Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide a longer-term funding commitment for the School Games and primary PE and Sport Premium.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is considering arrangements for the primary physical education and sport premium for the 2022/23 academic year and future academic years. We will confirm our position in due course.
The government can confirm that funding for the School Games Organisers will be available for the full 2022/23 financial year. The government is considering arrangements for the School Games Organiser network beyond that point and will confirm its position as soon as possible.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children were living in placements outside their local authority (a) from 1 April 2020 to 1 September 2020 and (b) in the same period in 2019.
Answered by Vicky Ford
This information is currently not available.
The latest figures on children looked after in England and on children missing from care or placed in out of area placements relates to the year ending 31 March 2019 are published in the statistical release, ‘Children Looked after in England including adoptions 2018-19’, which is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019.
Figures for the reporting year ending 31 March 2020 will be published later this year.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children were living in placements outside their local authority area from 1 April 2020 to 1 September 2020 by (a) foster care, (b) registered children’s homes, (c) secure children’s homes and (d) other placement provision.
Answered by Vicky Ford
This information is currently not available.
The latest figures on children looked after in England and on children missing from care or placed in out of area placements relates to the year ending 31 March 2019 are published in the statistical release, ‘Children Looked after in England including adoptions 2018-19’, which is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019.
Figures for the reporting year ending 31 March 2020 will be published later this year.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children went missing from care placements in each month from 1 April to 1 September 2020; and how many missing episodes they had.
Answered by Vicky Ford
This information is currently not available.
The latest figures on children looked after in England and on children missing from care or placed in out of area placements relates to the year ending 31 March 2019 are published in the statistical release, ‘Children Looked after in England including adoptions 2018-19’, which is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019.
Figures for the reporting year ending 31 March 2020 will be published later this year.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children went missing from out of area care placements in each month from 1 April to 1 September 2020; and how many missing episodes each such child had.
Answered by Vicky Ford
This information is currently not available.
The latest figures on children looked after in England and on children missing from care or placed in out of area placements relates to the year ending 31 March 2019 are published in the statistical release, ‘Children Looked after in England including adoptions 2018-19’, which is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2018-to-2019.
Figures for the reporting year ending 31 March 2020 will be published later this year.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safety (a) guidance and (b) support will be issued to schools that will be reopening on 1 June 2020 during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s latest guidance for schools to support their widening opening from 1 June 2020 is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-schools-and-other-educational-settings.
In all education, childcare and social care settings, a range of approaches and actions should be employed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Schools should follow the hierarchy of controls that, when implemented, creates an inherently safer system, where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. These include:
Particular advice on implementing protective measures is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional support he is allocating to schools catering for children with special educational needs during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Schools will continue to receive their core funding allocations, as determined by the local authority for maintained schools and through the general annual grant for academies, for the 2020-2021 financial year – April 2020 to March 2021 for maintained schools and until August 2021 for academies and non-maintained special schools. This will happen regardless of any periods of partial or complete closure and will ensure schools can continue to pay staff and meet other regular financial commitments, as we move through these extraordinary times.
The department is providing additional funding for all schools, including special schools and alternative provision, to support them with unavoidable, additional costs associated with the COVID-19 outbreak. Guidance on this funding is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-schools.
As well as giving schools additional funding, we are providing them with a range of support, including guidance on supporting those with special educational needs.
Our guidance on supporting vulnerable children and young people during the COVID-19 outbreak sets out the different groups of vulnerable children who can attend educational settings. The guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-vulnerable-children-and-young-people.
Our guidance on special educational needs and disabilities risk assessment builds on the guidance above. It explains the practicalities for local authorities and other providers in undertaking risk assessments for vulnerable children and young people with education, health and care (EHC) plans, in light of school closures. The guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-send-risk-assessment-guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-send-risk-assessment-guidance.
Our guidance on EHC needs assessments and plans explains the temporary changes to some aspects of the law. The guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-law-on-education-health-and-care-needs-assessments-and-plans-due-to-coronavirus/education-health-and-care-needs-assessments-and-plans-guidance-on-temporary-legislative-changes-relating-to-coronavirus-covid-19.
These are rapidly developing circumstances. We continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government has taken to help ensure special schools have access to adequate levels of personal protective equipment for staff delivering personal and intimate care.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The scientific advice indicates that most educational staff do not require additional Personal Protection Equipment (PPE).
Any symptomatic individual should avoid attending an educational setting, with the exception of residential special schools, where PPE may be required if contact with a symptomatic individual is unavoidable.
Current guidance issued by Public Health England suggests that PPE is only required for contact with an asymptomatic individual if there is a high risk or high likelihood of contact with excess bodily fluids or during an aerosol-generating procedure. This may be applicable to some special school settings (for example, in instances such as tracheostomy changes or if a pupil in a special school has a medical condition that includes uncontrollable spitting).
Educational settings are using their locally agreed supply chains to obtain PPE wherever possible. If there is a requirement in line with published guidance for educational settings to obtain PPE and it is not possible for them to source PPE via the aforementioned supply chains, PPE may be obtained from their nearest Local Resilience Forum.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to encourage the establishment of Combined Cadet Force units in state schools in (a) Kent and (b) England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government wants as many pupils as possible to benefit from the life-changing activities offered by becoming a cadet, in Kent and across the rest of England. The Cadet Expansion Programme was launched in June 2012 with the aim to deliver 100 new Combined Cadet Force units in state-funded schools by September 2015. This initial target was delivered six months early, in March 2015. The Government has committed to extend the number of cadet units in UK schools to 500 by March 2020 and the Department is on track to meet this target, with 476 school cadet units established so far, which includes 14 in Kent.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the number of pupils studying STEM subjects.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government tracks the number of people studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at different stages, such as A Level[1], Higher Education[2] and Apprenticeships[3], which are all published online.
The Government has taken focused action to increase the take-up of STEM subjects across educational stages. For example, the Department is funding programmes in schools and colleges to increase the take-up of maths (such as the Advanced Maths premium), computing and physics; and to support better teaching of maths, science and computing in schools, including a new £84 million programme to improve computing teaching.
The Department is committed to improving STEM careers advice in schools in the recently published Careers Strategy by updating school and college statutory guidance to ensure that students have opportunities to engage with STEM employers and apprenticeships as part of school career programmes.
The Department is also involved with and supporting wider government initiatives such as the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) STEM Ambassador programme. BEIS’s and the Department for Education’s programmes (such as STEM Inspiration) include measures to increase participation among under-served groups, such as girls and women.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results-2016-to-2017-revised.