Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure high levels of staff vacancy in specialist further education colleges do not jeopardise the quality and availability of provision for young people with the most complex special educational needs and disability.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
It is essential that all learners in the further education (FE) sector, including those with complex special needs, experience the highest quality teaching. We recognise that teacher recruitment and retention can be challenging for providers which is why, in the current financial year, the government is investing £50 million in programmes designed to improve the supply and quality of FE teachers. In January 2022 we launched a recruitment campaign to raise awareness of the opportunities to teach in FE with a wider audience. For those choosing to specialise in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) teaching in the FE sector, we have also announced that we will offer training bursaries worth £15,000 each, tax-free, for a further academic year (2022/23). This will help to boost the supply of teachers with specialist training to support learners with SEND in the FE sector.
We are also investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. This funding represents a transformational investment in new high needs provision and will help deliver tens of thousands of new high needs places, including in post-16 and FE settings.
Local authorities are best placed to understand the capacity of their local FE provision to accommodate additional children and young people with SEND. The department does not currently collect data centrally on available capacity in high needs provision but is continuing to work with local authorities to better understand future demand for SEND provision, including in FE settings, as it considers how it can best support the sector going forwards.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Part One of the National Disability Strategy, published July 2021, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) encourage and support workplace disability networks, (b) achieve and maintain the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation, (c) ensure responsive and timely support to meet workplace adjustment needs and (d) develop and embed flexible working.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
In the July 2021 National Disability Strategy, we set out our vision of how to improve the everyday lives of disabled people. One element of this was a series of commitments to support disabled civil servants to thrive at work.
The department previously launched a disability and neurodivergence action plan in July 2020. This action plan included a focus on supporting staff networks, ensuring equal access to the workplace through workplace adjustments and reviewing the flexible working policy.
With regard to the steps taken on the National Disability Strategy commitments:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Part One of the National Disability Strategy, published 28 July 2021, what recent steps his Department has to improve supported internships in England.
Answered by Will Quince
In the National Disability Strategy, we committed to supporting pathways to employment for learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including strengthening the Supported Internship Programme. We have recently announced investment of up to £18 million, aiming to double the capacity of this programme to help more young people with an education, health and care plan gain the skills they need to secure and sustain paid employment. We have also updated the Supported Internship Programme guidance, and through our contract/grant delivery partners in financial year 2020-21 we are developing a self-assessment quality framework for providers and helping local authorities to develop local supported employment forums. In addition, the Careers and Enterprise Company continues to encourage employers to provide work experience and supported internships for young people with SEND.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to reincorporate (a) autism and (b) special educational needs and disability into the Initial Teacher Training Framework.
Answered by Robin Walker
All teachers are teachers of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and the department is committed to ensuring that all children and young people, particularly those with SEND receive high quality teaching that will enable them to reach their full potential at school.
That is why the revised Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF), that all new entrants to the profession benefit from, has been designed around how to support all pupils to succeed, including those pupils identified within the four areas of need set out in the SEND code of practice.
When developing the framework, there were a range of views from stakeholders and SEND experts about things that could or should be included in the framework. However, there was consensus that our approach of ‘quality-first teaching’, would be the best way to improve outcomes for all children, particularly those with special educational needs. The framework, therefore, deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular additional needs, such as autism, but what makes the most effective teaching.
In addition to the mandated minimum set out in the ITT CCF, we expect 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. However, 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.
Within the new autism strategy, published in July 2021 and extended to children and young people for the first time, we set out how we will continue our programme of developing training and resources for education staff. We also committed to working in collaboration across government, with autistic people and their families, the NHS, local government, and the voluntary sector, to implement the strategy, and we are continuing to do so.
£600,000 of the strategy’s first year of funding has gone towards the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for the 2021/22 academic year. The department has funded the AET since 2011 to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools, and further education settings. It has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country. This includes not only teachers and teaching assistants, but also support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers, encouraging a 'whole school' approach to supporting autistic pupils.
The department has also provided £2 million of funding for the Whole School SEND consortium in 2021/22, through our contract with nasen. This will continue their wider programme of work to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching for all children and young people with SEND, including autism, this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on working strategically across schools and local authorities to help ensure that all staff receive autism training.
Answered by Robin Walker
All teachers are teachers of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and the department is committed to ensuring that all children and young people, particularly those with SEND receive high quality teaching that will enable them to reach their full potential at school.
That is why the revised Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF), that all new entrants to the profession benefit from, has been designed around how to support all pupils to succeed, including those pupils identified within the four areas of need set out in the SEND code of practice.
When developing the framework, there were a range of views from stakeholders and SEND experts about things that could or should be included in the framework. However, there was consensus that our approach of ‘quality-first teaching’, would be the best way to improve outcomes for all children, particularly those with special educational needs. The framework, therefore, deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular additional needs, such as autism, but what makes the most effective teaching.
