The Department for Education is responsible for children’s services and education, including early years, schools, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England.
Oral Answers to Questions is a regularly scheduled appearance where the Secretary of State and junior minister will answer at the Dispatch Box questions from backbench MPs
Other Commons Chamber appearances can be:Westminster Hall debates are performed in response to backbench MPs or e-petitions asking for a Minister to address a detailed issue
Written Statements are made when a current event is not sufficiently significant to require an Oral Statement, but the House is required to be informed.
| Date | Type | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Sep. 09 | Oral Questions | Oral Answers to Questions |
| Sep. 09 | Topical Questions | Topical Questions |
| Jul. 16 | Urgent Questions | Relationship Education in Schools |
| Oct. 15 | Written Statements | School Funding Allocations |
| Sep. 04 | Westminster Hall | LGBT Community and Acceptance Teaching |
| Jul. 03 | Adjournment Debate | Schools in Winchester |
| Current Signatures | Final Signatures | Title | Petition Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
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187,902 Petition Closed |
School should start at 10am as teenagers are too tired Gov Responded - 22 Mar 2019 Debated on - 11 Feb 2019 |
4 Apr 2019 closed 6 months, 2 weeks ago |
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Teenagers are so tired due to having to wake up very early to get to school. The Government should require secondary schools to start later, which will lead to increased productivity at school. |
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165,932 Petition Closed |
Change the GCSE English Literature exam from closed book to open book. Gov Responded - 6 Feb 2018 Debated on - 26 Mar 2018 |
18 Mar 2018 closed 1 year, 7 months ago |
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Last year, lots of students struggled with GCSE English Literature as it was a closed book exam. Because of this many failed. How can they expect us to remember quotes from 15 poems, plus how to analyse them, plus remembering the whole plot, themes, characters and quotes from another book. |
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118,050 Petition Closed |
Give parents the right to opt their child out of Relationship and Sex Education Gov Responded - 9 Jan 2019 Debated on - 25 Feb 2019 |
18 Jun 2019 closed 4 months ago |
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We believe it is the parent’s fundamental right to teach their child RSE topics or to at least decide who teaches them and when and how they are taught. We want the right to opt our children out of RSE when it becomes mandatory in Sept 2020. |
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Department for Education Select Committee Home Page
Select Committees are a formally established cross-party group of backbench MPs tasked with holding a Government department to account.
At any time there will be number of ongoing investigations into the work of the Department, or issues which fall within the oversight of the Department. Witnesses can be summoned from within the Government and outside to assist in these inquiries, and the Select Committee will occasionally publish formal reports of their findings.
| Date | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 16 | Golden Hello reimbursement: guidance for local authorities and academies | Guidance and Regulation |
| Oct. 16 | Curriculum fund programme pilots: list of lead schools | Transparency |
| Oct. 16 | Adult retraining scheme rolled out to new regions | News and Communications |
Written Questions are submitted by Members of Parliament and the House of Lords to receive information or updates from a Department.
Departments are required to respond in a timely fashion and provide a response or requested information. Written Questions can compel detailed and specific information to be produced, and are frequently used as the source of news stories about the work of a Department.
| Date | Title | Questioner |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Oct 2019, 4:09 p.m. | Schools: Governing Bodies | Vicky Foxcroft |
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Question To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to encourage more young people to become school governors. Answer (Michelle Donelan) Inspiring Governance is a service run by the charity, Education and Employers, that supports recruitment in school governance by matching those who wish to be governors to school vacancies. The department requires Education and Employers to meet targets to increase diversity on school governing boards. They are on track to register over 16% of people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds this financial year. As at the 2011 census, 15% of the England population identified as being from a BAME background. ‘Everyone on Board’ is a campaign run jointly between Inspiring Governance and the National Governance Association and is not a government programme. The objective of this campaign is to increase the number of BAME and young people involved in governance. Inspiring Governance report that over 19% of people registering and being placed into governance roles are from a BAME background, and people aged under 35 make up over 37% of registrations and over 46% of appointments. |
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