Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made, if any, in (1) registering, and (2) regulating, the home tuition of children to ensure that they (a) are taught a balanced curriculum, and (b) are able to secure recognised national qualifications.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department remains committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school, as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families. The department will legislate for these at the next suitable opportunity, to help local authorities undertake their existing duties to ensure all children receive a suitable education and are safe, regardless of where they are educated. However, local authorities’ existing powers and duties, if used in the way set out in our guidance, are enough for a local authority to determine whether provision is suitable.
Elective home education needs to be suitable, although there is no requirement to follow the national curriculum, nor are parents required to enter children for public examinations. However, if the home education does consist of one or more of these, that would constitute strong evidence that education was ‘suitable’ in terms of section 7 of the Education Act 1996.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they plan to re-open the public consultation on "Regulating independent educational institutions"; and what measures they will be taking to protect pupils at risk in unregistered settings, including illegal religious schools, until the law is changed.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The department intends to reopen the consultation on 'Regulating independent educational institutions' when stakeholders ability to respond is less likely to be significantly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Responses received to date will be combined with responses received after the consultation reopens and fully reviewed after the consultation finally closes.
It is not yet appropriate to set a date for reopening the consultation as the situation in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak continues to change.
Ofsted continues to investigate potential illegal schools including consideration of new intelligence. Where appropriate, Ofsted have liaised with local authorities and other statutory bodies to consider whether there is appropriate action that should be taken, for example, to close settings where people are gathering illegally during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which illegal schools have continued to operate during the COVID-19 lockdown; and how they intend to mitigate the risks to the pupils attending such settings as the lockdown is eased.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The department intends to reopen the consultation on 'Regulating independent educational institutions' when stakeholders ability to respond is less likely to be significantly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Responses received to date will be combined with responses received after the consultation reopens and fully reviewed after the consultation finally closes.
It is not yet appropriate to set a date for reopening the consultation as the situation in relation to the COVID-19 outbreak continues to change.
Ofsted continues to investigate potential illegal schools including consideration of new intelligence. Where appropriate, Ofsted have liaised with local authorities and other statutory bodies to consider whether there is appropriate action that should be taken, for example, to close settings where people are gathering illegally during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they will take to prevent new voluntary aided schools with a religious character from immediately converting to academy status to bypass the 50 per cent cap on religiously selective admissions that currently applies to free schools.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Any voluntary-aided schools, including those funded through the recently announced capital scheme, can apply to convert to academy status in the same way as any other maintained school. Whilst we do not plan to put in place specific restrictions on academy conversion for voluntary-aided schools, they will need to obtain the necessary consents, meet our criteria and undertake a consultation before doing so.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many expressions of interest in the new capital funding scheme for voluntary aided schools were registered; and what proportion of those led to the submission of a full proposal in the first round of that scheme.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The capital scheme for voluntary-aided schools is designed to be small, and registering interest in the scheme prior to submitting a bid for funding was not compulsory.
As well as exploratory discussions with stakeholders, we received expressions of interest for 22 new voluntary-aided schools.
