Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure increased funding for (a) SEN schools and (b) increasing existing SEN support in mainstream schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department recognises the financial pressures on local authorities due to rising costs in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. The Core Schools Budget Grant will provide over £140 million in additional funding for special and alternative provision schools in 2024/25 to cover increased costs from teachers' pay and support staff negotiations. This is in addition to the £10.75 billion allocated this year for high needs funding and teacher-related costs.
The department’s budget for 2025/26 is still under review, with funding allocations dependent on the upcoming Spending Review in October. The department recognises the delay and will announce allocations as soon as possible. We are acutely aware not only of the financial pressures that local authorities are facing due to the increasing cost of supporting young people with complex needs but also of the pressures on the government as a whole due to the financial situation it has inherited.
The department is committed to improving mainstream schools’ support of all their pupils with special educational needs.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve educational outcomes for homeless children in temporary accommodation or experiencing rough sleeping.
Answered by David Johnston
DLUHC is investing £1.2 billion through the Homelessness Prevention Grant over three years, including a £109 million top-up for 2024/25, to ensure that families can move out of temporary accommodation and into stable accommodation, as well as reducing the need for temporary accommodation by preventing homelessness before it occurs.
To help schools tackle the challenges facing disadvantaged pupils, including pupils who might be in temporary accommodation or experiencing homelessness, and to improve children’s educational outcomes, the department has provided pupil premium funding since 2011. Pupil premium funding is increasing to over £2.9 billion this financial year which will ensure that the most disadvantaged pupils receive the support they need to succeed at school.
In 2024/25, the department has targeted a greater proportion of schools’ National Funding Formula towards deprived pupils than ever before with over £4.4 billion of the formula allocated according to deprivation in 2024/25, and over £7.8 billion through additional needs factors based on deprivation, low prior attainment, English as an additional language and mobility. This is alongside various support programmes including free school meals, the National School Breakfast Club programme and the Holiday Activities and Food programme. The department is also targeting support at young people who most need help with the costs of staying in post-16 education and training, through the 16-19 bursary and has extended free meals to disadvantaged 16 to 18 year old students attending further education institutions.
The department is prioritising the attendance of vulnerable children in education, including those who are in temporary accommodation, by introducing stronger expectations of schools, trusts, and local authorities to work together to tackle absence set out in guidance that will become statutory in August 2024, including an expectation on schools to identify at-risk pupils and work with families to support absent students and, from September 2024, introducing a mandatory attendance data tool, allowing them to identify pupils at risk of persistent absence and to enable early intervention.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support the mental health of children from (a) families seeking asylum and (b) refugee families in educational settings.
Answered by David Johnston
The government wants all children, regardless of their background or the challenges they face, to grow up happy, healthy and safe.
While education settings are not specialist mental health support providers, schools and colleges have an important role to play in identifying and responding to mental health needs, whether by providing targeted pastoral support or ensuring referrals are made to external specialist support. The department has put in place a wide range of training and guidance to help education staff do so effectively.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance supports education staff to identify children in need of extra mental health support. This includes information on how adverse childhood experiences, including loss or separation and traumatic incidents, can affect children’s mental health, and on working with external agencies to put in place effective support. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.
The department is offering every state school and college in England funding to train a senior mental health lead, who can oversee an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. This approach should include robust processes for identifying pupils or groups of pupils in need of further support, which may include children from refugee or asylum-seeking families.
To ensure more children and young people have access to early intervention support, the department is continuing to roll out mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. These teams currently cover over 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education and the department is extending coverage to at least 50% by April 2025.
Further information on these programmes and other sources of support to help schools and colleges promote and support mental health can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many academies were re-brokered in (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (b) 2023; and for what reasons each academy was re-brokered.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Between 2021 and 2023, 649 academies have transferred trust. The below table provides detail on the reasons for transfer. Further information is available via the Academy Transfers and Funding publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/academy-transfers-and-funding.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Due to Intervention | 40 | 32 | 24 |
Transfer Initiated by Trust | 135 | 162 | 179 |
Sponsor Closure | 26 | 41 | 10 |
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of statutory educational assessments on the mental heath of children undertaking those assessments in (a) primary and (b) secondary education.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
At present, there are no statutory assessments in secondary education. Regarding statutory assessments in primary education, I refer the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles to the answer my right hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Schools, gave on 21 February 2023 to Question 141620.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to The National Food Strategy: The Plan, Appendices 3 and 14, published in July 2021, whether her Department has taken steps to implement the Eat and Learn initiative for schools in that Plan; and whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing the requirement to serve meat three times a week from the mandatory School Food Standards in the context of developing a sustainability and health-driven national reference diet.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes it is vital that pupils are taught about food and nutrition. Making healthy choices is relevant at all Key Stages, which is why these principles are taught and applied throughout school. Early Years practitioners encourage children to learn the importance of healthy eating using both narrative and visual resources. Pupils are then taught to understand healthy eating and lifestyle, including cooking, through science, design and technology and health education curricula at both primary and secondary level. Since autumn 2022, pupils have had the opportunity to be taught about food through the Climate Leaders’ Award.
