Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of secondary (a) mainstream and (b) maintained special schools offered British Sign Language GCSE in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department published British Sign Language GCSE subject content in December 2023, following a public consultation last summer. Exam boards are now able to develop detailed specifications, which must be reviewed and accredited by Ofqual before schools and colleges are able to teach them. As such, no schools are currently offering the GCSE. The department’s aim is that exam board specifications will be available to schools who wish to offer the GCSE from September 2025.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to increase the provision of British Sign Language GCSE in mainstream secondary schools.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department published British Sign Language GCSE subject content in December 2023, following a public consultation last summer. Exam boards are now able to develop detailed specifications, which must be reviewed and accredited by Ofqual before schools and colleges are able to teach them. As such, no schools are currently offering the GCSE. The department’s aim is that exam board specifications will be available to schools who wish to offer the GCSE from September 2025.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of young people achieve a pass in Functional Skills Level 2 (a) English and (b) maths in 16-19 education by (i) prior attainment at age 16, (ii) whether they are from a disadvantaged background or not and (iii) region.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department collects data on entries into GCSE and Functional Skills English and maths by students aged 16 to18 attending schools and colleges in England, including independent schools. Most students aged 16 to 18 enter below level 3 English and maths qualifications because they did not achieve a GCSE pass at grade 9 to 4 or equivalent during key stage 4, and so are required to continue to study those subjects under condition of funding rules. More information on condition of funding rules can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-maths-and-english-condition-of-funding.
Data is published in the ‘A level and other 16 to 18 results’ national statistics release and provides the number of entries and pass rates in each year. A link to this publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results.
Tables 1 and 2 of the attached spreadsheet provide the data by the breakdowns requested. Data by year group is not available.
Note that a student may appear in the data more than once, for example if they entered exams both at the start of the academic year and in the following summer. Further, whilst the data shows many more entries by 16 to18 year olds in GCSEs versus Functional Skills at level 2, this to some extent follows differences in data collected by awarding organisations, where each recorded ‘entry’ in Functional Skills possibly reflects multiple assessment attempts. Local practice will vary and practices in large individual colleges can have impact on regional rates.
The department also publishes related data in the ‘Level 2 and 4 attainment by age 16 to 25’ national statistics release.
This tracks the attainment in English and maths for students in the mainstream state sector in year 11, which is the final year of secondary school, to age 19 (so 16 to 19), and includes data on achievement of 19 year olds in level 2 English or maths broken down by disadvantage status and prior attainment. More information can be accessed via the links below:
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of young people achieve a pass in GCSE (a) English and (b) maths in 16-19 education by (i) prior attainment at age 16, (ii) whether they are from a disadvantaged background or not and (iii) region.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department collects data on entries into GCSE and Functional Skills English and maths by students aged 16 to18 attending schools and colleges in England, including independent schools. Most students aged 16 to 18 enter below level 3 English and maths qualifications because they did not achieve a GCSE pass at grade 9 to 4 or equivalent during key stage 4, and so are required to continue to study those subjects under condition of funding rules. More information on condition of funding rules can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-maths-and-english-condition-of-funding.
Data is published in the ‘A level and other 16 to 18 results’ national statistics release and provides the number of entries and pass rates in each year. A link to this publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results.
Tables 1 and 2 of the attached spreadsheet provide the data by the breakdowns requested. Data by year group is not available.
Note that a student may appear in the data more than once, for example if they entered exams both at the start of the academic year and in the following summer. Further, whilst the data shows many more entries by 16 to18 year olds in GCSEs versus Functional Skills at level 2, this to some extent follows differences in data collected by awarding organisations, where each recorded ‘entry’ in Functional Skills possibly reflects multiple assessment attempts. Local practice will vary and practices in large individual colleges can have impact on regional rates.
The department also publishes related data in the ‘Level 2 and 4 attainment by age 16 to 25’ national statistics release.
