information is used for internal case management purposes only and does not reflect the total number of cases.
Regarding disposals of playing field land, since May 2010 the Department has published on GOV.UK details of disposals of publicly funded playing field land which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-land-decisions-about-disposals. The list will be updated shortly to include new playing field disposals since the last update in July 2020.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) effectiveness and (b) potential challenges faced by regional schools commissioners.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) act on behalf of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, in relation to academies, free schools and school improvement, and are accountable to the National Schools Commissioner. Each RSC is supported by a head teacher board. Head teacher boards are made up of experienced academy head teachers and other sector leaders.
RSCs also play an important role in the Department’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, by leading our Regional Education and Children’s Teams to better co-ordinate how the Department captures information and intelligence about local needs and circumstances in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
RSC performance is managed through the normal and existing civil service arrangements for Senior Civil Servants. In addition, the Department publishes annual reports relating to school and academies performance, of which the work of RSCs is included. These can be found here: Annual Report and Accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dfe-annual-reports, and Academies Sector Report and Accounts https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/968362/SARA_Academies_Sector_Annual_Report_and_Accounts_201819_-_accessible.pdf.
Over the coming months, areas of focus for the RSCs will be: