Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the time taken to make an autism assessment on educational attainment.
Answered by David Johnston
I refer my right hon. Friend, the Member for South Swindon, to the answer of 25 March 2024 to Question 18946.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, what progress she has made on developing digital requirements for Education, Health and Care Plans.
Answered by David Johnston
The department is working with local authorities and suppliers to deliver a digital project to digitise the Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan process for England. The department started this project in summer 2023 to understand what role digitisation should play in the EHC plan process, and the potential longer-term benefits of digital solutions.
The department launched a second project phase in October 2023. This helped the department to understand the benefits, barriers, and limitations of the digitisation of the EHC plan process. This phase resulted in recommendations.
The department launched a third project phase in February 2024 to test the recommendations, which are due to be shared with local authorities and the wider sector this month.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the progress that has been made since the publication of the SEND and AP Improvement Plan; how many additional education psychologists have been employed by local authorities and; how many additional teachers have undertaken SENCO training since the publication of that plan.
Answered by David Johnston
Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) frequently require access to additional support from a broad specialist workforce across education, health and care. To support this, the department has completed the following:
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the withdrawal of CPLA-linked funding in British universities on local economies.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Higher education (HE) providers are autonomous and therefore responsible for ensuring they have adequate governance and risk management procedures in place. The department expects the HE sector to be alert to risks when collaborating with any international partners.
The government’s International Education Strategy makes clear that the internationalisation of the HE sector cannot come at any cost. A key element of that strategy is diversification. Universities must ensure they have appropriate processes in place to manage risks associated with dependence on a single source of funding, whether that is from a single organisation or a single country.
The Office for Students (OfS), the regulator of HE in England, monitors the risk of over-reliance on overseas income at a sector level. The role of the OfS is not to direct how HE providers manage themselves or to limit their recruitment from a particular country of origin, but to ensure they understand where there is greater reliance and how any risks are being managed, and to take action to protect students from the consequences of unmanaged financial risk, if necessary.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of universities accepting funding from entities linked to the Chinese People's Liberation Army on academic freedom.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Integrated Review Refresh, which this government published in March 2023, sets out in clear terms the UK’s policy towards engagement with China and Chinese entities.
Higher education (HE) providers are autonomous institutions and are responsible for ensuring they have adequate governance, risk management procedures and policies in place, including on the acceptance of donations. HE providers will also have their own due diligence procedures which should consider reputational, ethical and security risks.
The department expects the HE sector to be alert to risks when collaborating with any international partners. Guidance published by Universities UK advises HE providers how to engage in international collaborations safely and securely. This guidance also includes a recommendation that due diligence should be conducted on all international partnerships and it is available here: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/managing-risks-internationalisation.
The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 will ensure that HE providers in England have the tools they need to deal with interference with, and threats to, freedom of speech and academic freedom wherever they originate. The Act will enable the Office for Students to monitor the overseas funding of registered HE providers and their constituent institutions and student’s unions, and to take appropriate action. Provisions in the Act dealing with overseas funding are expected to come into force from 1 September 2025.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to take steps to increase the availability of Religious Education teacher training courses.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Religious education (RE) is an essential part of a school’s curriculum and remains a compulsory subject in all state funded schools, including academies, to all pupils up to the age of 18. RE develops an individual’s knowledge and understanding of the religions and beliefs which form part of contemporary society, as well as serving to inform their own values and behaviour.
The department is offering a £10,000 bursary for RE trainee teachers starting Initial Teacher Training courses in the 2024/25 academic year. The department has published this information on the ‘Get Into Teaching’ website and will be marketing the offer to prospective teachers through other channels.
The mandatory Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF) sets out a core minimum entitlement for all trainees of what should be covered during their teacher training. While all ITT courses must encompass the CCF in full, it remains for accredited ITT providers to design their full course curricula in a way that is appropriate to the needs of trainees and for the subject, phase, and age range that the trainees will be teaching, which for some ITT courses, would include religious education training.
To be awarded Qualified Teacher Status, trainee teachers must demonstrate that they satisfy all of the Teaching Standards at the appropriate level, including Part Two of the standards, which requires all teachers to demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and professional behaviour.
The department has publicly committed to reviewing the ITT CCF and Early Career Framework (ECF) alongside each other. Building on lessons learned from the first few years of CCF implementation and ECF delivery, the department plans to revise the CCF and ECF into a more closely combined framework, or set of frameworks, which cover the first three years or more at the start of a teacher’s career articulating what trainee and new teachers need to know and need to know how to do.
This underpins a joined-up sequence of training and development over at least the first three years of new teachers’ careers to support them at the start of their new career. The department aims to ensure that what new teachers learn across these early years of their career delivers continuous, coherent and complementary learning for all trainees and new teachers, and provides the confidence and skills for a lifelong career in teaching.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's publication entitled 2022 School Workforce Census, published 8 June 2023, whether her Department has had discussions with any of the secondary schools that reported zero hours of religious education in Year 11 in the 2022 census.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The School Workforce Census collects information from a large sample of secondary schools in England for a typical week. This identifies hours taught of a subject, year group taught to, and the teacher. Data provided by schools is captured by their individual electronic timetabling systems. Results are weighted to produce national estimates but are not intended to be used as a means of monitoring compliance with the duty to teach religious education (RE), particularly as there may be other RE teaching time in schools that has not been recorded as schools may have allocated it under other subjects.
Following publication in June this year of 2022 census data, the department has not had discussion with schools that reported zero hours of religious education in Year 11 in the sample period.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support schools to make adjustments for children and young people on the waiting list for an autism assessment.
Answered by David Johnston
I refer my right hon. Friend, the Member for South Swindon to the answer of 25 September to question 199770.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to improve swimming rates among primary school children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Swimming and water safety are compulsory in the primary National Curriculum for Physical Education (PE) and Sport.
The PE and Sport Premium can be used by primary schools to support swimming and water safety lessons, including funding teacher training and additional swimming lessons for pupils not able to meet National Curriculum expectations after their PE and Sport lessons. On 8 March 2023, the Government announced a total of over £600 million across the next two academic years for the PE and Sport Premium.
The Department also provides up to £300,000 a year to a consortium grant to improve opportunities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities to take part in PE and Sport. This includes a focus on swimming and water safety. A new inclusion hub on the Swim England website has been created to provide resources for schools and swimming teachers.
A range of swimming and water safety resources and guidance documents have been developed by sector organisations and are available online for teachers and parents.
Asked by: Robert Buckland (Conservative - South Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure that the reforms to the SEND system make it easier for parents to get an assessment for their children.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
In May 2022, the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper set out the government’s assessment of the challenges the SEND and AP system faces, including assessments and education, health and care (EHC) plans.
In March this year, the government published its proposals to deliver improvements through developing reformed templates and guidance to deliver a nationally consistent EHC plan process, which makes greater use of digital technology, with the aim to increase consistency and the speed with which support is put in place.
The government continues to support local authorities, with their core budgets increased to £60 billion for the next financial year. Local authorities have the flexibility to spend according to local needs and priorities, including undertaking EHC needs assessments.