Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many laptops have been (a) requested and (b) sent to Nottinghamshire schools to enable the completion of work during the covid-19 outbreak; and whether those laptops are sent directly to schools or to the local authority first.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has committed over £100 million to support children in England to access remote education and online social care services, including by providing vulnerable and disadvantaged children with laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers. We are providing laptops and tablets to vulnerable and disadvantaged children who would otherwise not have access and are preparing for examinations in year 10, receiving support from a social worker or are a care leaver. Where care leavers, children with a social worker at secondary school and children in year 10 do not have internet connections, we are providing 4G wireless routers for internet access.
The Department has allocated devices to local authorities and academy trusts based on its estimates of the number of eligible children that do not have access to a device. Local authorities and academy trusts are best placed to prioritise children and young people who need devices.
As of 30 June, over 200,000 laptops and tablets and over 47,000 4G wireless routers had been delivered or dispatched to local authorities and academy trusts. This information can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/laptops-tablets-and-4g-wireless-routers-progress-data. This includes 1,860 devices delivered to Nottinghamshire County Council, which is broken down as: 1,824 devices for children with social workers and care leavers, and 36 devices for disadvantaged year 10 pupils in local authority maintained schools. Academy trusts who have schools in Nottinghamshire have also received devices directly.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to issue guidance on the provision of sport and exercise in the covid-19 catch-up plan.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is working to ensure that schools are fully supported as they welcome more children back to school and schools are able to give pupils opportunities to take part in physical education and be physically active during the school day. Schools are free to organise and deliver a PE curriculum that suits the needs of all their pupils whilst following COVID-19 government guidelines. The Department has now published guidance on plans for all children and young people to return to full-time education from September, which covers the provision of PE and school sport: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.
The Department has made £650 million available to state-funded schools to support pupils to catch-up following extended school closure. The Education Endowment Foundation has published guidance to encourage schools to use this funding on evidence-led interventions, one of which might be summer catch-up activity. It is a matter for schools to decide how to spend the funding, based on their individual circumstances and brokering local partnerships with Voluntary and Community Sector organisation and other organisations to help them deliver. Precise details of how the catch up premium will be delivered will be confirmed shortly and we will confirm the timetable for publishing institution-level allocations in due course.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support working class boys to close the attainment gap.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Educational achievement is at the heart of this Government’s commitment to ensure no young person is left behind because of the place or circumstances of their birth. Due to our reforms, 86% of pupils attend a Good or Outstanding school compared with 66% in 2010.
‘Working class’ is not a description recognised or measured by the Department. We measure the outcomes of those pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds as defined by the benefit-related definition for ‘disadvantaged’. We recognise that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds – including those currently or formerly claiming free school meals and currently or formerly looked after - may face extra challenges in achieving their potential at school. We introduced the pupil premium in 2011 and have invested over £15 billion – and another £2.4 billion this year – so that schools have the resources to provide extra support for disadvantaged pupils of all abilities. White disadvantaged boys and girls constitute the largest group of eligible pupils and so benefit significantly from this extra support.
Against a background of rising standards, disadvantaged pupils are catching up with their peers. The attainment gap index shows that since 2011, the gap at the end of primary school has narrowed by 13% and the gap at the end of secondary school has narrowed by 9%. This indicates better prospects for a secure adult life for disadvantaged pupils. Our reforms, and the focus provided by the pupil premium, have supported this improvement.
The Department recognises there is more to do for disadvantaged pupils. Our ambition is to halve the number of children who finish Reception without the communication and reading skills they need to thrive. Our £72 million Opportunity Areas programme will focus resource on areas with low social mobility. We have also dedicated £24 million to Opportunity North East to address the specific challenges in that region.
The Department’s establishment of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) with a £137 million grant has ensured that schools have access to high quality, evidence-based, effective practice drawn from hundreds of trials across England. We recommend that schools consult the EEF’s resources, particularly its recent ‘Pupil Premium Guide’, when they are considering how best to support their pupils and close the attainment gap.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the School sport and activity action plan, when the pilot areas for schools to work with sport providers and local organisations to put in place a coordinated offer of sport, competition and activity in and outside school will be selected.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In the school sport and activity action plan, published in July 2019, the Government announced its intention to set up regional pilots to trial new and innovative approaches to drive up activity levels, and particularly focus on engaging the least active pupils.
The Department is working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Sport England to design the pilots, drawing on information from schools and sport and physical activity providers. The Department will confirm the nature and process for the pilots later in the year, taking into account how they can fit with other initiatives that aim to increase access to activities for pupils.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many GCSE entries for arts subjects there were from students in Mansfield constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number and proportion of entries by pupils at the end of key stage 4 into GCSE[1] Arts subjects[2] in Mansfield[3] from 2013-14 to 2017-18[4] are provided in the table below, alongside the number of entries by pupils at the end of key stage 4 into all GCSE subjects in Mansfield.
Mansfield | 2013/14[5] | 2014/15[6] | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18[7] |
Number entries into GCSE Arts | 688 | 874 | 650 | 607 | 390 |
Number of entries into all GCSE subjects | 9,122 | 9,390 | 9,716 | 9,358 | 8,180 |
% of pupils entered into any Arts subject | 7.5% | 9.3% | 6.7% | 6.5% | 4.8% |
Source: Revised key stage 4 attainment data
[1] Includes GCSE and equivalents.
[2] For the purposes of these figures arts subjects include Applied Art and Design, Art and Design, Drama, Media/Film/TV, Music, Dance and Performing Arts. As per table 1c of the national tables here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-4-and-multi-academy-trust-performance-2018-revised.