In addition to the mandated minimum set out in the ITT CCF, we expect 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. However, 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.
Within the new autism strategy, published in July 2021 and extended to children and young people for the first time, we set out how we will continue our programme of developing training and resources for education staff. We also committed to working in collaboration across government, with autistic people and their families, the NHS, local government, and the voluntary sector, to implement the strategy, and we are continuing to do so.
£600,000 of the strategy’s first year of funding has gone towards the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for the 2021/22 academic year. The department has funded the AET since 2011 to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools, and further education settings. It has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country. This includes not only teachers and teaching assistants, but also support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers, encouraging a 'whole school' approach to supporting autistic pupils.
The department has also provided £2 million of funding for the Whole School SEND consortium in 2021/22, through our contract with nasen. This will continue their wider programme of work to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching for all children and young people with SEND, including autism, this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for SEN support in schools for the purposes of ensuring that autistic children who do not have an education health and care plan are supported.
Answered by Will Quince
The majority of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) do not have an education, health and care plan and are supported by their schools from the allocations of funding they receive for all their pupils. We have announced that significant additional funding is being made available for schools.
In financial year 2022-23 alone, core schools funding will increase by £4 billion compared to financial year 2021-22, a 5% real terms per pupil boost. This total includes a £2.5 billion increase in mainstream school funding for 5 to 16 year olds in financial year 2022-23, compared to this financial year 2021-22. This is equivalent to an average 5.8% cash increase, or £300, per pupil – with each local authority forecast to see at least a 4.7% increase per pupil for the mainstream schools in their area.
The national funding formula continues to distribute this funding fairly, based on the needs of schools and their pupil cohorts. It is provided to cover mainstream schools’ core spending, including support for pupils with low to mid-level SEND. Regulations require local authorities to identify such an amount within each school’s budget, and to calculate that amount using a sum of £6,000 (per pupil) as the threshold below which the school will be expected to meet the additional costs of pupils with special educational needs from its core budget, before accessing further high needs top-up funding from the local authority. It remains for individual schools to determine the best use of the funds available to them, to support all their pupils, including those with SEND.
Alongside additional funding, we have made significant progress with the SEND Review and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, committed, at the 3 November 2021 Education Select Committee, that in the first three months of this year we would publish proposals for full public consultation.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an estimate of the number of (a) autistic children and young people and (b) other pupils in Lewisham Deptford that have yet to return to full-time education as a result of covid-19.
Answered by Will Quince
We do not collect data on the attendance of children and young people broken down by specific conditions. Statistics on attendance during the COVID-19 outbreak can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.
The department collects data on the total number of children that are absent each day from school due to any reason relating to COVID-19. As we collect the total number of students absent from school, we are unable to determine if the same pupil is absent on consecutive days, so are unable to provide a total for the number of pupils that are yet to return to full-time education because of COVID-19.
Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, we have published and updated guidance for special schools, special post-16 providers and alternative provision to provide additional information and support for delivering education in these settings. This is clear that regular attendance at school, both special and mainstream, is vital for children’s education, wellbeing and long-term development and school attendance has been mandatory since the end of the last national lockdown. Our guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings.
To support this, we recommend that leaders in education work collaboratively with families to reassure them and to help their child engage with their everyday activities. Discussions should have a collaborative approach, focusing on the welfare of the child or young person and responding to the concerns of the parent, carer, or young person.
Any families with concerns about their child’s health should speak with their child’s GP or health care team for advice and guidance.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of the Government's national strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding available specifically for girls and women diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in (a) educational settings and (b) care homes.
Answered by Will Quince
The government is committed to addressing the inequalities experienced by autistic people of all ages. Within the new autism strategy, published in July 2021 and extended to children and young people for the first time, we set out how we will continue our programme of developing training and resources for education staff and will consider the issue of identification and support for autistic girls within this. We know that more needs to be done to improve autism identification for girls. That is why, as part of the wider work on improving diagnostic pathways, NHS England/Improvement is looking at ways to improve the quality of diagnosis for girls.
We also want the public to understand how autism can affect people differently, including the difference in how autistic women and girls present, and to help change people’s behaviour towards autistic people and their families.
In the strategy’s first year alone, we are investing £74 million to promote a straightforward route to diagnosis, the correct support, increasing understanding and improving access to a quality education and social care. Work is currently underway to deliver on the actions for the first year, set out in our implementation plan (2021- 2022). We are also in the process of putting in place a new governance structure to ensure there is accountability for delivery of the actions in the autism strategy, which we are aiming to establish in the new year.
£600,000 of this funding has gone towards the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for 2021/22, to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools and further education settings. This contract has been provided annually since 2011, and has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country.
Through this contract with the AET, the department has funded the development of Good Autism Practice Guidance for education settings. This includes a focus on attending to the strengths, needs and challenges of autistic girls.