Older pupils can understand the employment opportunities and the pathways leading to careers in the food sector. Ten high quality apprenticeships are available across a range of catering and hospitality professions and a T Level in Catering will teach the core knowledge and skills needed to enter such occupations, from September 2023.
Regarding the School Food Standards, the Department believes the standards provide a robust yet flexible framework to ensure that pupils in England continue to receive high quality and nutritious food that builds healthy eating habits for life. The standards are being kept under review.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to meet annual teacher recruitment targets.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As of the last School Workforce Census (November 2021, published in June 2022), the number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 full time equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 24,000 more than in 2010. The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high-status profession.
The Department recognises that some subjects remain more challenging to recruit to than others. The Department has announced a £181 million financial incentives package for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department has expanded the offer to international trainees in physics and languages.
The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has recently raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching. The Department has also implemented the School Teachers' Review Body recommendation of a 5% pay uplift for experienced teachers and leaders in 2022/23.
In autumn 2021, the Department launched the ‘apply for teacher training’ digital service. This enables a more streamlined, user friendly application route to attract and train teachers.
The Department is also taking action to attract more people to teaching and enable them to succeed through transforming their training and support. The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development underpinned by the ITT Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework. Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the final report of the Independent Commission on Assessment in Primary Education; and what plans the Government has to implement that report's recommendations.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Primary assessments play a crucial role in supporting pupils to grasp the basics of reading, writing and mathematics and to prepare them for secondary school. They allow parents and schools to understand pupils’ achievements in relation to the age-related attainment expectations outlined in the National Curriculum.
In 2017, the Department carried out a consultation into primary assessment in England, with the aim of creating a settled policy in this area. The consultation received over 4,000 responses from a diverse range of backgrounds and specialisms, providing a broad and informed range of views. The Department has reached the end of the programme of reform to the current primary assessment system that followed. The Department has no current plans to undertake further major reform.
The Department remains committed to producing and publishing school-level accountability measures using full-cohort assessment data, which provide important information to support parents when choosing schools. The Department keeps all school performance measures under review, and welcomes feedback on how it can be refined and improved.
As primary school tests and assessments returned in 2021/22 for the first time since 2019, without any adaptations, the results were not published in Key Stage 2 performance tables. The usual suite of Key Stage 2 accountability measures has been produced at school level and shared securely with primary schools, academy trusts, Local Authorities and Ofsted to inform school improvement, inspection and to help identify schools most in need of support. This is a transitional arrangement for the first year in which primary assessments returned. The Department intends to publish Key Stage 2 assessment data on the performance measures website again for 2022/23.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the level of work being undertaken by teachers on educational outcomes.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department knows that there are many factors that affect educational outcomes. There is an ongoing programme of research within the Department to understand the level of work being undertaken by teachers and headteachers, and the perceptions of workload across the workforce. It is not possible to draw direct causal links between teacher workload and educational outcomes from the existing evidence base.
The Department has taken action to improve teacher and headteacher workload, working with the profession to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. The School Workload Reduction toolkit, developed alongside headteachers, is a helpful resource for schools to use to reduce workload. The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, published in 2021, is a set of commitments from the Government, Ofsted, and schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff and includes an explicit commitment by the Department to drive down unnecessary workload.
There was a five-hour reduction in teachers' self-reported working hours between 2016 and 2019. While progress has been made working alongside schools, the Department recognises there is still more to be done. The Department will continue to work together with headteachers, teachers and their representatives to reduce unnecessary workload and promote their wellbeing.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Independent - Salford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of statutory mental health assessments on children undertaking those assessments in (a) primary and (b) secondary education.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
There are no statutory mental health assessments in primary or secondary schools. It is up to schools to decide what assessments to use with their pupils in order to inform their whole-school mental health provision, as well as the support that might be needed by individual pupils, taking into account the effect of the assessment on pupils.