Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and The Weald)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of making mental health first aid a compulsory component of teacher training.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). To be awarded qualified teacher status trainees must demonstrate that they have met all the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils. Early career teachers (ECTs) are also assessed against the Teachers’ Standards to pass their induction.
Both the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF) and Early Career Framework (ECF) set out the core body of knowledge, skills and behaviours that define great teaching for new teachers and must be incorporated into ITT courses and ECF-based programmes, which includes content on SEND and adaptive teaching. Courses and programmes should be appropriate for the context in which the teacher is or will be working; for some, this will already include content on mental health. It is incumbent on providers to determine the full curriculum, including how to ensure coverage of everything necessary within limited training time.
Following a review of the CCF and ECF in 2023, the updated and combined ITT and ECF (ITTECF) was published on 30 January 2024, for delivery from September 2025. The review paid particular attention to the needs of new teachers when supporting pupils with SEND. There is now significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND. The department has included new content on teachers knowing who to contact to provide support with any pupil mental health concerns.
The department has also committed to offer all state schools and colleges in England a grant to train a senior mental health lead (SMHL) by 2025, enabling them to introduce effective whole school or college approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This training covers the range of mental health issues likely to be encountered in schools and colleges and the risk factors associated with specific groups. Over 15,100 settings that have claimed a grant so far, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools. More information on the grant can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-children-and-young-peoples-emotional-health-and-wellbeing.
To expand access to early mental health support, the department is continuing to roll out Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) to schools and colleges. These teams deliver evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues and support SMHLs with their whole school approach. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England, with coverage planned to extend to at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
Mental wellbeing is also part of the statutory Health Education curriculum. For example, pupils are taught to recognise and talk about their emotions, and how to seek support. The department has published a support package on GOV.UK, including content specifically on teaching about mental health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Lord Touhig (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current level of training on autism that teachers receive; and what consideration they have given to introducing whole school staff training on autism.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer the noble Lord to the answer of 22 February 2024 to Question 14564.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help raise public awareness of the risks of vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is concerned about the worrying rise in vaping among children. Youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and one in five children now use a vape. The health advice is clear, if you don’t smoke, don’t vape – and children should never vape. That is why we are taking decisive action to ban disposable vapes alongside broader measures to restrict flavours, vape packaging and where vapes are displayed. We will introduce legislation as soon as possible.
The department delivers a range communications and media activity to provide updates on vaping policy and raise public awareness of the risks of vaping – for example, Ministers and the Chief Medical Officer regularly undertake broadcast interviews. The department is also currently in the process of developing new advice and guidance for the Better Health website.
Over the past two years we have also taken several steps to increase training resources and support available for teachers and schools. In October 2022, we published new content on the risks of vaping for young people on the FRANK and Better Health websites and have provided input to educational resources produced by partners including the PSHE Association.
The department is currently in conversations with leading technology and social media platforms to reduce the visibility of any content that might glamourise vaping to children and young people, while increasing and enhancing the signposting to trusted sources of information on the harms to children from vaping.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure a knowledge of (a) mental health and (b) neurodiversity among (i) school teachers and (ii) school students.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. The Teachers’ Standards sets clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Consideration of SEND underpins both the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF) and Early Career Framework (ECF) which were both produced with the support of sector experts. ITT courses and ECF-based programmes must be designed so that new teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils.
The department reviewed the CCF alongside the ECF during 2023, in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation and groups of sector experts, including SEND specialists. This included a public call for evidence. Following this review, the updated and combined Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) was published on 30 January 2024, for delivery from September 2025.
The department’s review of content for the ITTECF paid particular attention to the needs of trainees and early career teachers (ECTs) when supporting pupils with SEND. There is now significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND. The department has also made edits to existing statements to improve inclusivity for SEND throughout the framework, including new content for trainees and ECTs on who to contact to provide support with any pupil mental health concerns.
The department is also offering all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025, enabling them to introduce effective whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. Over 14,400 settings have claimed a grant so far, including more than 7 in 10 state-funded secondary schools, and the department has also recently made available second grants for settings who have lost their trained lead. The department’s quality assured training course provides the practical knowledge and skills to implement a whole school or college approach to promoting mental wellbeing. The course also helps senior mental health leads to facilitate the development of school staff, to ensure that all staff can recognise and understand the process to respond to mental health concerns.
The department has also recently launched two new resources to help trained mental health leads and wider school and college staff to promote and support pupil mental health, both of which are hosted on the Mentally Healthy Schools site. The resource hub signposts practical resources and tools to embed whole-school or college approaches and the targeted mental wellbeing toolkit gives practical advice and tools to help schools and colleges identify the most effective targeted support options for their setting. They are both available here: https://mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/whole-school-or-college-resources/.
