Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential effectiveness of new vape detectors in helping schools prevent vaping on school grounds.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy that sets out what is expected of all pupils, including which items are banned from school premises.
The Department trusts headteachers to develop tailored behaviour policies which reflect their school’s individual contexts and needs, and decide themselves the best methods to enforce these policies.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding North East Hampshire schools (a) received in 2015 and (b) will receive this year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
School funding allocations for the 2015/16 financial year can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-block-funding-allocations-2015-to-2016. This provides the actual budget allocations received by individual schools, calculated according to Local Authorities’ school funding formulae.
In the 2018/19 financial year, the Department introduced changes to the school funding system with a new schools National Funding Formula (NFF) to devise notional individual school budgets.
Through the schools NFF, schools in North East Hampshire are attracting £69 million in total this year. This represents a 2.6% cash increase and reflects 2.5% more per pupil in their pupil led funding, compared to 2021/22. Schools’ actual allocations in the 2022/23 financial year will be based on Local Authorities’ local funding formulae.
On top of this funding through the NFF, schools in North East Hampshire are seeing £1.9 million through the Schools Supplementary Grant (SSG) in the 2022/23 financial year. The SSG was first introduced in 2022/23, with no equivalent grant in previous years.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the level of educational choice for parents of children with SEND in North East Hampshire constituency.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
A joint local area special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) inspection of Hampshire was undertaken by Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) in March 2020. At the time, inspectors identified no significant areas of weakness in SEND services.
The department’s SEND data collection is about a full local authority and does not analyse by districts. Nor do we collect data on the level or range of choices of provision in each local area.
Local authorities are statutorily responsible (under the Children and Families Act 2014) for keeping their local offer of services and provision for children and young people with SEND under review, in co-production with parents, young people and educational providers. It is for local authorities to ensure there are sufficient good school places for all pupils, including those with SEND. The Hampshire local offer provides some information about schools by major towns in Hampshire, but not by districts. Further information can be accessed here: https://fish.hants.gov.uk/kb5/hampshire/directory/results.page?familychannel=6-1-3. Under the Act, parents or young people have the statutory right to request that a particular school, further education college in England or other educational institution is named in their Education, Health, and Care plan.
In March 2022, the department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) amounting to a new investment of over £1.4 billion. This funding is to support local authorities to deliver new places for academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25, and to improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision (AP). This funding forms part of the £2.6 billion the department is investing between 2022 and 2025 and represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision. It will support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and will also be used to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.
Hampshire’s provisional high needs revenue funding allocation for 2023/24 will be £187.2 million, a 24% per head increase over two years on the amount of high needs funding allocated in 2021/22. In addition to this funding, the 2022 Autumn Statement announced that the national core schools budget (covering both mainstream schools and high needs) will increase by £2 billion in 2023/24 and a further £2 billion in 2024/25, over and above totals announced in the 2021Spending Review. We will confirm plans for how this additional funding will be allocated shortly.
Hampshire received a total of just over £31.3 million through the HNPCA announced in March 2022. This amount represents funding for financial years 2022/23 and 2023/24 and will help the local authority to create new places and improve facilities for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision. Prior to that, the local authority received just below £6.8 million through its 2021/22 HNPCA funding announced in April 2021.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the impact of the rising cost of living on teachers in north Hampshire; and whether he plans for the Education and Skills Funding Agency to conduct a review of the areas classed as London fringe.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This will reduce how much schools need to spend on their energy, and give schools greater certainty over their budgets through the winter months. The Department knows that every school’s circumstances are different, and where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their Local Authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
The 2022/23 pay awards should be viewed in parallel with the Government’s £37 billion package of support for the Cost of Living, which is targeted to those most in need. The Government has also taken action to limit energy bills for households through the Energy Price Guarantee. The typical household, which had been facing forecast bills of £6,000, can now expect to pay £2,500 per year for average usage.
Decisions on pay ranges are based on recommendations by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), the independent body that advises on teachers’ pay and conditions.
The geographical areas covered by the different ranges were defined some years ago to reflect a practical approach to compensate teachers working in London, and the STRB has not recommended any changes since then, although the Department will consider these issues in the future.
Pay awards must strike a careful balance, recognising the vital importance of teachers and other public sector workers, whilst delivering value for the taxpayer. The Department has implemented the STRB’s recommendation of an 8.9% uplift to starting salaries outside London in the 2022/23 academic year, keeping the Department on track for delivering its manifesto commitment of a £30,000 starting salary. The Department has implemented the STRB’s recommendation of a 5% pay uplift for experienced teachers and leaders in the 2022/23 academic year. This award constituted the highest pay award for experienced teachers in 30 years.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will allow the free childcare entitlement to be used to allow parents to utilise fewer hours in a more expensive childcare setting; and what consideration his Department has given to allowing that entitlement to be used more flexibly.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department wants parents to have access to a range of affordable childcare, giving them increased flexibility in their working hours. The government funded early years entitlements is intended to deliver 15-30 hours a week (for 38 weeks of the year) of free, high quality, flexible childcare for eligible two-, three- and four-year olds. It is not intended to cover the costs of meals, other consumables (such as nappies and sun cream), additional hours or additional services (such as trips) and providers may charge parents for these.
