Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help parents access specialist support needed to enable their child to (a) fully participate in school life and (b) avoid being regularly absent.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Specialist support for children with additional needs to participate in education and avoid being regularly absent is vitally important. The department is taking a number of steps towards both these goals. In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department set out plans to build a consistent national SEND and AP system that parents and carers can trust, easily navigate, and have confidence in.
The foundation for the new nationally consistent system will be evidenced-based National Standards for early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The Standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to further education, no matter where they live or what their needs are.
On 22 November 2023, the department also announced Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools. This new programme, backed by £13 million of investment, will bring together Integrated Care Boards, local authorities, and schools, working in partnership with parents and carer to support schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children. These measures will also benefit attendance, improving which is a top priority for the government. The department recognises that pupils with SEND can face additional barriers.
To ensure pupils receive the support they need to regularly attend and participate in school, the department has published guidance expecting schools to have sensitive conversations with families about attendance, work with parents to develop specific support approaches, establish strategies for removing any in-school barriers and ensure joined up pastoral care is in place where needed.
A range of programmes including attendance hubs spreading best practice across school and attendance mentors providing one-to-one support will also tackle absence for children with SEND.
In addition, the department is investing £2.6 billion between now and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision, including opening 33 new special free schools, with a further 48 in the pipeline; and £21 million to go towards training 400 more educational psychologists, building on the £10 million investment announced earlier in 2022.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to deliver family hubs in every area of the country.
Answered by David Johnston
The government is investing around £300 million through the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme to enable 75 local authorities to create family hubs, and to improve vital services to give every baby the best start in life.
The local authorities taking part in the programme were selected by targeting areas with the highest levels of deprivation. An additional £28 million has also been made available to these local authorities to improve early language development, by supporting parents to help their children learn at home. This builds on the government’s previous investment to champion family hubs, including a £12 million transformation fund which will open family hubs in a further 13 local authorities in England.
This investment in family hubs is significant. It will have a wide reach across the country, improving outcomes for thousands of babies, children, and families.
The department’s ambition is to see family hubs open across the country. However, it is crucial that the department focuses on delivering well in the local areas that it is currently funding. The department will continue to build the model and evidence base, whilst working with the National Centre for Family Hubs to champion and spread good practice for all local authorities. The evidence and learning from this investment will help to improve services across England where they are most needed and help to build the evidence based for future investment decisions.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the views of teachers are taken into account in its review of the Relationships, Sex, Health and Education statutory guidance.
Answered by Damian Hinds
In carrying out its review of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance, the department has sought evidence from a range of stakeholders, including groups representing teachers and schools, to share evidence about areas of the guidance they think should be strengthened.
A small group of teachers also contributed their views directly in the roundtables with Ministers, which took place over summer 2023, focusing on key topics such as suicide prevention and RSHE teaching materials.
Teachers will also have an opportunity to present their views as part of the public consultation on revised guidance due to be launched in the coming months.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) academic research and (b) evidence from (i) young people, (ii) teachers and (iii) schools her Department has sought to inform the (A) expert advisory group and (B) review on relationships, sex and health education; and whether she plans to publish that evidence.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In carrying out its review of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance, the Department has sought evidence from a range of stakeholders, including groups representing pupils, teachers and schools, to share evidence about areas of the guidance they think should be strengthened.
The conclusions of the independent expert panel will be reflected in the revised draft of the guidance that will be subject to a full public consultation. The accompanying consultation document will set out the background to the panel’s recommendations to help inform responses.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to collect data on the number of parents who have had children removed from their care on multiple occasions.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
Local authorities provide information on looked after children through the SSDA903 annual return, but this does not include information on the family circumstances of looked after children.
The department recognises the need to collect the right data about children’s social care services to help achieve better outcomes for vulnerable children and young people. That is why in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, the department committed to developing a children’s social care dashboard to support the new National Framework and a data strategy for children’s social care. Through these initiatives, the department will look at how data gaps could be addressed.
The consultation on the children’s social care dashboard concluded on 11 May 2023 and the department is currently analysing the results. The department will set out the consultation findings and more information about the children’s social care data strategy later in the year.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) resources and (b) training her Department makes available to schools on addressing misogyny.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The statutory guidance for relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) emphasises that schools should be aware of issues such as everyday sexism, misogyny, homophobia and gender stereotypes. Schools should take positive action to build a culture where these are not tolerated, and any occurrences are identified and tackled. The guidance states that schools should make clear that sexual harassment is not acceptable, will never be tolerated, and is not an inevitable part of growing up. The statutory guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.
To help schools to teach the RSHE curriculum, the Department published a range of online Teacher Training Modules, covering each of the key subject areas, including Respectful Relationships and Being Safe. The Teacher Training Modules can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health. The Department also funded the delivery of a ‘train the trainer’ and peer support programme to schools from April 2020 to July 2021.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help secure school places for children without guardians.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
Children without guardians are among the most vulnerable in our society. The department knows that the vast majority of children taken into local authority care have experienced abuse or neglect and therefore require additional support. Wherever possible, they should be admitted to the school which is best able to meet their needs.
For this reason, school admission authorities have been required to give looked after children highest priority in their admission arrangements since 2007, and these children should be placed in good or outstanding schools.
The School Admissions Code also requires each local authority to have a Fair Access Protocol in place to ensure that any unplaced and vulnerable children are allocated a school place as quickly as possible. It also gives local authorities the power to direct the admission authority for any maintained school in England (other than a school for which they are the admissions authority) to admit a child who is looked after by the local authority, even when the school is full.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that all local authorities make arrangements to identify children missing education, including children of new migrant families.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local Authorities have a duty under section 436A of the Education Act 1996 to identify children missing education in their area. This duty applies to all compulsory school age children, for example those who have recently moved to the local area, including children of new migrant families, who are not registered pupils at a school and are not receiving suitable education otherwise.
The Department has issued statutory guidance for Local Authorities, setting out key principles to enable them to implement this duty, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/550416/Children_Missing_Education_-_statutory_guidance.pdf. These principles include implementing robust policies and procedures, and putting in place arrangements for joint working and information sharing with other agencies, including those who interact with migrant families.
This duty should be viewed alongside a Local Authority’s wider safeguarding duties, including their duty under section 10 of the Children Act 2004, to cooperate with other agencies in improving children’s well-being, including protection from harm and neglect. The Department’s Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance outlines what Local Authorities must and should do to keep children safe.
Ofsted is responsible for inspecting Local Authority children’s services to determine the effectiveness of services and arrangements to help and protect all children, including children missing education new to the area, and the experiences and progress of children in care. This includes unaccompanied child migrants and asylum seekers, but does not apply to migrant or asylum seeking children accompanied by a parent or adult with legal responsibility.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's timeframe is for reviewing relationship and sex education guidance; and what the process will be for that review.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In the ‘Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education’ statutory guidance 2019, the Department committed to reviewing the guidance three years from when it was first required to be taught in September 2020. The Department is now developing plans to review the guidance and, subject to its analysis, the Department intends to undertake a public consultation before publishing revised guidance.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many secondary school-age unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children were able to get a school place within 20 days in each of the last two academic years.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The department does not hold information centrally on in-year admissions, so we are not able to provide the information requested.