This tracks the attainment in English and maths for students in the mainstream state sector in year 11, which is the final year of secondary school, to age 19 (so 16 to 19), and includes data on achievement of 19 year olds in level 2 English or maths broken down by disadvantage status and prior attainment. More information can be accessed via the links below:
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of young people achieve a pass in (a) GCSE English, (b) GCSE maths, (c) Functional Skills Level 2 English and (d) Functional Skills Level 2 maths in each year group in 16-19 education by prior attainment at age 16.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department collects data on entries into GCSE and Functional Skills English and maths by students aged 16 to18 attending schools and colleges in England, including independent schools. Most students aged 16 to 18 enter below level 3 English and maths qualifications because they did not achieve a GCSE pass at grade 9 to 4 or equivalent during key stage 4, and so are required to continue to study those subjects under condition of funding rules. More information on condition of funding rules can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-maths-and-english-condition-of-funding.
Data is published in the ‘A level and other 16 to 18 results’ national statistics release and provides the number of entries and pass rates in each year. A link to this publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results.
Tables 1 and 2 of the attached spreadsheet provide the data by the breakdowns requested. Data by year group is not available.
Note that a student may appear in the data more than once, for example if they entered exams both at the start of the academic year and in the following summer. Further, whilst the data shows many more entries by 16 to18 year olds in GCSEs versus Functional Skills at level 2, this to some extent follows differences in data collected by awarding organisations, where each recorded ‘entry’ in Functional Skills possibly reflects multiple assessment attempts. Local practice will vary and practices in large individual colleges can have impact on regional rates.
The department also publishes related data in the ‘Level 2 and 4 attainment by age 16 to 25’ national statistics release.
This tracks the attainment in English and maths for students in the mainstream state sector in year 11, which is the final year of secondary school, to age 19 (so 16 to 19), and includes data on achievement of 19 year olds in level 2 English or maths broken down by disadvantage status and prior attainment. More information can be accessed via the links below:
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are (1) the monthly school attendance figures for the most recent academic year for which they are available, and (2) the comparable monthly school attendance figures for the school year 2018–19.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department holds data on pupil attendance and absence from two sources, the termly National Statistics derived from the School Census, and the Official Statistics in development derived from daily pupil attendance data.
Pupil absence rates for the 2018/19 academic year are only available on a termly basis, therefore the below table displays the latest termly comparison from the same source (School Census).
18/19 Autumn term | 18/19 Spring term | 18/19 Summer term | 21/22 Autumn term | 21/22 Spring term | 21/22 Summer term | 22/23 Autumn term | 22/23 Spring term | |
Overall absence rate | 4.3% | 4.8% | 5.2% | 6.9% | 7.9% | 8.0% | 7.5% | 7.0% |
Rate of sessions recorded as not attending due to COVID circumstances | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.6% | 1.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Source: School census, includes state-funded primary, state-funded secondary and special schools
The data used in this answer is published in the National Statistics release on pupil absence in schools in England, which is accessible at:
The department also publishes weekly and termly official statistics in development on pupil attendance. These are derived from daily attendance data automatically submitted by management information systems for participating schools. These statistics are available at:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-attendance-in-schools.
Due to the timeliness of this data, and the data being based on a subset of schools, with around 87% coverage, these figures should be viewed as an early indicator for the termly school census based National Statistics shared above.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to increase pupil access to (a) sports and (b) arts opportunities out of school.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and this government is committed to ensuring every child, no matter their background or ability, should be able to play sport and be active.
That is why in ‘Get Active: A strategy for the future of sport and physical activity’ we introduce an ambition that all children should meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines on physical activity, with a target of getting 1 million more active children by 2030.
Schools play a key role in allowing all children to have high quality opportunities to take part in PE and sport, setting them up for a lifetime of physical activity. In July we published an update to the School Sport and Activity Action Plan. This builds on the announcement we made in March that set out new ambitions for equal access to PE and sport, with guidance on how to deliver 2 hours of quality PE a week, alongside over £600 million funding for the Primary PE and Sport Premium and School Games Organiser network.
