Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to meet the needs of areas where there are increases in demand for school placements at (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local Authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for pupils in their area. The Department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support Local Authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. This funding supports the Government’s priority to ensure that every pupil has the opportunity of a place at a good school, whatever their background.
The Department has announced a total of £2 billion for places needed for the academic years starting in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. This funding is on top of our investment in the Free Schools programme and means the Department has now committed Basic Need capital funding of over £14 billion to support the creation of new school places between 2011 and 2026.
The Department regularly engages with Local Authorities to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When Local Authorities are experiencing difficulties, the Department supports them to find solutions as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Lord Laming (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the 130,000 children of homeless families are receiving an education in school.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All children of compulsory school age, regardless of their circumstances, are entitled to a full-time education which is suitable to their age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs that they may have. The department consulted and implemented changes to the statutory School Admissions Code in 2021 to improve the in-year school admissions process and fair access protocols. Fair access protocols are the safety net to secure school places in-year for vulnerable and unplaced children, where the in-year admissions process fails. In those changes, the department identified a list of categories of children who are eligible for placement in fair access, which included children who are homeless. The school admissions code can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2.
The ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance expects schools, local authorities and partners to work with pupils and parents to remove any barriers to school attendance by building strong and trusting relationships, and working together to put the right support in place. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance. In all cases, schools should be sensitive and should avoid stigmatising pupils and parents. They should talk to pupils and parents to understand what they think would help improve their attendance. This allows individual approaches that meet an individual pupil’s specific needs.
All schools should be calm, orderly, safe, and supportive environments where pupils can thrive and reach their potential in safety and dignity. Teachers know their pupils best and are in the best position to identify their needs and to plan which approaches will meet them most effectively.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the NIA Academy on its obligations under section 9 of the Equality Act 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Secretary of State has asked the Regional Director to speak to Haringey Council and Haringey Education Partnership about their work with the Northampton International Academy (NIA). They confirmed the initiative was set up to address large and longstanding differences in attainment between black heritage students and white British students in Haringey. Whilst the initiative is targeted towards black heritage students, it is open to pupils of all ethnicities. They also confirmed that the programme does not introduce pupils to critical race theory.
The Department’s guidance to schools on political impartiality is clear. Schools must remain politically impartial and should be mindful of the need not to promote partisan political views to pupils.
As an out of school setting, the NIA Academy is not regulated under education or childcare law. This means that the Department does not set the admissions framework for these settings, and so the Department has not contacted the organisation directly.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has held recent discussions with Haringey Council on the NIA Academy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Secretary of State has asked the Regional Director to speak to Haringey Council and Haringey Education Partnership about their work with the Northampton International Academy (NIA). They confirmed the initiative was set up to address large and longstanding differences in attainment between black heritage students and white British students in Haringey. Whilst the initiative is targeted towards black heritage students, it is open to pupils of all ethnicities. They also confirmed that the programme does not introduce pupils to critical race theory.
The Department’s guidance to schools on political impartiality is clear. Schools must remain politically impartial and should be mindful of the need not to promote partisan political views to pupils.
As an out of school setting, the NIA Academy is not regulated under education or childcare law. This means that the Department does not set the admissions framework for these settings, and so the Department has not contacted the organisation directly.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support is available to schools with falling pupil numbers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has now published the National Funding Formula for schools and high needs 2024/25, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for-schools-and-high-needs.
The overall core schools budget will be over £59.6 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, the highest ever level in real terms per pupil in 2024/25, as measured by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.
To support Local Authorities to meet their sufficiency duty, the Department provides them with revenue funding for growth and falling rolls through their Dedicated Schools Grant. The Department has allocated £259 million in Growth and Falling Rolls funding to Local Authorities in 2023/24.
Local Authorities currently have discretion on whether to operate a falling rolls fund. Any decisions regarding the criteria for, and level of, falling rolls funding which is allocated by the Local Authority must be approved by the Schools Forum.
The Department is introducing new requirements for growth and falling rolls funding in 2024/25 which will provide Local Authorities with more flexibility to support schools seeing significant declines in pupil numbers, where these places will still be needed within the next three to five years. More information on the changes to growth and falling rolls funding can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-for-schools-and-high-needs.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers were employed by state comprehensives (a) in the most recent period for which data is available and (b) in 2019.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Recent data shows that there are now over 468,000 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes the highest number of FTE teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
Of the 468,371 FTE teachers in England, 216,013 were employed by state funded secondary schools. Also, the data identifies that 10,603 (4.9%) were employed in fully selective state funded schools (grammar schools) and 204,647 (95.1%) in all other state funded schools (this includes non selective schools, some schools that are partially selective, and schools where admissions policy was unknown or reported as not applicable).
187,630 (87.2%) FTE teachers were employed in schools non selective in their admissions, 10,603 (4.9%) were selective, 5,336 (2.5%) reported not applicable and admissions policy was not identifiable for 11,681 (5.4%). Individual figures do not sum to the total figure because they are based on school level information, whereas the total is based on a grossed national figure, which includes a measure of estimation to account for nil returns to the School Workforce Census.
Information on the school workforce in England is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Information on school admission policy is listed in Get Information About Schools (GIAS), which is the Department’s register for several organisation types, such as Schools and Multi Academy Trusts. These organisations maintain and can retrieve their details, such as whether their admissions policy is selective, using the GIAS website, which is available at: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk.