While many providers will offer 15-30 hours of free childcare per week during term time (38 weeks of the year), this offer can be delivered flexibly. All of the free entitlements can be stretched by taking fewer hours per week over up to 52 weeks of the year to cover term-time and the school holidays.
Some providers will only offer free hours during school term times or only offer free hours stretched over the year whilst others provide a mixture of the two. As set out in the department’s statutory guidance for local authorities, to ensure that parents can make informed decisions on their choice of childcare, providers should publish a statement of how they deliver the free entitlements and any additional charges for optional activities.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to (a) encourage boys to study a foreign language at (i) GCSE and (ii) A-Level and (b) improve the performance of boys studying a foreign language at those levels.
Answered by Nick Gibb
?Since the Department introduced the English Baccalaureate performance measure in 2010, which includes languages, the proportion of GCSE entries from pupils in state-funded schools in a modern foreign language (MFL) has increased from 40% in 2010 to 47% in 2019. The reformed National Curriculum now makes it compulsory for pupils in maintained schools to be taught a foreign language in Key Stage 2.
We are investing in a range of programmes to increase uptake of languages at GCSE. Our £4.8m MFL Pedagogy Pilot commenced in December 2018, and is designed to improve uptake and attainment in languages at Key Stages 3 and 4. We have also launched a pilot project in MFL undergraduate mentoring for secondary school pupils to drive up participation in the subject, specifically targeting areas of high disadvantage to extend access to languages for all pupils.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the findings of Gambling Commission's Young people and gambling survey 2019 published on 23 October 2019, what recent discussions he has had with (a) the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on educating school children about the risks of gambling and in-game loot boxes and (b) the Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing the levies on gambling to pay for such education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, meets regularly with Cabinet colleagues to discuss the agenda of the Department for Education. This includes relevant topics covered by the new subjects of relationships education (for primary age pupils), relationships and sex education (for secondary age pupils) and health education (for all pupils in state-funded schools). The Department for Education has worked with other Departments, including the Department for Health and Social Care, in developing the content for the new curriculum subjects which will be taught in schools from September 2020.
The Department for Education wants to equip young people for adult life and to make a positive contribution to society. The statutory guidance for the new subjects was published in June 2019, which is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/805781/Relationships_Education__Relationships_and_Sex_Education__RSE__and_Health_Education.pdf.
The subjects will support all young people in terms of managing risk, making informed decisions, as well as in key aspects such as mental wellbeing and online behavior. Under the topic of internet safety and harms, it sets out that young people should be taught about the risks related to online gambling, including the accumulation of debt, how advertising and information is targeted at them, and how to be a discerning consumer of information online.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department provides to schools on preventing pupils vaping on school premises; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of schools that have written to parents on the prevalence of vaping.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools have a statutory duty to promote pupil wellbeing and there is a range of guidance available to schools to support this. This includes advice produced by the Department for Education and Association of Chief Police Officers for schools which includes advice about smoking and drugs. This advice is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/270169/drug_advice_for_schools.pdf.
The statutory guidance for Health Education also determines that primary age pupils will learn the facts about legal and illegal harmful substances and associated risks, including smoking, alcohol use and drug-taking. In secondary, pupils will build on that knowledge and, in addition, learn about the associated legal and psychological risks of taking drugs. From September 2020, Health Education will be compulsory for all pupils in primary and secondary state-funded schools.
The Department’s Searching, Screening and Confiscation guidance sets out schools’ powers to search pupils and confiscate prohibited items. Schools have the power to confiscate, retain or dispose of any item that is banned by the school rules or detrimental to school discipline, including vapes. Schools can set out in their behaviour policy their approach to the use of vapes and any sanction that will be imposed for their use.
The Department does not collect data on the number of schools that have written to parents on the prevalence of vaping.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Statement of 9 September 2019, HCWS1828, what estimate his Department has made of the additional funding that schools in North East Hampshire will collectively receive in comparison to funding received in 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools that are attracting their core National Funding Formula allocations this year will benefit from an increase of 4% to the formula’s core factors in 2020-21. In the same year, the minimum per pupil funding levels will be set at £3,750 for primary schools and £5,000 for secondary schools. In 2021-22, the primary minimum level will rise to £4,000.
School and local authority level allocations will be published in October; until then, it is not possible to provide an exact figure for how much funding North East Hampshire will receive in comparison to 2015. However, all schools in all areas will benefit from this increase, with particular gains for the lowest and previously underfunded schools.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of children's progress in specialist maths schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are currently two open maths schools: Kings College London Mathematics School and Exeter Mathematics School. In 2018, both schools had A level progress scores that were ‘well above average’. Pupils achieved progress scores of 1.46 and 1.10 in A level mathematics in Kings College London and Exeter Mathematics Schools respectively. This means that pupils in these schools achieved, on average, a grade higher than similar pupils nationally. These outcomes place both schools in the top 1% of schools in England for progress in A level mathematics.