Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans formally to respond to the consultation on Implementing the English Baccalaureate which closed on 29 January 2016.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We will publish the Government response to the consultation on the implementation of the English Baccalaureate in due course.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to require Ofsted to make regular visits within three months to all schools that have been placed in special measures regardless of whether they have not changed their governance structure.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Secretary of State has a duty to make an academy order for all local authority maintained schools that are judged by Ofsted to be inadequate. If an academy is judged to be inadequate, the Secretary of State has the power to transfer it to a stronger academy trust. In both cases, these academies will generally be inspected as new schools in their third year of operation.
We believe it is right in these cases to allow the new academy trust the opportunity to turnaround what was a previously failing school before it is inspected by Ofsted.
However, Ofsted will inspect schools at any time where information that they hold or receive causes sufficient concern.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether students who have not achieved at least a C grade in English and mathematics GCSE will be required to resit those exams as many times as it takes them to achieve that grade.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Departmental funding rules require full time students with prior attainment of a D to work towards achieving a C grade or higher in GCSE English and maths. Students who achieve lower than a D grade at 16 may study other qualifications such as Functional Skills as a ‘stepping stone’ towards GCSE.
For those opting to retake their GCSE(s) or being required to do so due to having previously attained a grade D, there is no requirement for them to repeatedly re-sit the GCSE exam. Schools and colleges have the freedom to determine when a student is ready to re-sit their GCSE. This is because our 16-19 English and maths requirements relates to enrolments rather than exam entries. This provides a school or college the flexibility to determine when best for a student to be entered for and sit an exam. For some students that might be the following November, while other students may require
a year, or two years study and tuition before they are ready to re-sit the exam.
If students resit their GCSE part way through their programme and fail to gain a grade C then they are expected to continue studying for the GCSE.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional resources are being provided for post-16 students who are required to resit English and mathematics GCSEs.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Funding for the study of English and maths, including GCSE resits, is provided through the 16-19 national funding formula. The formula incorporates disadvantage funding for providers including a funding uplift of up to £960 per full time student per year to provide for the additional costs incurred for teaching students who have low prior attainment, as indicated by not achieving English and/or maths GCSEs at grade C or above by the end of year 11 (typically age 16). This additional funding is not intended to solely fund maths and English qualifications, but to fund support for students to achieve their learning goals, including maths and English.
For the past three years the Government has also invested in programmes to support improvements in the teaching of maths and English in Further Education (FE) settings. This year, funding will provide up to 13,000 training opportunities for FE practitioners to improve their subject knowledge and confidence in their teaching of maths or English, fund bursaries for 300 graduates to train to become maths or English teachers in FE settings and further build evidence on evidence of what constitutes effective delivery and teaching of English and maths for students aged 16 to 18 that have not yet achieved level 2 English and maths.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that funding is in place to implement its policy of 30 hours free childcare.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We are committed to providing the high-quality, affordable childcare that working families need.
To enable the successful implementation of 30 hours of free childcare, we are investing £1billion of additional funding per year, including £300million per year to increase our national average funding rates.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of schools and sixth form colleges not accepting students who have failed to achieve a C grade in English and mathematics GCSE on availability of places for students who are required to resit those examinations.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Post-16 providers are responsible for setting entry requirements to their post-16 courses, and can specify a C grade or higher in English and mathematics GCSE in entry requirements to level 3 courses such as A levels or Tech Levels. When setting entry requirements for specific courses, schools and sixth form colleges consider the level of English and mathematics a young person will need to possess in order to successfully study the course.
Government funding ensures that there is a place available for every young person at a local provider. If a student would benefit from support to identify a suitable place in post-16 education and training,there will be various sources of advice, including from the local authority.
At the end of 2015 the proportion of 16 and 17 year olds in education and work based learning (apprenticeships) was 90.9%, the highest participation figure since consistent records began in 1994.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to restrict the amount spent by local authorities on legal support and advice in special educational needs and disability tribunals.
Answered by Edward Timpson
It is up to local authorities to decide how best to spend their Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) budgets, based on an analysis of local need. The reforms in the Children and Families Act 2014 were designed to make the SEND system less adversarial for parents and young people, as well as for local authorities. The process of Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and plan development is designed to be collaborative, meaning that most disagreements should be resolved early on. Where disagreements persist, we have introduced a requirement to consider mediation, which has often proved effective in reducing the need to make an appeal to the SEND Tribunal. For example, in 2015, 75% of disagreements over EHC plans for which mediation sessions were held did not result in a Tribunal appeal in that year.
The SEND Tribunal aims to be facilitative and accessible, so that it should not be necessary for either parents or local authorities to employ legal support when making or defending an appeal. No additional weight is given to evidence because it is presented by a lawyer and many parents and local authorities successfully pursue their case without legal representation.
The Department is currently conducting a Review of Disagreement Resolution Arrangements, as required by the 2014 Act, which will report to Parliament by 31st March 2017. The Review is looking at how the system of disagreement resolution is working for children, young people and their families, which includes enquiring about the costs incurred by both families and local authorities.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase awareness of the problems caused by illegal drugs in schools among (a) pupils and (b) parents.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Effective drug education is essential in supporting prevention, and in addressing the problem of drug misuse. Education plays an important role in helping to ensure that young people have the information they need to make informed, healthy decisions and to keep themselves safe.
Drug education is part of national curriculum science at key stage 2 and key stage 3. Provision in this area can be built on through personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education.
High quality PSHE can also play a vital role in developing the skills and attributes young people need to identify and manage risk and to stay safe. We believe that teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and our approach is for schools to develop their own local PSHE programme to reflect the needs of their pupils, drawing on the resources and evidence provided by experts.
We want to ensure that all schools are drawing on the best evidence available to deliver their PSHE. In March 2015, the Department published a ‘Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education: a review of impact and best practice’, which included the best evidence on what works in drugs education. This can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pshe-education-a-review-of-impact-and-effective-practice.
It is good practice for schools to involve parents when developing their PSHE policy and schools are encouraged to publish their curriculum online. There are also useful resources available to support parents in increasing their knowledge about the risks that pupils face, including those problems caused by illegal drugs.
Asked by: Tania Mathias (Conservative - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what threshold for (a) individual and (b) household earnings she plans to introduce to determine eligibility for the Government's 30 hours free childcare scheme.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The new entitlement to 30 hours free childcare is intended to support working parents with the cost of childcare and enable them, where they want, to return to work or to work additional hours.
To meet the principle of designing a system that is simple for parents, the Government’s intention is that eligibility for 30 hours free childcare should broadly align with Tax-Free Childcare. In particular both parents, or the single parent in such households, will need to work the equivalent of 8 hours per week at the national minimum wage. Further detail on eligibility will be provided during passage of the Childcare Bill.