Asked by: Lord Desai (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child that the UK should prevent the use of religion as a selection criterion for school admission in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The UK is a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’s (UNCRC), and the department will consider carefully the Committee’s recommendations. The government does not always agree with, or implement, UNCRCs recommendations, and there is no requirement to do so.
Mainstream state-funded schools designated with a religious character, commonly known as faith schools, may choose to give priority for places to applicants on the basis of faith, but only where they are oversubscribed. Where they have places available, they must admit all children who apply without reference to faith. Faith-based oversubscription criteria provide a means to support parents to have their children educated in line with their religious and philosophical beliefs, where they wish to do so.
Some faith schools only prioritise a proportion of places with reference to faith, and others do not use faith-based criteria at all. Free schools which are designated with a religious character must allocate at least 50% of places without reference to faith, where they are oversubscribed.
The School Admissions Code exists to ensure that admission arrangements are fair, clear and objective, and is binding on all state mainstream schools, including faith schools. Where anyone is concerned that a school’s admission arrangements are unfair or unlawful, the department encourages them to refer an objection to the independent Schools Adjudicator.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Basic Need schools funding.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support Local Authorities to meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places. It is targeted according to expected need, which is calculated using Local Authorities’ own pupil forecasts and school capacity data.
Nationally, the primary school population grew by 16% between 2009 and 2019. Between 2015 and 2023, the secondary school population grew by 14% and it is expected to peak in 2024. Despite peaking at a national level, the Department expects growth to continue in some parts of the country.
The Department has now committed Basic Need capital funding of over £14 billion to support the creation of new school places between 2011 and 2026, including a total of almost £2 billion for places needed in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. The Department regularly engages with Local Authorities to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When Local Authorities are experiencing difficulties, the Department supports them to find solutions as quickly as possible.
Local Authorities, schools and communities have risen to the challenge with the support of the Department’s Basic Need grant and the Free Schools programme. Between May 2010 and May 2022, they have created almost 1.2 million school places, the largest increase in school capacity for at least two generations. Many of these places have been built in schools Ofsted has rated as good or outstanding. For example, between 2020 and 2021, 89% of the new primary places added and 88% of new secondary places were in good or outstanding schools.
The support provided by the Department meant that, between 2010 and 2023, the average primary class size has remained stable between 26.4 and 27.1 pupils and the average secondary class size remains low at 22.4 pupils, despite the increase in pupil numbers.
Additionally, in 2022, 92.2% of families received an offer of a place at their highest preference primary school and 83.3% of families received an offer of a place at their highest preference secondary school.
The number of pupils in places that exceed their school’s capacity is down by around 40% since 2010, from over 97,000 in May 2010 to 59,000 in May 2022.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether parents with young people with SEND have applied to the Fair Access Protocol.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not hold information on which children are referred to local Fair Access Protocols.
Parents do not apply for a school place via the Fair Access Protocol directly. Parents are referred to the Protocol when they are having difficulty in securing a school place in-year, and it can be demonstrated that reasonable measures have been taken to secure a place through the usual in-year admission procedures.
Children with special educational needs, disabilities or medical conditions but without an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan are eligible for the Fair Access Protocol. Paragraph 3.17 of the Schools Admissions Code outlines the groups of children who are eligible for a place via the Fair Access Protocol.
All children whose EHC plan names a school must be admitted to the school.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the national secular society report entitled how state school admissions policies enable coercive control in religious communities, published in February 2023, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her policies of that report's findings on admissions requirements for state-funded faith schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Like all other mainstream state funded schools, schools designated with a religious character, commonly known as faith schools, must admit all children who apply, without reference to faith, where there are places available. Where they are oversubscribed, they may give priority for places to applicants on the basis of faith. No parent is required to provide information on their membership or practice of the faith when applying to a faith school, although they may not then be eligible for priority under any faith oversubscription criteria.
The Department does not intend to remove faith schools’ ability to set faith-based oversubscription criteria. Faith-based oversubscription criteria provide a means to support parents to have their children educated in line with their religious and philosophical beliefs, where they wish to do so.
The admission authority of a faith school is responsible for setting their admission arrangements and deciding whether or not to use faith-based oversubscription criteria.
The Department issues the statutory School Admissions Code which applies to all mainstream state funded schools, including faith schools, and places requirements on admission authorities about their arrangements and what they may ask from parents as part of the admissions process. The Code also signposts other relevant laws which admission authorities must comply with, including the Human Rights Act 1998.
In constructing any faith oversubscription criteria, a faith school’s admission authority must have regard to any guidance from the body or person representing the religion or religious denomination, to the extent that the guidance complies with the Code. They must also consult with the religious body when deciding how membership or practice of the faith is to be demonstrated. Ultimately, the admission authority must ensure its arrangements comply with the Code and other relevant legislation, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010.
Anyone who is concerned that a school’s admission arrangements are unfair or unlawful is encouraged to refer an objection to the independent Schools Adjudicator, whose decision is binding and enforceable. The Government does not routinely make an assessment of the impact of individual faith schools’ admissions criteria. All legislation, including admissions law, must be compatible with equalities and human rights law.
The Department has no current plans to introduce more specific requirements for faith school admissions beyond those already set out in law. The Department routinely considers reports and guidance from stakeholders and other bodies, such as the report issued by the National Secular Society. All such information helps to inform future policy development.