The expressions of interest led to 14 bids for funding submitted to the department. A list of the bids that the department received will be published in due course.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether new fully religiously selective voluntary aided schools have any negative impact on families in receipt of free school meals.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department undertook an extensive series of activities as part of the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation to understand the variety of opinions relating to faith schools. Having considered the views of respondents, and a range of stakeholder views, the department decided to establish the voluntary-aided capital scheme alongside retaining the 50% cap in faith admissions in faith designated free schools. The statutory process for establishing new voluntary-aided schools has not changed. It remains possible for proposers of any faith or no faith to propose a new voluntary-aided school, and likewise the voluntary-aided capital scheme is open to bids from proposers of all faiths and none.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of non-religious families who will be disadvantaged by the establishment of new voluntary aided religious schools.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department undertook an extensive series of activities as part of the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation to understand the variety of opinions relating to faith schools. Having considered the views of respondents, and a range of stakeholder views, the department decided to establish the voluntary-aided capital scheme alongside retaining the 50% cap in faith admissions in faith designated free schools. The statutory process for establishing new voluntary-aided schools has not changed. It remains possible for proposers of any faith or no faith to propose a new voluntary-aided school, and likewise the voluntary-aided capital scheme is open to bids from proposers of all faiths and none.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they made of public opinion on the issue of religious selection in state schools during the process leading to their decision to fund new voluntary aided religious schools.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department undertook an extensive series of activities as part of the Schools that Work for Everyone consultation to understand the variety of opinions relating to faith schools. Having considered the views of respondents, and a range of stakeholder views, the department decided to establish the voluntary-aided capital scheme alongside retaining the 50% cap in faith admissions in faith designated free schools. The statutory process for establishing new voluntary-aided schools has not changed. It remains possible for proposers of any faith or no faith to propose a new voluntary-aided school, and likewise the voluntary-aided capital scheme is open to bids from proposers of all faiths and none.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what evidence, if any, they have that programmes linking schools with each other with homogeneous pupil populations taken from one religious background are as effective at promoting social cohesion and inter-communal trust as fully inclusive schools open to children from a variety of backgrounds.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Education has a vital role in promoting integration. That is why the Department for Education is taking forward a number of measures across its portfolio to support the sector to promote integration. We want educational settings that prepare all children, young people and adults to participate fully in life in modern Britain, and equip children and young people with the skills, knowledge and values to become active citizens. All schools and colleges are required to teach a broad and balanced curriculum which promotes the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, and to promote our shared values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
School linking programmes are an important element of our integration agenda. Providing opportunities for young people to have meaningful interactions with those from different backgrounds helps build understanding of different communities and cultures, fosters more positive attitudes, promotes social cohesion and inter-communal trust. Social mixing and school linking are grounded in contact theory, with studies consistently finding that contact between groups of young people from different backgrounds creates more positive attitudes and can increase cohesion. This is particularly evidenced in recent findings by the University of Bristol and London School of Economics[1].
The Department for Education co-funds, with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, The Linking Network which links all kinds of schools to help children explore questions of identity, diversity, equality and community cohesion. The Linking Network uses a data analysis tool to ensure that it is only linking together pupil populations from different backgrounds, including young people of different faiths, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds and from different areas.
Diversity of intake is also important, and that is why we are taking forward our commitment, as set out in the Integrated Communities Action Plan, to develop model admissions arrangements. We have also recently published the Respectful Schools Communities toolkit[2] to help schools be inclusive environments; this self-review and signposting tool supports schools to develop a whole-school approach that promotes respect and discipline.
[1] Burgess, S., and Platt, L. (2018) Inter-ethnic relations of teenagers in England’s schools: the role of school and neighbourhood ethnic composition, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) Discussion Paper Series, CPD 07/18
[2] https://educateagainsthate.com/school-leaders/?filter=guidance-and-training-school-leaders.
Asked by: Lord Warner (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider extending the definition of a school to cover part-time religious settings and expand the powers of entry, inspection and enforcement for local authorities to deal with unregistered schools in the light of recent findings in the London Borough of Hackney of the problems caused by such schools.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The evidence for the government’s statement is in Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector’s annual report, attached, published in December 2017, which includes statistics about the work of Ofsted’s unregistered schools team. Over an 18 month period, the Ofsted team looked into many possible settings but determined that only 38 of them had been operating as unregistered schools, and secured that, as at August 2017, 34 of those 38 settings ceased operating illegally.
We are aware of the recent findings in the Borough of Hackney, which refer to between 1,000 – 1,500 Charedi boys in out-of-school settings in that borough. The report made clear that these were yeshivas, offering religious teaching, in settings that do not meet the criteria to register as independent schools, but were operating as out-of-school settings.
The government’s Counter Extremism Strategy, published in 2015, set out plans to introduce a new system of oversight for out-of-school settings which teach children intensively, including part-time religious settings. We undertook a call for evidence to learn more about the range of settings, and to determine the potential scope and impact of introducing a regulatory system.
As well as considering the views of those that responded to the call for evidence, the department has been working with a range of stakeholders to strengthen our understanding of these settings, which vary considerably in their characteristics and the activities and education they offer. We will make an announcement on the outcome shortly.
It is Ofsted, rather than local authorities, that have powers in relation to unregistered schools, to collect evidence to support prosecutions. The department and Ofsted operate a joint team on unregistered schools and work together closely on all relevant issues, including on the extent of Ofsted’s powers, which are always kept in view.