Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the impact on educational attainment of denial of mitigated circumstances for children whose parent or guardian passed away outside of the current six month cut off prior to examinations.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Interim Chief Regulator Sir Ian Bauckham, to write to the hon. Member and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 206 of the policy paper entitled National food strategy for England, updated in July 2021, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the implications for its policies of the recommendation to remove the requirement for schools to serve meat three times a week from the School Food Standards.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The government’s school food standards regulates the food and drink provided at both lunchtime and at other times of the school day. Beyond this, the department believes that headteachers, school governors and caterers are best placed to make decisions about their school food policies, taking into account local circumstances and the needs of their pupils. The school food standards guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-food-standards-resources-for-schools.
The government recognises the importance of plant-based foods from a cultural and environmental point of view. The standards for school food allow schools the freedom to provide plant-based meals as needed. Meat must be served on three or more days each week and, beyond this, schools may provide a meal with a vegan source of protein every day if they choose to.
The department believes that the current standards provide a robust yet flexible framework to ensure that pupils in England continue to receive high-quality and nutritious food that encourages healthy eating habits for life. The department is keeping the standards under review.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support PhD students with the increased cost of living.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Government introduced doctoral loans in the 2018/19 academic year. These loans, which offer up to £28,673 for courses starting in 2023/24, are a contribution to the costs of study, and are the first direct government funding for doctoral study available to students on an open to all basis. For example, available to all eligible students who have gained a place on an eligible programme of study.
The government is considering options for doctoral loans for the 2024/25 academic year and will be making an announcement in due course.
The government recognises the cost-of-living pressures that have impacted students. That is why the department asked the Office for Students to maintain Student Premium and Mental Health funding for the 2023/24 financial year at the same levels as the previous year.
The department has made available £276 million of Student Premium and Mental Health funding for the 2023/24 academic year to support students who need additional help. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support children who have a parent serving a prison sentence.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018 sets out local areas’ responsibilities to provide support and services. It highlights dependent children of imprisoned parents as a cohort which practitioners should be particularly aware of and should provide the appropriate needs-based advice and support to where needed.
The department’s ambition is for every family to receive the right support, at the right time. In Stable Homes, Built on Love, the department outlined its strategy for whole system reform, including family help which will provide effective and intensive support to any family facing significant challenges.
Prison Mother and Baby Units Admission Boards must be in receipt of a Children’s Services assessment in order to facilitate a Board. Every assessment by a social worker should reflect children’s needs within their family and community context, which would include taking account of a parent being in prison. These children’s circumstances vary considerably and therefore local agencies are best placed to determine what support is needed, whether early help, statutory social care services, or support for other needs such as mental health.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing sustainability content to GCSEs.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Topics related to climate change and the environment are already included within the respective Citizenship, Science and Geography national curricula. Existing GCSEs such as Design and Technology, Food Preparation and Nutrition, and Economics contain opportunities for students to be taught about the environmental and sustainability context of the processes and principles underlying these subjects. The Environmental Science A level is also already available.
As committed to in the Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for the Education and Children’s Services Systems, the Department is introducing a Natural History GCSE. The Natural History GCSE will allow students to engage with and study specific organisms, such as plants and animals, and the contexts in which they live, including their complex interactions and dependencies. It will develop students’ skills of observation, description, recording, and analysis, through sustained and structured field study. It will enable pupils to build on their knowledge in other subjects, in particular Science and Geography.
Our strategy also commits to a National Education Nature Park and Climate Action Award, which will provide many educational opportunities for young people to take part in community science, in biodiversity monitoring and data analysis, and to translate knowledge into positive action and learn important skills for the future. Participants will have access to a comprehensive, curriculum based set of climate education resources, lesson plans, activities and schemes of work from Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stages 1 to 4, curated and devised by a wide range of very knowledgeable stakeholders.