The department has also provided £2 million of funding for the Whole School SEND consortium in 2021/22, through our contract with Nasen. This will continue their wider programme of work to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching for all children and young people with SEND, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, this year.
Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient places to meet the needs of children in their care, including autistic children who need to be cared for in a children’s home. Local authorities set their own children’s services budget from their core spending power, based on local need and priorities. This year, 2021-22, councils have access to £51.3 billion core spending power for their services, including a £1.7 billion grant for social care.
My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced at Spending Review 2021 that the government will provide local authorities with £4.8 billion of new grant funding over the next Spending Review period, which is intended to help meet the costs of delivering care for our most vulnerable children.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the level of demand for (a) specialised training for professionals and education providers working in the autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder sector and (b) support for females diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Answered by Will Quince
The government is committed to addressing the inequalities experienced by autistic people of all ages. Within the new autism strategy, published in July 2021 and extended to children and young people for the first time, we set out how we will continue our programme of developing training and resources for education staff and will consider the issue of identification and support for autistic girls within this. We know that more needs to be done to improve autism identification for girls. That is why, as part of the wider work on improving diagnostic pathways, NHS England/Improvement is looking at ways to improve the quality of diagnosis for girls.
We also want the public to understand how autism can affect people differently, including the difference in how autistic women and girls present, and to help change people’s behaviour towards autistic people and their families.
In the strategy’s first year alone, we are investing £74 million to promote a straightforward route to diagnosis, the correct support, increasing understanding and improving access to a quality education and social care. Work is currently underway to deliver on the actions for the first year, set out in our implementation plan (2021- 2022). We are also in the process of putting in place a new governance structure to ensure there is accountability for delivery of the actions in the autism strategy, which we are aiming to establish in the new year.
£600,000 of this funding has gone towards the department’s contract with the Autism Education Trust (AET) for 2021/22, to deliver autism awareness training to education staff in early years, schools and further education settings. This contract has been provided annually since 2011, and has so far reached more than 305,000 people across the country.
Through this contract with the AET, the department has funded the development of Good Autism Practice Guidance for education settings. This includes a focus on attending to the strengths, needs and challenges of autistic girls.
The department has also provided £2 million of funding for the Whole School SEND consortium in 2021/22, through our contract with Nasen. This will continue their wider programme of work to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching for all children and young people with SEND, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, this year.
Local authorities have a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient places to meet the needs of children in their care, including autistic children who need to be cared for in a children’s home. Local authorities set their own children’s services budget from their core spending power, based on local need and priorities. This year, 2021-22, councils have access to £51.3 billion core spending power for their services, including a £1.7 billion grant for social care.
My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced at Spending Review 2021 that the government will provide local authorities with £4.8 billion of new grant funding over the next Spending Review period, which is intended to help meet the costs of delivering care for our most vulnerable children.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the additional discretion available to schools by academisation, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that school funds are directed at teaching staff and the pupils in their care.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s priority is the delivery of world class education for all children from all backgrounds. The greater freedom and flexibility that academy trusts enjoy enables the strongest leaders to take responsibility for supporting more schools, developing great teachers and allowing schools to focus on what really matters – the high quality teaching of a broad and ambitious curriculum.
The 2020 Academies Financial Handbook states that the central responsibility for academy trusts is that they “must take full responsibility for their financial affairs, stewardship of assets and use resources efficiently to maximise outcomes for pupils”. Academy trusts work with parents and their local community to deliver on this responsibility. The new 2021 Academies Trust Handbook, also known as the Academies Financial Handbook, effective from 1 September 2021, reiterates the importance of involving parents in trust governance, helping to ensure that boards stay accessible and connected to the community they serve and support robust decision making. The 2021 Academies Trust Handbook is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/academies-financial-handbook/academy-trust-handbook-2021.
Academy trusts lead the way on accountability and transparency. They provide a significant amount of information to the public, setting out the trust and academy level expenditure. The Department also publishes individual academy allocation and expenditure data. This is easily accessible at individual academy level on the schools financial benchmarking website, which allows expenditure to be broken down by theme, including per pupil spend and proportion of expenditure on staff pay and resources. The schools financial benchmarking website is available here: https://schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk.
The Department operates an effective oversight programme that provides assurance to Parliament and the public. This is delivered through a range of assurance activity and wider intelligence gathering, including from independently audited financial information and educational performance data. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and Regional Schools Commissioners work together to build a joined-up picture of each school and academy trust. They take a risk-based approach to intervene proportionately on the rare occasions when needed.
The ESFA works with academy trusts to share good practice and provide support to help them build capacity and strengthen their financial and governance position. They also offer a school resource management adviser service. This is a free service providing hands-on support from experienced school professionals who work with schools to identify opportunities for improved spending decisions which will allow money to be reinvested back into critical areas of school activity.
Academy trusts are delivering very high standard of governance, educational and financial performance. The latest published data shows that 99.3% of academy trust accounts received unqualified opinions.