Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the £1 billion allocated to schools as part of the Recovery Premium will be spent to help children’s speech and language.
Answered by Will Quince
The £300 million Recovery Premium for this academic year is additional funding to help schools deliver evidence-based approaches to support education recovery. In October 2021, as part of our broader Spending Review settlement, we announced an extension to the Recovery Premium, worth £1 billion for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years.
Recovery Premium eligibility builds on that of pupil premium, but school leaders have flexibility to use the funding to support any pupil where a need is identified, including those with speech and language difficulties.
Schools are expected to spend their Recovery Premium, alongside their pupil premium, in line with the Education Endowment Foundation’s recommendation to fund activities that support high quality teaching, provide targeted academic support, and address non-academic barriers to success in school, such as attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional support.
Schools should therefore use their funding to assess and address immediate needs, such as those relating to speech and language difficulties, as well as longer-term strategic improvements, such as boosting the quality of oracy teaching.
We are also investing up to £180 million of recovery support in the early years sector, with new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development for the youngest children. This includes:
The NELI programme includes training for staff on identifying speech and language difficulties, and is proven to help children make around 3 months of additional progress.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of how the Recovery Premium benefit children with a speech and language difficulty or whose development in speaking and understanding language has been adversely affected as a result of the covid-19 outbreak and associated schools closures.
Answered by Will Quince
The £300 million Recovery Premium for this academic year is additional funding to help schools deliver evidence-based approaches to support education recovery. In October 2021, as part of our broader Spending Review settlement, we announced an extension to the Recovery Premium, worth £1 billion for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years.
Recovery Premium eligibility builds on that of pupil premium, but school leaders have flexibility to use the funding to support any pupil where a need is identified, including those with speech and language difficulties.
Schools are expected to spend their Recovery Premium, alongside their pupil premium, in line with the Education Endowment Foundation’s recommendation to fund activities that support high quality teaching, provide targeted academic support, and address non-academic barriers to success in school, such as attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional support.
Schools should therefore use their funding to assess and address immediate needs, such as those relating to speech and language difficulties, as well as longer-term strategic improvements, such as boosting the quality of oracy teaching.
We are also investing up to £180 million of recovery support in the early years sector, with new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development for the youngest children. This includes:
The NELI programme includes training for staff on identifying speech and language difficulties, and is proven to help children make around 3 months of additional progress.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Health and Social Care Bill proposals on joint working between local authorities, the police and health authorities on safeguarding children.
Answered by Will Quince
Safeguarding children requires strong multi-agency arrangements. This statutory duty is equally shared between local authorities, health and police. The department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office and key sector stakeholders to ensure that safeguarding remains a priority under the Health and Social Care Bill. We are also working to assure that the needs of children and young people stay central to decision-making within these new multi-agency arrangements.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Government’s response to the Education Committee’s Third Report on Strengthening Home Education, published on 26 October 2021, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to create a statutory register including home educated children, based on the Government's response to the Committee’s report.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department remains committed to a form of local authority register for children not in school and we intend to legislate for it at a suitable opportunity. We will set out further details in the government response to the ‘Children Not in School’ consultation, which we will publish in coming weeks.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of autistic children and young people that have yet to return to full-time education following the periods of school closures as a result of covid-19.
Answered by Will Quince
We do not collect data on the attendance of children and young people broken down by specific conditions. Statistics on attendance can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, we have published and updated guidance for special schools, special post-16 providers and alternative provision to provide additional information and support for delivering education in these settings, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings. This is clear that regular attendance at school, both special and mainstream, is vital for children’s education, wellbeing and long-term development and school attendance has been mandatory since the end of the last national lockdown.
To support this, we recommend that leaders in education work collaboratively with families to reassure them and to help their child engage with their everyday activities. Discussions should have a collaborative approach, focusing on the welfare of the child or young person and responding to the concerns of the parent, carer or young person.
Any families with concerns about their child’s health should speak with their child’s GP or health care team for advice and guidance.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that the estimate 100,000 children who have become severely absent from school following covid-19 lockdowns are returned to the classroom.
Answered by Robin Walker
Regular attendance at school is vital for children’s education, wellbeing, and long-term development.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, recently established an Attendance Alliance of national leaders from education, children’s social care and allied services to work together to raise school attendance and reduce persistent absence.
The Alliance has pledged to take a range of action to remove barriers preventing children attending school. This includes work by Rob Tarn, CEO of the Northern Education Trust, a multi-academy trust serving areas with high levels of disadvantage, to work with other trust leaders to identify and disseminate best practice for reducing persistent absence across schools through a range of webinars, case studies and videos which we will be publishing over the coming weeks.