The Climate Action Award will recognise the environmental work already being done by schools and colleges. At its highest level, young people will be researching and undertaking projects that will prepare them for apprenticeships and further study in the new green economy.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to monitor compliance with the statutory guidance entitled Cost of school uniforms, published on 19 November 2021; and if her Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of the cost of school uniforms on the level of children who do not attend school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
While it is the responsibility of school governing boards to determine their uniform policy, the Department expects schools to comply with the guidance on the cost of school uniforms. The Department continues to engage with the sector to ensure that schools are aware of their obligation to have regard to the guidance and in July 2023 published the results of a survey of school leaders looking at changes made as a result of the guidance. The survey results can be found at here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-college-panel-omnibus-surveys-for-2022-to-2023.
The Department also continues to assess compliance with the guidance through engagement with key stakeholders, including school leaders and uniform suppliers, and via correspondence from parents.
The Department has no plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of the cost of school uniform on attendance. The guidance on the cost of school uniform is clear that, where it is suspected that financial hardship has resulted in a pupil not complying with a school’s published uniform policy, schools should take a mindful and considerate approach to resolve the situation.
Last year, the Government introduced strong new expectations on schools and Local Authorities to work together to tackle absence. The Department will continue to monitor attendance data to understand and assess the impact of the attendance reforms.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that teaching staff receive appropriate training to support students with (a) autism and (b) sensory issues.
Answered by Nick Gibb
All teachers need to be equipped to teach pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). High quality teaching is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes for all pupils, including those with autism.
Training and development to support pupils with autism starts at the beginning of a teacher’s training through their Initial Teacher Training (ITT) course, which is then embedded through the Early Career Framework (ECF). Careful consideration has been given to the needs of trainee teachers in relation to supporting pupils with SEND, and the ECF builds on that training for early career teachers.
Once teachers qualify and are employed in schools, head teachers also use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils, for example, through the Universal Services Programme.
The programme offers online training, professional development groups, bespoke school and college improvement projects, sector led research, autism awareness training and a focus on preparation for adulthood, including employer led webinars. The programme commenced in May 2022 and will run until Spring 2025.
So far, 6,500 school and college staff have accessed free online training modules, and 81 schools and over 135 colleges have identified and led their own SEND focused school improvement project. These projects focused on SEND Governance, teaching assistant deployment, early identification of SEND and curriculum.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support families caring for disabled children.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
It is the responsibility of local authorities, schools, and further education settings to commission appropriately qualified staff to support the education of children and young people in their area.
The department’s reforms, as set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan and the Children’s Social Care Implementation strategy, detail the department’s commitments for providing stronger support for disabled children, including:
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support individuals on student loan plans (a) 2 and (b) 4.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Decisions on student finance have to be taken alongside other spending priorities to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of higher education (HE) are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
The government has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for plan 2 student loans each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.3% for the 2022/23 academic year, with a further 2.8% increase announced for 2023/24. In addition, the department is freezing maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students and to keep the costs of HE under control. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years.
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. The department has made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students, including disadvantaged students.
Student loans are available to all eligible students, irrespective of background or financial history, and include significant protections. Monthly student loan repayments are calculated by income rather than by interest rates or the amount borrowed. If a borrower’s earnings are below the relevant repayment threshold, they will not be required to make any repayments. At the end of the loan term, or in case of death or disability, any outstanding loan debt, including interest accrued, will be written off at no detriment to the borrower. No commercial loans offer this level of protection. To further protect borrowers, where the government considers that the student loan interest rate is too high in comparison to the prevailing market rate, it will reduce the maximum plan 2, plan 3 and plan 5 interest rate.
Plan 4 student loans are issued by the Scottish Government, which has responsibility for HE in Scotland and determines the student finance arrangements for Scottish students.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure that teachers are trained to identify signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as early as possible.
Answered by Nick Gibb
All teachers are teachers of Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and high quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve at school.
There are already a number of measures in place to support teachers in identifying and implementing support for pupils who face difficulties, including working with a dedicated SEND coordinator.
From September 2020, all new teachers have benefited from at least three years of evidence based professional development and support, starting with Initial Teacher Training (ITT) based on the new ITT Core Content Framework (CCF), and followed by a new two-year induction, underpinned by the Early Career Framework (ECF). The Department is reviewing the ITT CCF and ECF this year. This includes working with experts to identify opportunities to improve how the frameworks can support new teachers to be more confident in meeting the needs of pupils with SEND.
In addition, all ITT courses must be designed so that trainee teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.