The department wants to support all young people to be happy, healthy and safe. The department wants to equip them for adult life and to make a positive contribution to society. That is why the department has made Relationships Education compulsory for all primary school pupils, Relationships and Sex Education compulsory for all secondary school pupils from September 2020, and Health Education compulsory for pupils in all state-funded schools. In Health Education, there is a strong focus on mental wellbeing, including a recognition that mental wellbeing and physical health are linked. It is important that pupils understand that good physical health, for both men and women, contributes to good mental wellbeing. The purpose of teaching pupils about mental health is to give them the information they need to make good decisions about their own health and wellbeing, recognise issues in themselves and others and, when issues arise, seek support as early as possible from appropriate sources.
Asked by: Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address the gender divide amongst science and maths teachers in order to provide more positive role models for girls in the classroom.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is offering a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be doubling the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. These payments will incentivise the recruitment and retention of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers within the schools where they are needed most.
The department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainee teachers to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. This is alongside delivering a £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
This academic year, physics trainees from overseas are also eligible for bursaries and scholarships, and for a one-off payment of £10,000 as part of the international relocation payment pilot.
To encourage engineering graduates and career changers with an engineering background to consider a career as a physics teacher, the department has also launched the ‘Engineers teach physics’ Initial Teacher Training course. Following a pilot in 2022, the department has now rolled this out nationally.
The department is also taking action to support all teachers to stay in the profession and thrive and has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices.
On the subject of diverse teacher role models in science and mathematics, there remains a larger proportion of female teachers than male teachers in state-funded schools overall (76%).
The department aims to support the diversity of the workforce through our communications campaigns, workforce programmes that support all teachers to develop across their careers, and policies to support the workforce, such as flexible working. For example, the Get Into Teaching marketing campaign supports diverse recruitment into the profession through inclusive recruitment campaigns and marketing materials, which strive to reflect the diversity of our target audiences who want reassurance that teaching is for people like them. The campaign regularly showcases STEM teachers from diverse backgrounds.
The department supports a range of work to improve diversity and inclusion in STEM education in schools, including funding a Stimulating Physics Network to improve the quality of physics teaching and improve progression to A level physics, particularly for girls.
More widely, the government supports girls and pupils from other underrepresented groups into STEM education through programmes such as the CyberFirst Girls competition which aims to promote cybersecurity careers to girls aged between 12 and 14.
The government also funds the STEM Ambassadors programme, a nationwide network of over 30,000 registered volunteers representing thousands of employers, who engage with young people to increase their interest in STEM subjects and to raise awareness of the range of careers that STEM qualifications offer. Approximately 48% of Ambassadors are women and 17% are from minority ethnic backgrounds, providing young people with a variety of role models.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Somerton and Frome)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent assessment on the level of (a) training and (b) guidance provided to teachers on autism in girls.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. Therefore, consideration of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) underpins both the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework (CCF) and Early Career Framework (ECF) which set out the entitlement of trainee teachers and early career teachers (ECTs) to the core body of knowledge, skills and behaviours that define great teaching. To identify opportunities to build teacher expertise, the department reviewed the CCF alongside the ECF during 2023, combining an Education Endowment Foundation-assured review of the ‘Learn that’ statements and underpinning CCF and ECF evidence with evaluation data, lessons learned from the first years of implementation, and extensive expert and sector feedback including from SEND specialists. This included a public call for evidence. Following this review, the updated and combined Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) was published on 30 January 2024, for delivery from September 2025.
The department's review of content for the ITTECF paid particular attention to the needs of trainees and ECTs when supporting pupils with SEND. The ITTECF is based on the best peer-reviewed evidence about what works, and it is designed to emphasise the importance of high-quality teaching. The framework therefore deliberately does not detail approaches specific to particular additional needs, such as autism, but what makes the most effective teaching. During the review, the department tested this approach with SEND educational experts, with consensus that the approach of ‘quality-first teaching’ would be the best way to improve outcomes for all children, particularly those with Special Educational Needs.
The department’s Universal Services contract brings together SEND-specific training and support for staff working in schools and further education. It aims to improve outcomes for children and young people through one programme which reaches 70% of schools and colleges in England per year. The contract offers autism awareness training and resources, which align with the national all-age autism strategy and its ambition to improve autistic children and young people’s access to education and support positive transitions into adulthood. Over 135,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training since the Universal Services programme began in May 2022. More information on the strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-strategy-for-autistic-children-young-people-and-adults-2021-to-2026.
The large majority of pupils diagnosed with autism as their primary type of need are boys. However, there is emerging research and awareness on the different presentation of autism traits according to gender and the late, under and misdiagnosis of girls and women. This gender imbalance is greater for autism than for any other primary type of need. To help raise awareness of this imbalance, the Universal Services autism awareness training addresses autism in girls and helps education staff understand more about how autism may present differently in girls.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of special educational needs training given to teachers and staff at comprehensive schools in Greater Manchester.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not perform teacher performance evaluation at the local level. The Teachers’ Standards sets out the minimum level of practice expected of teachers who are awarded qualified teacher status (QTS). To be awarded QTS at the end of Initial Teacher Training (ITT), trainees must demonstrate that they have met all the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. The standards are also used to assess the performance of all teachers with QTS under the School Teachers’ Appraisal Regulations (2012). Therefore, most teachers need to adhere to the standards throughout their careers.