We also welcome the Children’s Commissioner’s focus and investigation on children regularly missing school. The Children’s Commissioner pledged to do this work at the inaugural meeting of the Alliance in December 2021. The Commissioner’s Office are updating us on their progress which will be reported back to the Alliance.
The department is also committed to a form of register for children not in school. This will help local authorities undertake their existing duties to ensure children receive a suitable education and help safeguard all children who are in scope. We will set out further details on this in the government response to the ‘children not in school’ consultation, which we will publish in the coming weeks.
We continue to make clear that schools and local authorities should identify children who are persistently absent or at risk of persistent absence and develop plans to support them to return to regular education.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support the (a) learning and (b) mental health of autistic children and young people.
Answered by Will Quince
The department wants every autistic young person to reach their potential and feel heard at every stage of their life. That is why, in its first year alone, the department is investing £74 million into our cross-government National Autism Strategy to promote a straightforward route to diagnosis, the correct support, increasing understanding and improving access to a quality education and social care.
£600,000 of this funding has gone toward the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for the 2021/22 financial year. The department has funded the AET since 2011 to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools and further education colleges. It has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country. This includes not only teachers and teaching assistants, but also support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers, encouraging a 'whole school' approach to supporting autistic pupils.
The mental health of all students, including autistic children and young people, is a priority for this department. During Mental Health Awareness week in May 2021, we announced more than £17 million to improve mental health and wellbeing support in schools and colleges.
This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support we announced in March 2021. This includes increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to cover approximately 35% of pupils in England by 2023.
In addition to our existing commitments, the department is also determined to ensure that the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system works more effectively for those children who need extra support, including autistic children. That is why we are completing the SEND Review, to improve outcomes and build a sustainable SEND system where there is clear accountability.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to help ensure that the ongoing work in his Department on behaviour management reflects the needs of autistic children and children with special educational needs.
Answered by Will Quince
By their very nature, informal exclusions of any child are unlawful. This is why we already make clear in the suspension and permanent exclusion guidance that ‘informal’ or ‘unofficial’ suspensions, such as sending pupils home ‘to cool off’, are unlawful, regardless of whether they occur with the agreement of parents or carers. Further information of this guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusion/changes-to-the-school-exclusion-process-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.
Any suspension of a pupil, even for short periods of time, must be in line with the relevant legislation and recorded as a suspension. The department is also clear that off rolling is unacceptable in any form and continues to work with Ofsted to identify and tackle it. The forthcoming special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Review will also set out proposals for improving support for children with SEND in mainstream, which will look to ensure they get the right support in the right place at the right time.
All schools are required to have a behaviour policy which must be lawful, proportionate and reasonable. An initial intervention to address underlying causes of disruptive behaviour should include an assessment of whether appropriate provision is in place to support any special educational needs, including autism, or disability that a pupil may have. The department will be setting this out clearly in the consultation on the revised ‘behaviour in schools’ guidance and the ‘suspension and permanent exclusion’ guidance which will be published shortly. These will equip headteachers to create calm, orderly, safe, and supportive school environments where all pupils can thrive and reach their potential in safety and dignity and where exclusions are only ever used lawfully, and when absolutely necessary as a last resort.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the practice of informal exclusions of autistic children in educational settings.
Answered by Will Quince
By their very nature, informal exclusions of any child are unlawful. This is why we already make clear in the suspension and permanent exclusion guidance that ‘informal’ or ‘unofficial’ suspensions, such as sending pupils home ‘to cool off’, are unlawful, regardless of whether they occur with the agreement of parents or carers. Further information of this guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusion/changes-to-the-school-exclusion-process-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.
Any suspension of a pupil, even for short periods of time, must be in line with the relevant legislation and recorded as a suspension. The department is also clear that off rolling is unacceptable in any form and continues to work with Ofsted to identify and tackle it. The forthcoming special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Review will also set out proposals for improving support for children with SEND in mainstream, which will look to ensure they get the right support in the right place at the right time.
All schools are required to have a behaviour policy which must be lawful, proportionate and reasonable. An initial intervention to address underlying causes of disruptive behaviour should include an assessment of whether appropriate provision is in place to support any special educational needs, including autism, or disability that a pupil may have. The department will be setting this out clearly in the consultation on the revised ‘behaviour in schools’ guidance and the ‘suspension and permanent exclusion’ guidance which will be published shortly. These will equip headteachers to create calm, orderly, safe, and supportive school environments where all pupils can thrive and reach their potential in safety and dignity and where exclusions are only ever used lawfully, and when absolutely necessary as a last resort.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many government attendance advisors have been appointed as of 17 January 2022; and how many schools are each of those advisers supporting.
Answered by Robin Walker
To date, 5 attendance advisers have been appointed by the department. During their first wave of work, they will be collectively supporting 15 multi-academy trusts and 20 local authorities.