Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure continuity of (a) assessments and (b) support across local authorities for children of service personnel with special educational needs and disabilities when families relocate.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All those with statutory responsibilities towards children of service personnel with special education needs and disability (SEND), should ensure that the impact of their policies, administrative processes and patterns of provision do not disadvantage such children when families relocate.
Statutory guidance is clear that when a child moves home across local authority boundaries, the education, health and care plan must be transferred from the ‘old’ local authority to the ‘new’ local authority on the day of the move or within 15 working days from when the old local authority first becomes aware of the move. Upon receiving the plan, the new local authority must arrange the special educational provision set out in it, although a child may have to be placed in a school other than the one named on the plan if the distance of the move makes it impractical to send the child to the named school.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of guidance on political neutrality in schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School leaders and staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act in accordance with their duties on political impartiality. When political issues are discussed, schools must offer pupils a balanced presentation of opposing views and should not present materials in a politically biased or one-sided way.
The department has published clear and comprehensive guidance to help those working with and in schools to understand their legal duties on political impartiality and how to meet them, both in teaching about political issues and beyond the classroom. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools.
The guidance includes advice on how schools can deal with complaints about political impartiality through appropriate local processes. Where parents and carers remain dissatisfied, they can raise a formal complaint in line with school complaints procedures.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of the availability of educational psychologists in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Educational psychologists play a critical role in the support available to children and young people, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This is why the department has already invested more than £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists over two cohorts, starting their studies in 2024 and 2025. This is in addition to the £10 million invested in training more than 200 educational psychologists who began their training in September 2023.
As these trainees complete their studies, they will join the workforce to support local authority educational psychology services for a minimum period of three years.
Following a Joint Area SEND inspection in Gloucestershire in December 2023, leaders in the local area have developed a local strategy to improve access to educational psychologists, including a virtual service. Officials and SEND advisors from both the department and NHS England meet regularly with Gloucestershire local area leaders to monitor progress.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the answer of 23 December 2025 to written question 93136, how much funding has been allocated to the RISE Advisor budget by key expenditure items.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This government is focused on driving high and rising standards through our Plan for Change, to enable every child to achieve and thrive.
Our targeted regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) programme is ensuring schools who need it most are getting the support they need to improve.
Over 360 schools have already benefited from RISE, supported by 65 advisers, experienced leaders across the schools sector.
£4.8 million has been allocated to the RISE Adviser budget for the 2025/26 financial year. Budgets for future years will be set through business planning.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding for the Music and Dance Scheme; and whether she plans to announce a multiple-year settlement.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for North Cornwall to the answer of 20 October 2025 to Question 78608.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidelines the Government provides for schools when they are responding to alleged cases of political bias in the classroom.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School leaders and staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act in accordance with their duties on political impartiality. When political issues are discussed, schools must offer pupils a balanced presentation of opposing views and should not present materials in a politically biased or one-sided way.
The department has published clear and comprehensive guidance to help those working with and in schools to understand their legal duties on political impartiality and how to meet them, both in teaching about political issues and beyond the classroom. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools.
The guidance includes advice on how schools can deal with complaints about political impartiality through appropriate local processes. Where parents and carers remain dissatisfied, they can raise a formal complaint in line with school complaints procedures.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to monitor schools to ensure they are remaining politically neutral.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School leaders and staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act in accordance with their duties on political impartiality. When political issues are discussed, schools must offer pupils a balanced presentation of opposing views and should not present materials in a politically biased or one-sided way.
The department has published clear and comprehensive guidance to help those working with and in schools to understand their legal duties on political impartiality and how to meet them, both in teaching about political issues and beyond the classroom. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools.
The guidance includes advice on how schools can deal with complaints about political impartiality through appropriate local processes. Where parents and carers remain dissatisfied, they can raise a formal complaint in line with school complaints procedures.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure schools adequately respond to accusations of political bias.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School leaders and staff have a responsibility to ensure that they act in accordance with their duties on political impartiality. When political issues are discussed, schools must offer pupils a balanced presentation of opposing views and should not present materials in a politically biased or one-sided way.
The department has published clear and comprehensive guidance to help those working with and in schools to understand their legal duties on political impartiality and how to meet them, both in teaching about political issues and beyond the classroom. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/political-impartiality-in-schools/political-impartiality-in-schools.
The guidance includes advice on how schools can deal with complaints about political impartiality through appropriate local processes. Where parents and carers remain dissatisfied, they can raise a formal complaint in line with school complaints procedures.
Asked by: Beccy Cooper (Labour - Worthing West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate variations in pay and employment conditions arising from individual school negotiations with agencies under the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staffing framework.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The new iteration of the Supply Teachers and Temporary Staffing framework will remove excessive agency mark-ups through a cap on agency fees.
It will not affect pay for supply teachers employed through agencies. This will continue to be set by agencies in the first 12 weeks of an assignment, and supply teachers are free to register with multiple agencies to find the best pay and conditions to meet their own circumstances. The Agency Worker Regulations provides that all workers on assignments exceeding 12 weeks are paid on equal terms as permanent staff after the 12th week.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve education on pensions and long-term saving.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is committed to strengthening pupils’ foundational understanding of financial education in mathematics and citizenship following publication of the Curriculum and Assessment Review final report in November 2025. The department will be engaging with sector experts and young people in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum. As part of this work, we will consider appropriate content on pensions and long-term saving.
There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum in 2026, to seek views on the content before it is finalised.