Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether proposed SEND reforms include provision for education other than in school.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether additional funding for the Targeted Plus group will be ring fenced.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is taking steps to ensure that this additional funding will be spent for its intended purpose to support mainstream inclusion, this includes providing funding such as the Inclusive Mainstream Fund as a separate grant with reporting conditions and guidance to be published to achieve this.
Our special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform consultation document proposes a continuum of support for children’s needs. Support will range from the Universal offer (including high-quality adaptive teaching) to the Targeted layer (such as small group provision) and Targeted Plus support (such as speech and language therapy).
We are providing additional funding to boost the capacity of mainstream settings to meet this continuum of need, before any legislative changes. The department will publish guidance and conditions of grant to ensure that settings and local authorities spend the funding on this purpose.
The Inclusive Mainstream fund provides over £500 million per year for schools, colleges and early years settings so they can improve their inclusive practice. We have published information on £1.8 billion for local authorities over the three years to provide a new Experts at Hand offer, strengthening the capability of mainstream settings to meet SEND needs by providing access to expert support from education and health professionals.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the educational rights of the Targeted Plus group will be enforced where those children do not have EHCPs.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Changes to how support is delivered will be underlined by stronger accountability across local authorities and health and education settings to ensure each layer of support is delivered effectively.
Schools will be required to produce an Inclusion Strategy, drawing on evidence-informed best practice including new National Inclusion Standards, which will help to hold them accountable for practice across layers of support, including targeted plus. Ofsted will be able to draw on the strategy to assess how effectively leaders are planning for, implementing and delivering inclusive practice.
There will also be a legal duty on settings to produce an Individual Support Plan (ISP) for every child or young person receiving targeted plus support, to clearly record the support they are accessing. The use and quality of ISPs will be considered in Ofsted inspections, with clear routes for parents to raise concerns.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how Specialist Resource Provisions fit within new school bases proposed in SEND reforms.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
As part of our reforms, to clarify and simplify terminology, we will collectively describe provision such as special educational needs (SEN) units, resourced provision and pupil support units as inclusion bases, underpinned by two models:
There are many examples of inclusion bases in mainstream settings that offer high quality teaching, bespoke learning environments and flexible access to specialist education or health support, helping children thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. These will continue to play an important role.
As a core component of our £3.7 billion high needs capital settlement we will invest in a transformational expansion of inclusion bases, so they become a core part of every local education offer. They will deliver high quality teaching and support to more children who benefit from provision that bridges the gap between mainstream and specialist.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve early interventions in cases of childhood neglect.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is driving major children’s social care reforms to strengthen and improve early intervention, including in cases of childhood neglect. These reforms are backed by £2.4 billion investment, robust statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’, and support for teachers, social workers and all safeguarding professionals to spot the signs of abuse and neglect more quickly.
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we will require local authorities and safeguarding partners to establish multi-agency child protection teams, enhance schools’ role in safeguarding partnership arrangements and introduce provisions that empower my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education to introduce a consistent identifier for children.
In addition, our Best Start Family Hubs will provide welcoming spaces that connect families to health, education, housing and parenting support, helping identify those who need more intensive help from family support and multi-agency child protection.
Our plans to establish a Child Protection Authority in England will also bring further focus to children who are experiencing or likely to experience significant harm, including neglect.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to work with Local Authorities to improve the teaching quality of Education otherwise than in a school packages.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities or who are in alternative provision, including those receiving education otherwise than in a school (EOTAS), receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
Last year, the department published a consultation titled ‘Strengthening protections in unregistered alternative provision’, which sought views on proposals intended to improve practice and raise standards for children in non-school settings, including those with education, health and care plans that gave them support through EOTAS. We are committed to improving the outcomes for vulnerable children being educated in this way and will set out the government’s response to the consultation and next steps in due course.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria her Department used to decide which schools would access Round 1 of funding for the Free Breakfast Club scheme.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The government is committed to introducing free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-aged pupils. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will require every state-funded school with children on roll from reception to year 6 to offer a free breakfast club before the start of each school day. This will ensure every child, regardless of circumstance, has a supportive start to the school day. The Autumn Budget 2024 confirmed over £30 million of funding for breakfast clubs for the 2025/26 financial year. This funding will enable the department to fund up to 750 early adopters of the new breakfast clubs. Decisions about future funding for breakfast clubs will be taken as part of the next phase of the spending review.
The department selected up to 750 early adopter schools to ensure a broad range of representation across different school types, sizes, and geographical areas. The aim is to test and learn from a variety of school settings, including those that already work with private, voluntary, and independent providers.
All state-funded schools with primary-aged children were eligible to apply, including primary schools, infant and junior schools, all-through schools, special schools, and alternative provision settings.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether schools in Folkestone and Hythe can apply for the second round of funding for the Free School Breakfast Club program.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The government is committed to introducing free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-aged pupils. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill will require every state-funded school with children on roll from reception to year 6 to offer a free breakfast club before the start of each school day. This will ensure every child, regardless of circumstance, has a supportive start to the school day. The Autumn Budget 2024 confirmed over £30 million of funding for breakfast clubs for the 2025/26 financial year. This funding will enable the department to fund up to 750 early adopters of the new breakfast clubs. Decisions about future funding for breakfast clubs will be taken as part of the next phase of the spending review.
The department selected up to 750 early adopter schools to ensure a broad range of representation across different school types, sizes, and geographical areas. The aim is to test and learn from a variety of school settings, including those that already work with private, voluntary, and independent providers.
All state-funded schools with primary-aged children were eligible to apply, including primary schools, infant and junior schools, all-through schools, special schools, and alternative provision settings.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has plans to help promote the uptake of apprenticeships in areas with high levels of youth unemployment.
Answered by Janet Daby
This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to grow the economy. Too many young people are struggling to access high-quality opportunities, and this government wants to ensure that more young people can undertake apprenticeships.
The department is developing new foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door at the start of their working lives whilst supporting the pipeline of new talent that employers will need to drive economic growth. This signals an important step towards realising a Youth Guarantee, which brings together a range of existing and new entitlements and provision so that 18 to 21-year-olds can access training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work in England. The department and the Department for Work and Pensions are developing the Guarantee with mayoral authorities to provide local, tailored support and will work with local areas on future expansion.
The department is promoting apprenticeships to students in schools and colleges through the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge programme and targeting young people through the Skills for Life campaign. The department is also transforming career opportunities and advice to increase awareness of the range of high-quality options available to young people, including apprenticeships. The department has committed to improve careers advice and guarantee two weeks’ worth of work experience for every young person, as well as establish a national jobs and careers service to support people into work and help them get on at work.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to use education in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools to prevent violence against women and girls.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade. Education has a crucial role to play in tackling harmful behaviour, helping children and young people to develop empathy, boundaries and respect for difference.
Through compulsory relationships education, all pupils will learn how to form positive and respectful relationships and develop an understanding of the concepts and laws around sexual harassment and sexual violence.
The department is currently reviewing the statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum for primary and secondary pupils and as part of this review we are looking at how to ensure that the guidance equips pupils, including at primary, to form healthy and respectful relationships. We are analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering relevant evidence to determine how this can fully complement our wider actions to tackle violence against women and girls.