Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of school children that do not have a personal laptop or tablet.
Answered by Robin Walker
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the department has delivered over 1.95 million laptops and tablets to schools, trusts, local authorities, and further education providers for disadvantaged children and young people. This is part of a £520 million government investment to support access to remote education and online social care services.
The laptops and tablets distributed through the department are owned by schools, trusts, local authorities, or further education providers who can lend these to children and young people who need them the most. These laptops and tablets are an injection of support on top of an estimated 2.9 million already owned by schools before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. These devices are intended to give schools the flexibility to provide remote education support and can continue to be used in the longer term either in the classroom or from home.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much grant funding has been allocated to the National Union for Students over the past five years.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The department has not made any grant payments to the National Union for Students over the last five years.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the upcoming SEND Review and Green Paper, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of revising the Initial Teacher Training framework to ensure that all teachers are equipped to teach children with (a) speech, language and communication needs and (b) other special educational needs.
Answered by Robin Walker
Since September 2020, all courses offered by initial teacher training (ITT) providers have been aligned to a mandatory core content framework (CCF), which was published in November 2019. The framework sets out a minimum entitlement for all trainee teachers.
Evidence shows that teacher quality is the most important factor within schools in improving outcomes for all children, particularly those from a disadvantaged background, or for those with additional needs. The CCF is therefore key to the government’s plans to improve school standards for all.
The CCF is based on the best peer-reviewed evidence about what works and is designed to emphasis the importance of high quality teaching. The framework therefore deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular needs, but what makes the most effective teaching. The department expects ITT providers and their partners to continue to tailor their curricula to the needs of their trainees and the children in the schools where they train and will work, which may include pupils with specific speech, language and communication needs.
Additionally, courses must continue to be designed so that trainee teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the end of their course, including standard 5, which is clear that teachers must have an understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs.
In July 2021 we published the government response to the ITT Review which set out new quality requirements for all ITT from September 2024 and the government's aim to ensure that all trainee teachers experience consistently high-quality ITT that incorporates the ITT Core Content Framework in full.
This week, the department published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision Green Paper for full public consultation. These proposals set out a system that offers children and young people the opportunity to thrive, with access to the right support, in the right place, and at the right time, so they can fulfil their potential and lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives.
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.