All teachers are teachers of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and the department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers. The Teachers’ Standards set clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND. Consideration of SEND underpins both the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework (ECF), which were both produced with the support of sector experts. ITT courses and ECF-based programmes are designed so that new teachers can demonstrate that they meet the Teachers’ Standards at the appropriate level. This includes the requirement in Standard 5, that all teachers must have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils.
To pass statutory teacher induction, early career teachers must demonstrate that they meet the Teachers' Standards through a formal assessment, signed off by their headteacher and independently checked by their appropriate body. Ofsted is responsible for inspecting ITT partnerships and ECF lead providers in line with published inspection frameworks.
Headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils. To further support the needs of pupils with SEND, particularly in mainstream settings where most of these learners are educated, the department has funded the Universal Services programme. The Universal Services programme, backed by almost £12 million in funding, will help the school and further education (FE) workforce to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND earlier and more effectively.
National Standards will improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of needs, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will include clarifying the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to FE, no matter where they live or what their needs are.
Asked by: Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) recruit, and (2) retain, more science and maths teachers in schools serving the most disadvantaged communities.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is offering a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 after tax annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools, including in Education Investment Areas. For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be doubling the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. These payments will incentivise the recruitment and retention of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers within the schools where they are needed most.
The department has put in place a range of measures, including bursaries worth £28,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £30,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainee teachers to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. This is alongside delivering a £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions of the country, with a pay award of up to 7.1% for new teachers outside London.
This academic year, physics trainees from overseas are also eligible for bursaries and scholarships, and for a one-off payment of £10,000 as part of the international relocation payment pilot.
To encourage engineering graduates and career changers with an engineering background to consider a career as a physics teacher, the department has also launched the ‘Engineers teach physics’ Initial Teacher Training course. Following a pilot in 2022, the department has now rolled this out nationally.
The department is also taking action to support all teachers to stay in the profession and thrive and has published a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices.
On the subject of diverse teacher role models in science and mathematics, there remains a larger proportion of female teachers than male teachers in state-funded schools overall (76%).
The department aims to support the diversity of the workforce through our communications campaigns, workforce programmes that support all teachers to develop across their careers, and policies to support the workforce, such as flexible working. For example, the Get Into Teaching marketing campaign supports diverse recruitment into the profession through inclusive recruitment campaigns and marketing materials, which strive to reflect the diversity of our target audiences who want reassurance that teaching is for people like them. The campaign regularly showcases STEM teachers from diverse backgrounds.
The department supports a range of work to improve diversity and inclusion in STEM education in schools, including funding a Stimulating Physics Network to improve the quality of physics teaching and improve progression to A level physics, particularly for girls.
More widely, the government supports girls and pupils from other underrepresented groups into STEM education through programmes such as the CyberFirst Girls competition which aims to promote cybersecurity careers to girls aged between 12 and 14.
The government also funds the STEM Ambassadors programme, a nationwide network of over 30,000 registered volunteers representing thousands of employers, who engage with young people to increase their interest in STEM subjects and to raise awareness of the range of careers that STEM qualifications offer. Approximately 48% of Ambassadors are women and 17% are from minority ethnic backgrounds, providing young people with a variety of role models.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help tackle underage vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is concerned about the worrying rise in vaping among children. Youth vaping has tripled in the last three years, and one in five children now use a vape. The health advice is clear: if you don’t smoke, don’t vape, and children should never vape.
The Government’s response to the recent smoking and vaping consultation sets out our plan to introduce powers to crack down on youth vaping by restricting flavours, point of sale and packaging for vaping products. We will introduce legislation as soon as possible. The consultation is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/creating-a-smokefree-generation-and-tackling-youth-vaping/outcome/creating-a-smokefree-generation-and-tackling-youth-vaping-consultation-government-response
In the consultation response, we also announced that disposable vapes will be banned, due to their appeal to young people and environmental concerns. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs will be taking forward the ban and are looking to legislate as soon as possible.
We have also developed new training resources and support available for teachers and schools, working with the Department for Education to update the curriculum to include the health risks of vaping, and publish new online content on the potential risks of vaping for young people.
Finally, we will also introduce a £100 fixed penalty notice for underage sales of tobacco and vaping products. This will enable trading standards officers to take quicker and more proportionate enforcement action against the irresponsible retailers who allow underage sales.
Asked by: Robin Walker (Conservative - Worcester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of (a) support and (b) funding for training teachers of the deaf; and what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the availability of teachers of the deaf in each local authority.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the responsibility of local authorities, schools and further education settings to commission appropriately qualified staff to support the education of children and young people in their area.
To offer the mandatory qualification in sensory impairment (MQSI), providers must be approved by the Secretary of State for Education. The department’s aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers of children with visual, hearing and multi-sensory impairments in both specialist and mainstream settings. There are currently six providers of the MQSI, with a seventh from September 2024. The department does not have published data on the number of teachers that have completed the MQSI.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) has also developed a sensory impairment apprenticeship and expect it to be available from 2025. This will open a paid, work-based route into teaching children and young people with sensory impairments by enabling people to undertake high-quality apprenticeships.