Outside of the school day, the £57 million Opening School Facilities programme will support the most inactive young people to access facilities that will enable them to play sport and take physical exercise. By opening school sport facilities, including swimming pools, disparities in access to opportunities seen between socio-economic groups will begin to be tackled through the programme.
Over the school holidays, the Government offers £200 million of support per year to the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides disadvantaged children in England with enriching activities (including physical and creative activities) and healthy meals. Last summer, the programme reached over 685,000 children and young people in England, including over 475,000 children in receipt of free school meals.
We are also investing over £300 million in grassroots football and multi-sport facilities across the UK by 2025 which will further support youth participation in sport.
The Government is additionally providing significant arts and cultural opportunities for young people both in and out of school.
This includes our creative careers promise, which is backed by £115m a year to increase young people’s access to cultural and music education. The upcoming Cultural Education Plan will support all children and young people to access a broad range of high-quality cultural and creative activities and experiences inside and outside of school. Our Enrichment Partnerships Pilot aims to improve the availability and quality of enrichment activities in up to 200 secondary schools within Education Investment Areas. In addition, 79% of the organisations in Arts Council England’s 2023-26 Investment Programme portfolio are delivering activity specifically for children and young people of all ages, wherever they live.
Separately, the Government funds a diverse portfolio of music and arts education programmes that are designed to improve participation in the arts for children. The National Saturday Club, for example, gives 13 to 16-year-olds across the country the opportunity to study the subjects they love for free, including arts and creative subjects, on a Saturday at their local university, college or cultural institution. Government and Arts Council England also co-fund 15 National Youth Music Organisations offering large-scale, inclusive performances, high-quality music programmes, residencies, summer schools and workshops, to help develop young people’s skills, experience, and knowledge of music, supporting them to excel as young creatives outside of school.
The National Plan for Music Education includes £25m funding for musical instruments and equipment for schools, and the Music Progression Fund supports disadvantaged pupils with music tuition. Furthermore, we have created four new Music Hub Centres of Excellence to improve inclusion and create pathways to industry for talented young people from all backgrounds.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including personal financial education as a subject in the National Curriculum.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Financial education already forms a compulsory part of the National Curriculum for mathematics at Key Stages 1 to 4 and citizenship at Key Stages 3 and 4, which together cover important financial topics including personal budgeting, saving for the future, managing credit and debt, and calculating interest. The National Curriculum is compulsory for maintained schools. Academies must teach a broad and balanced curriculum, including mathematics.
My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister recently announced more funding for secondary mathematics, and that mathematics will be studied by all 16 to 18 year olds as part of the new Advanced British Standard qualification.
As with all aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver financial education, so they can develop an integrated approach that is sensitive to the needs and background of their pupils.
There is a wide range of support for financial education. The Money and Pensions Service has published guidance, setting out how schools can improve the financial education they deliver, and signposting to services and resources that can help. The guidance is available at: https://maps.org.uk/en/publications/research/2021/financial-education-guidance-for-primary-and-secondary-schools-in-england.
Talk Money Week, which is running from 6 to 10 November, is focused on this year’s campaign ‘Do One Thing’ to help improve financial wellbeing. The Talk Money Week 2023 Toolkit for Schools includes a dedicated pack of information and resources to help schools promote the financial wellbeing of their pupils and students, during Talk Money Week and beyond. The toolkit is available at: https://maps.org.uk/en/our-work/talk-money-week#Download-the-Toolkit-for-Schools.
The Department’s national network of 40 Maths Hubs also supports schools to improve their mathematics teaching, including financial content in the mathematics curriculum, based on best practice from East Asia.
The Oak National Academy, which became an independent Arm’s Length Body in September 2022, will provide adaptable, optional and free support for schools to reduce teacher workload and enable schools to provide a high quality curriculum. New Oak curriculum materials, including for mathematics, will start to be available from autumn 2023, with full curriculum packages available by summer 2024. Oak’s next phase of procurement of curriculum resources is expected to launch in late 2023 and will include citizenship.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve financial education in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Financial education forms a compulsory part of the National Curriculum for mathematics (at Key Stages 1 to 4) and citizenship (at Key stages 3 and 4), which together cover important financial topics including personal budgeting, saving for the future, managing credit and debt, and calculating interest. The National Curriculum is compulsory for maintained schools but academies must teach a broad and balanced curriculum, including mathematics. The National Curriculum can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum.
