Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the experiences of children and young people with dyslexia are captured when measuring attainment at the end of secondary school.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to ensuring the exam system is equitable for all students and that students with disabilities, including dyslexia, can access exams and assessments without disadvantage.
Ofqual, the independent regulator of exams and assessments in England, has a statutory duty to ensure that assessments are a fair representation of a student’s knowledge and requires awarding organisations to put processes in place to ensure that all students can access assessments appropriately.
The Equality Act 2010 also requires awarding organisations to make reasonable adjustments where assessment arrangements could place a student who is disabled within the meaning of the Act at a substantial disadvantage in comparison to someone who is not disabled.
These adjustments can include, but are not limited to, extra time to complete assessments or assistance via a reader or a scribe, depending on the individual needs of the student.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans to consult on the revised citizenship programmes of study.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are revising the national curriculum following the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review. We will make citizenship compulsory in key stages 1 and 2 so that primary aged children are introduced to key content on media literacy, financial literacy, law and rights, democracy and government, and climate education. We will publicly consult on all national curriculum programmes of study from summer 2026 and fully implement the new full national curriculum for first teaching from September 2028.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department will publish the guidance issued to local authorities in the 1990s on the inclusion of part‑time teachers in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme following maternity leave.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for North East Hampshire to the answer of 21 January 2026 to Question 103065.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will be used to evaluate the success of the Government’s SEND reforms.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Every child deserves an education that meets their needs, one that is academically stretching, where every child feels like they belong, and that sets them up for life and work.
Driving inclusion in schools will improve outcomes for all children. Our reforms will restore parents’ trust in the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. We will be investing £4 billion more over three years to support implementation, including £1.8 billion so every community has experts on hand, with £1.6 billion going directly to schools for early intervention and over £200 million to train every teacher.
The department regularly publishes statistics on pupils with special educational needs, including information on educational attainment, destinations, absence, exclusions and characteristics.
We are consulting on proposals to reform the SEND system, and will set out in more detail how we will evaluate policy after the consultation closes. We will set clear expectations of our public services and hold them to account for delivering.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many members of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme who retired since 2020 have not yet received the full rectified pension payment owed to them following the McCloud remedy.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Recalculating retired members’ benefits is a complex process. For members retiring, these cases are relatively straightforward as no benefits are already in payment. For retired members, additional complications around tax, interest rules and system functionality required extensive consultation.
Capita, the Teachers’ Pensions Scheme administrator, are processing Remediable Service Statement (RSS) choices, aiming to complete payments as quickly as possible.
Of the members who have retired since 2020 who have received and returned their RSS, 4,176 are awaiting payment as of 17 March 2026.
The issuing and payment of members’ RSS choices is a high priority. The department is continually exploring ways to improve payment times with Capita, which includes recruiting additional staff and automating functions wherever possible. Members’ original pension benefits will continue to be paid until their choice has been implemented.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to regulate how multi-academy trusts address concerns raised by parents of children whose school is joining a multi-academy trust.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Section 5 of the Academies Act 2010 requires maintained schools to consult appropriate persons on whether the school should convert to academy status before the conversion goes ahead. This does not apply to schools that are eligible for intervention.
In the ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ White Paper, the department committed to consult on requiring school trusts to have local governance structures that together include all their schools, hold annual parental forums, and ensure boards hear directly from parents and school communities. The consultation will draw on the strongest sector practice in engaging parents and communities, to ensure that trust boards benefit from clear, consistent insight into the needs and priorities of the families they serve.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department monitors the impact of budget pressures on SEND outcomes.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department’s assessment of the impact of pressures on the outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is available in our consultation document ‘SEND Reform: putting children and young people first’, published 23 February.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for School Standards during the oral question on EHCP Backlog: Cambridgeshire of 2 March 2026, Official Report, column 565, how much Cambridgeshire County Council has been allocated of the £200 million funding directly provided to support councils' capacity to deliver EHCPs.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
To ensure all local authorities have the capacity to undertake meaningful transformation planning and delivery over this spending review period while maintaining current special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services, we will provide £200 million in support for the transformation of local authority SEND services. This funding will be provided to local authorities in a single payment alongside funding for Experts at Hand, with a proportion allocated to transformation which includes a focus on strategic planning in local SEND reform plans, commissioning, leadership capacity and engaging with the education sector. We will publish methodology documents to explain how the funding will be distributed, and indicative allocations for local authorities, including those for Cambridgeshire County Council, for 2026/27 in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Hall (Labour (Co-op) - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the removal of the Religious Education Initial Teacher Training bursary on the quality of RE provision in secondary schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Initial teacher training (ITT) bursaries are offered to incentivise more applications to ITT courses. As such, we review bursaries annually to take account of several factors, including recruitment to date, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject. Between the 2023/24 and 2025/26 academic years, postgraduate ITT recruitment for religious education increased by 68%, one of the largest increases across all subjects.
New teachers benefit from three years of professional development through the initial teacher training and early career framework, which sets out the core knowledge, skills, and behaviours for great teaching, alongside expert mentoring and support. All trainee teachers must meet the Teachers’ Standards for qualified teacher status in full before they qualify, which requires that they ‘Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge’.
Asked by: Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat - Esher and Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the proportion of secondary school pupils in England completing CPR training as required under the Health Education curriculum; and what steps the Department for Education is taking to support schools in ensuring consistent delivery of CPR training and to promote participation in national initiatives such as Restart a Heart month.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the Relationships, Sex and Health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The RSHE guidance requires primary schools to teach basic first aid, such as dealing with common injuries. In secondary schools, pupils learn additional skills, including cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and how and when to use a defibrillator.
Schools have flexibility in how they deliver this content, including which resources they choose to use and whether to participate in initiatives such as Restart a Heart month.
The department does not collect data on how many pupils have completed CPR training; schools are responsible for determining how best to meet curriculum requirements and ensure appropriate first aid education.
The government has commissioned Oak Academy to make lesson materials freely available.