Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the letter sent to him by the Sefton Association of Primary Heads and the Sefton Association of Secondary Heads dated 11 November 2020.

As referenced in my reply, this Government remains committed to ensuring that schools receive the support they need to provide pupils with a high-quality education. We have provided additional funding to support schools with extra costs they have incurred during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. To date, schools across the country have received payments totalling £102 million for all claims within the scope of the fund. We are also providing schools with another opportunity to claim for any additional costs incurred between March and July.

We have recently announced a new COVID-19 workforce fund to support schools with the costs of high levels of staff absences and ensure they can remain open. This is in addition to an unprecedented package of catch-up funding worth £1 billion and increasing school budgets year on year - £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23.

The Department is clear that exams will take place in Summer 2021 because they are the best way of judging students’ performance. We recognise the challenges faced by schools, teachers, and students and that is why we have taken additional steps including making changes to grading criteria, delaying the exam timetable by 3 weeks to allow more time for teaching in the Spring Term and other adaptions, such as giving students advanced notice of topic areas and providing support in the exam hall.

System leaders are doing a very good job in ensuring our children catch up and we want to make sure that we are fair to schools. That is why Ofsted have suspended routine, graded inspections for the Spring Term 2021. Inspectors will take into account the potential impact of COVID-19 on attendance and staffing and will do the same when inspecting and regulating nurseries, childminders and social care providers.