The Prime Minister recently announced more investment in secondary mathematics, and that mathematics will be studied by all 16 to 18 year olds as part of the new Advanced British Standard qualification.
As with all aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver financial education, so they can develop an approach that is sensitive to the needs and background of their pupils.
There is a wide range of support for financial education. For example, the Money and Pensions Service has published guidance, setting out how schools can improve the financial education they deliver, and signposting to services and resources that can help. The guidance can be found here: https://maps.org.uk/en/publications/research/2021/financial-education-guidance-for-primary-and-secondary-schools-in-england.
The Department’s national network of 40 Maths Hubs also supports schools to improve their mathematics teaching, including financial content in the mathematics curriculum, based on best practice from East Asia.
The Oak National Academy, which became an independent Arm’s Length Body in September 2022, will provide adaptable, optional and free support for schools, reducing teacher workload and enabling pupils to access a high quality curriculum. New Oak curriculum materials, including for mathematics, will start be available from autumn 2023, with full curriculum packages available by summer 2024. Oak’s next phase of procurement of curriculum resources is expected to launch in late 2023 and will include citizenship.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to address health inequality through schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools play a key role in tackling health inequalities through providing a good education and pastoral support.
Attainment is key to supporting better long term outcomes. Therefore, closing attainment gaps plays a vital role in addressing health inequality through schools. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, almost £5 billion has been made available for an ambitious, multi year education recovery plan to support young children and pupils in early years, schools and colleges. This support is especially focused on helping the most disadvantaged pupils. Additionally, the National Funding Formula (NFF) targets funding to schools that have the greatest numbers of pupils with additional needs. In 2023/24, a greater proportion of schools NFF funding was targeted towards deprived pupils than ever before, with 9.8% (over £4 billion) of the formula being allocated according to deprivation in 2023/24. In 2023/24, schools with the highest levels of deprivation have, on average, attracted the largest per pupil funding increases. On top of this core funding, the Pupil Premium, worth over £2.9 billion this year, continues to support schools to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
The Department is supporting schools to improve outcomes for vulnerable pupils. Every Local Authority in England must appoint a Virtual School Head, who has a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of all children in their care. Looked after children receive Pupil Premium Plus funding of £2,530 per child up to age 16, which is managed by the Virtual School Head, to work with the child’s education setting to deliver objectives in their individual Personal Education Plans. In June 2021, the Department extended the role of Virtual School Heads to include strategic responsibility for all children with a social worker.
The Department also launched the period product scheme in 2020. The scheme aims to help break the stigma surrounding menstruation, providing free period products to schools and colleges so that no pupil has to miss out on education because of their period.
In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, the Department committed to working together with the Department of Health and Social Care to take a joint approach to SEND workforce planning. The Department has established a steering group to oversee this work, which recently reported to the National SEND and AP Implementation Board.
Schools can play a role in preventing health inequalities through what is taught and by providing safe, calm and supportive environments for pupils. The Department has made health education compulsory in all schools, so that all pupils are taught about healthy lifestyles and are given the information that they need to make good decisions about their own health and wellbeing. The Department has also offered state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, to help support whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. Over 13,800 schools & colleges have received a grant so far, including more than 7 in 10 state funded secondary schools in England.
The Government spends over £1 billion each year on free school meals and Universal Infant Free School Meals, with more than one third of all children receive a free lunchtime meal. Around 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education also receive a free meal. The Department is funding up to £30 million into the National School Breakfast Programme until the end of the summer term in 2024. In addition, the Department has expanded the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides healthy food and enriching activities to disadvantaged children. The programme is continuing this year with over £200 million provided.