Pupils: Disability

(asked on 21st October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to allocate additional funding to support children with complex disabilities to return to school during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 29th October 2020

We know that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), along with their parents, carers and families, will have faced real difficulties during the COVID-19 outbreak. We have published a range of guidance to support children, families, carers and educational settings.

We are increasing high needs funding for children with complex SEND by an extra £1.5 billion across this year and next year. We are also providing schools with an additional catch-up support worth £1 billion. Of this, £650 million has been committed towards a COVID-19 catch-up premium. This has been introduced to support mainstream and special schools to make up for lost teaching time upon a pupil’s return to school.

All pupils have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, so schools’ allocations from the catch-up premium will be calculated on a per pupil basis. This will provide each mainstream school with a total of £80 for each pupil and special schools, alternative provision and hospital schools with £240 for each place, across the 2020-21 academic year. We have applied additional weighting to specialist settings, recognising the significantly higher per-pupil costs that they face. However, all schools should use the total catch-up premium funding available to them as a single total from which to prioritise support for particular pupils, including children with SEND or education, health and care plans, according to their needs.

Additionally, the Department for Education has worked with our partners, the Department of Health and Social Care, Health Education England, Public Health England and key voluntary sector organisations, to launch Wellbeing for Education Return. This project, backed by £8 million, is training local experts to provide additional advice and resources for schools and colleges to help support pupil, student, parent, carer and staff wellbeing, resilience and recovery in light of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown. It will give staff the confidence to support pupils, students, and their parents.

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