Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
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 protected from physical harm by students at school.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
No teacher should feel unsafe or face violence or abuse in the workplace. The government is clear all school employers, including trusts, have a duty to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their employees. The government has taken decisive action to improve pupils’ behaviour to ensure all schools are calm, safe, and supportive environments where pupils and staff can work in safety and are respected.
The department supports head teachers in taking proportionate and measured steps to ensure good behaviour in schools. To support schools in doing so, the department has strengthened the behaviour in schools guidance, the primary source of help and support for schools on developing and implementing a behaviour policy that can create a school culture which has high expectations of all pupils. This guidance outlines effective strategies that will encourage good behaviour and the sanctions that will be imposed for misbehaviour. The government also backs head teachers to use exclusions when required, as a last resort. This includes using permanent exclusion when allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.
The government has no plans to introduce self-defence training for teachers. The National Professional Qualification (NPQ) in Leading Behaviour and Culture is relevant for teachers, leaders and non-teaching staff who want to develop their understanding of contemporary practice and research around promoting and supporting positive behaviour. £184 million has been invested into providing fully-funded NPQs for teaching staff across the country to deliver 150,000 NPQs up until the 2023/24 academic year.
The government is providing £10 million of funding for the Behaviour Hubs programmes to enable schools and multi-academy trusts with exemplary behaviour cultures and practices to work in partnership with those that want to improve their behaviour culture.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will provide self defence training to secondary school teachers.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
No teacher should feel unsafe or face violence or abuse in the workplace. The government is clear all school employers, including trusts, have a duty to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their employees. The government has taken decisive action to improve pupils’ behaviour to ensure all schools are calm, safe, and supportive environments where pupils and staff can work in safety and are respected.
The department supports head teachers in taking proportionate and measured steps to ensure good behaviour in schools. To support schools in doing so, the department has strengthened the behaviour in schools guidance, the primary source of help and support for schools on developing and implementing a behaviour policy that can create a school culture which has high expectations of all pupils. This guidance outlines effective strategies that will encourage good behaviour and the sanctions that will be imposed for misbehaviour. The government also backs head teachers to use exclusions when required, as a last resort. This includes using permanent exclusion when allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.
The government has no plans to introduce self-defence training for teachers. The National Professional Qualification (NPQ) in Leading Behaviour and Culture is relevant for teachers, leaders and non-teaching staff who want to develop their understanding of contemporary practice and research around promoting and supporting positive behaviour. £184 million has been invested into providing fully-funded NPQs for teaching staff across the country to deliver 150,000 NPQs up until the 2023/24 academic year.
The government is providing £10 million of funding for the Behaviour Hubs programmes to enable schools and multi-academy trusts with exemplary behaviour cultures and practices to work in partnership with those that want to improve their behaviour culture.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of (a) mental health and (b) suicide prevention provision in secondary schools.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Schools are best placed to decide what mental health and wellbeing support to offer to pupils. The department does not collect detailed data on suicide prevention provision in schools, but asks questions about schools’ perceptions of mental health support, as part of its regular omnibus surveys, the results of which are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-college-panel-omnibus-surveys-for-2022-to-2023.
The department is supporting effective whole school approaches to mental health through our commitment to offer all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025. This includes training on how to make sure they are including processes for identifying individuals or groups who need additional mental health support. There are 14,400 settings that have claimed a grant up to 31 August 2023, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools.
To expand access to early mental health support, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to schools and colleges. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 47% of pupils in secondary schools in England. The department is extending coverage of MHSTs to an estimated 44% of pupils and learners in all schools and colleges by the end of this financial year and at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
Suicide prevention is part of school and system wide approaches to mental health and wellbeing, where schools should promote good mental health in children, provide a supportive environment for those experiencing problems, and help secure access to more specialist help for those who need it.
Schools can teach older pupils about suicide in an age-appropriate and sensitive way. The Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance advises that schools should approach teaching about self-harm and suicide carefully and should be aware of the risks to pupils from exposure to materials that are instructive rather than preventative, including websites or videos that provide instructions or methods of self-harm or suicide.
To support schools to deliver this content effectively, the department has produced teacher training modules. The mental wellbeing module contains key knowledge and facts to help teachers understand what they must teach, and is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-mental-wellbeing.
The department has started work on the review of the RSHE statutory guidance. Suicide prevention is one of the key subjects that the department will explore as a priority area, and it will work with a range of experts and those with lived experience to do this.
Mentions:
1: Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD - Life peer) counsellors and psychotherapists can work safely with young people who are experiencing trauma and abuse, self-harm - Speech Link
2: Earl Russell (LD - Excepted Hereditary) Many young people are effectively denied treatment, even after episodes of self-harm and attempted suicide - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab - Life peer) legislative framework whereby that can happen.I want to move on to the issue of sex and gender and self-ID - Speech Link
2: Baroness Browning (Con - Life peer) A positive and open safeguarding culture puts pupils’ interests first. - Speech Link
3: Baroness Brinton (LD - Life peer) A positive and open safeguarding culture puts pupils’ interests first. - Speech Link
4: Lord Farmer (Con - Life peer) Stating political positions as self-evident facts intimidates learners and shuts down debate. - Speech Link
5: Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab - Life peer) and all staff need to be given training on common issues, including anxiety, low mood and depression, self-harm - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Charlotte Nichols (Lab - Warrington North) Teachers and school staff are struggling, just like their pupils. - Speech Link
2: Catherine McKinnell (Lab - Newcastle upon Tyne North) steps will be taken now by the Government to address this crisis, which we know is causing so much harm - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Lord Touhig (Lab - Life peer) I have always thought that believing in oneself is the beginning of self-confidence. - Speech Link
2: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab - Life peer) we are doing enough in schools to develop that self-reliance. - Speech Link
3: Baroness Hollins (XB - Life peer) well-being and to intervene early when common mental conditions present, such as depression, anxiety and self-harm - Speech Link
4: Baroness Twycross (Lab - Life peer) In the worst cases, unresolved mental health issues lead to self-harm and attempted or successful suicide - Speech Link
Apr. 24 2024
Source Page: access-to-counsellors-in-secondary-schools-and-children-and-young-peoples-community-mental-health-services-summary-reportsFound: services did not identify as male/female or preferred not to specify their gender.Where a breakdown of pupils
Mar. 21 2024
Source Page: Use of reasonable force in AP and special schoolsFound: schools were contacted to take part in the research, participation was voluntary, so the sample was self
Mentions:
1: Flick Drummond (Con - Meon Valley) children and families who have been left on the fringes of the education system, and who may be at risk of harm - Speech Link
2: Emma Hardy (Lab - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) aggressive towards the parent who is trying to take them or hysterical, and how some have threatened self-harm - Speech Link