Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has provided additional funding to schools to help implement covid-19-safe environments.

The measures in place in education settings to tackle COVID-19 are based on the latest scientific advice and strike a balance between managing transmission risk and reducing disruption to children and young people’s education.

The priority is for education and childcare settings to deliver face-to-face, high-quality education to all pupils and students. The evidence is clear that being out of education causes significant harm to educational attainment, life chances, and mental and physical health. To manage COVID-19 transmission, nurseries, schools and colleges should continue to ensure good hygiene for everyone, maintain appropriate cleaning regimes, keep occupied spaces well ventilated and follow public health advice on testing, self-isolation, face coverings and managing confirmed cases of COVID-19.

In order to support schools with these measures, CO₂ monitors have been provided to all state-funded schools starting from September, so staff can quickly identify where ventilation needs to be improved. The department has also made over £100 million of funding available to secondary schools, colleges and specialist settings to support them with the workforce costs associated with delivering on-site testing, and continue to do so, in line with departmental testing policy.

More generally, throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has ensured that all schools continued to receive their core funding as normal, regardless of any periods of reduced attendance. This year, mainstream school funding is increasing by 3.5% overall, and all schools are receiving at least a 2% increase to pupil-led per pupil funding.

As a result of the recent Spending Review, the department will be investing a further £4.7 billion by financial year 2024-25 for the core schools budget in England, over and above the Spending Review 2019 settlement for schools in 2022-23.

This investment includes a further £1.6 billion in financial year 2022-23, on top of year on year increases already announced. This additional funding will help the school sector respond to the pressures we know they are facing. The department will make announcements on the distribution of this additional funding shortly.

School leaders have the flexibility to make their own decisions on how to prioritise their spending to invest in a range of resources that will best support their staff and pupils.