Primary School Breakfast Clubs
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of experience. I am sure the Minister and his team will take the contributions made by hon. Members on board because they are setting out how we will make a positive impact on the lives of those in our communities. That is what we were elected to do, drawing on our various diverse experiences, backgrounds and perspectives.
Breakfast clubs provide further potential benefits. As my hon. Friends have highlighted, a proper sit-down breakfast, among peers, not only allows children to access healthy food, but encourages the building of interpersonal relationships and the progression of social skills—key aspects of a child’s development that are often overlooked in an educational setting. Will the Minister assure me that universal breakfast clubs will not only provide a healthy meal for young children, but also facilitate and encourage development of vital social skills?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. York Hungry Minds is currently carrying out a pilot project examining what happens when schools have breakfast clubs and universal free school meals. Does he agree that we need to look at the outcome of that evidence to determine whether some children also require a free school meal in the middle of the day, as well as at the start of the day, to ensure that there is equity in the outcomes we are seeking?
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of experience. I have seen over the last seven or eight years in the House that she has done a great deal of work to counter poverty and some of the worst problems that our society faces. Everything should be evidence based. It is important that the Government build on that to help our communities further.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Catherine McKinnell
As my hon. Friend mentions, high-needs funding will increase by almost £1 billion in 2025-26, compared with 2024-25, bringing total high-needs funding to £11.9 billion. That funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing cost of supporting children and young people with SEND. We will continue to support local authorities to meet those demands and reform our system, so we can create inclusive education for every child.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to raise the issue of governance. There are too many minds controlling the system, which ultimately stymies local authorities’ ability to reform services in order to embed a culture of nurturing and to ensure that the best interests of children are represented. While reviewing the SEND system, will the Minister take a look at governance, and ensure that is there is one controlling mind, and it is that of the local authority?
SEND Provision
Rachael Maskell Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. What a mess—young people broken by a broken system. The Children and Families Act promised so much, but without people, money and the rest of the system to back it up, it could never deliver. When the wait for the diagnosis is over, the battle for the EHCP is won and masses of resources have been spent, the demand is still not being met. Staff do their very best, but still people are falling out of the system.
I have spent the past year digging deep, looking at the local, the national and the international to bring best practice to this space. I have looked at the environment, the community and the child. On the environment, I say to the Minister, “Go back to the Department and rip up the behaviourist approach to education. It creates a world where neurodiverse children—those with anxiety or mental illness—and even the timid cannot survive.”
Instead, we should adopt a therapeutic, nurturing approach so that all children can thrive. In York, where schools have done so, all gain from recognising the need for every child to be safe, valued and included. It is a happy place where a child will strive for excellence and the whole child will be able to navigate their way through this world, rather than an obstacle course of micro-traumas, stress and anxiety. Let us not build bigger and bigger schools, but create more therapeutic and intimate spaces that belong to the children and where they can thrive. We should bring children out of home schooling, out of their bedrooms, off the streets and back into the classroom. School must be safe for all those children.
We also need to recognise, as the Government do, the failed nature of the curriculum. Let us build space for our brains and our bodies. Are we really shocked that young people are failing when only half of them is engaged? We have cut out arts, music, sports, nature, dance, play, exploration, wonder and fun. Yet all children, especially those with SEND, benefit from that balance.
When I visited Sweden, I went into schools to hear about what they were doing. They brought people into the heart of the school, not prescribing from an EHCP but taking a whole-child and a whole-school approach, using the skills of psychologists, teachers, occupational therapists, physios and speech therapists for all children. Let us recognise that school community and ensure that we value its members. Our teaching assistants do so much of the work, yet their pay is so poor—that must be addressed.
Rachael Maskell
I am going to continue.
As for parents, I have seen them pushed away and gaslit, when they should instead be integrated into the heart of the school, as they are in Sweden, leading on what their child needs. When it comes to the children themselves, let us review the purpose of education: preparing children for the world today, not breaking and testing them. Children with SEND struggle in that environment just to satisfy the need for data for Governments and to meet different goals. We need every child to flourish, and that is why we need to think again.