[3] Defined as pupils at the end of key stage 4 attending a school within the Mansfield parliamentary constituency.
[4] For pupils at the end of key stage 4 with results that count in key stage 4 performance tables
[5] In 2013/14, two major reforms were implemented which affect the calculation of key stage 4 performance measures data: 1) Professor Alison Wolf’s Review of Vocational Education recommendations which: restrict the qualifications counted; prevent any qualification from counting as larger than one GCSE; and cap the number of non-GCSEs included in performance measures at two per pupil, and 2) an early entry policy to only count a pupil’s first attempt at a qualification, in subjects counted in the English Baccalaureate. Consequently, the numbers supplied prior to 2013/14 are not directly comparable with those from 2013/14 onwards.
[6] In 2014/15, early entry policy, under which only a pupil’s first attempt at a qualification is counted in performance measures, was extended to all subjects.
[7] New reformed 9-1 GCSEs in Arts subject counted in key stage 4 performance tables for the first time in 2017/18. Once a reformed subject is included in performance tables, their unreformed counterparts no longer count, even if this was an early entry.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many GCSE entries for arts subjects there were from students in Mansfield in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teaching assistants have been employed in secondary schools in Nottinghamshire in each of the last three years for which data are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The following table provides the full-time equivalent (FTE) number of teaching assistants in service in state funded secondary schools in Nottinghamshire and England, as at November in each of the latest three years:
| 2016[1] | 2017 | 2018 |
Nottinghamshire[2] | 695 | 706 | 688 |
England | 49,663 | 47,358 | 45,918 |
Source: School Workforce Census.
[1] 2016 figures for the Nottinghamshire local authority exclude 2 out of 46 schools that did not provide a return for teaching assistant numbers.
[2] Excludes estimates for missing schools and centrally employed staff.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to promote the benefits of adult learning in the East Midlands.
Answered by Anne Milton
We are developing a skills system that can drive improvements in social mobility and are doing this by implementing key skills reforms, which although are national policies, will benefit people in all areas and from all backgrounds.
The National Careers Service offers free careers information, advice and guidance to both young people and adults through a website and telephone helpline. Adults are also supported through the local community based service where face to face guidance is available.
The Adult Education Budget is used to engage adults, including those furthest from learning and the workplace, to provide them with the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. It enables more tailored programmes of learning to be made available, which do not need to include a qualification.
Apprenticeships are accessible to people of all ages, and training can be delivered flexibly to meet the needs of people with children returning to part-time work or those needing to re-train. We are making apprenticeships longer and better, with more off-the job training and proper assessment at the end. New apprenticeship standards across all levels are being designed and driven by industry, which is creating higher quality training that will lead to a more skilled and productive economy. The new apprenticeships campaign, Fire It Up, was launched in January 2019. This campaign is working to increase the number of high quality apprenticeships offered and started, by changing the way people think about apprenticeships, demonstrating that they are an aspirational choice for anyone with passion and energy.
We are developing a National Retraining Scheme, which will help prepare adults for the future changes to the economy, including those brought about by automation, and help them to retrain into better jobs. The scheme is being developed and rolled out in stages so that we can learn and adapt to users’ needs as we go. Learning from the career learning pilots, the Construction Skills Fund and the Adult Learning Technology Innovation Fund will inform how we can better engage adults about the opportunities and benefits of training.
We have been working with all local enterprise partnerships in the East Midlands to ensure that Skills Advisory Panels (SAPs) are established by October 2019. SAPs aim to bring together local employers and skills providers, including colleges, independent training providers and universities, to pool knowledge on skills and labour market needs and to work together to understand and address key local challenges, including helping to tackle local skills shortages. SAPs will help address both immediate needs and challenges and look at what is required to help local areas adapt to future labour market changes and to grasp future opportunities. This will help universities, colleges and other providers deliver the skills required by employers, now and in the future.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase the level of numeracy in Nottinghamshire.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is investing to improve Mathematics education from early years through to age 18, so that young people have the right skills for employment, further education and everyday life.
In early years, the Department is investing £20 million in the Professional Development Programme. This will provide training on language, literacy and numeracy education for pre-reception early years staff in disadvantaged areas, including around 45 settings in Nottinghamshire.
Since 2014, the Department has funded a network of 35 Maths Hubs across England, including two lead schools in Nottinghamshire (George Spencer Academy and Minster School). The Hubs have sought to improve Mathematics teaching from early years through to post-16. Maths Hubs deliver the £76 million Teaching for Mastery programme, which adapts Mathematics pedagogy from top performing east-Asian jurisdictions to English schools. The programme is funded to reach a total of 11,000 primary and secondary schools across England by 2022. This includes establishing a Mastery Readiness Pogramme for schools in greatest need.
To further support the transition between primary and secondary school, schools in Nottinghamshire have also received approximately £1.1 million in additional funding to raise levels of literacy and numeracy of Year 7 pupils. Students on a 16 to 18 study programme who have yet to achieve a GCSE grade 4 or above in Mathematics are required to continue to study the subject.
The Department is funding the £16 million Advanced Mathematics Support Programme to improve and increase provision of, and participation in, AS and A level Mathematics, further Mathematics, and level 3 core Mathematics qualifications, through a range of support to help schools and colleges improve advanced Mathematics teaching.
In 2018, 77% of pupils in Nottinghamshire local authority met the expected standard for Mathematics at Key Stage 2, which is 1% higher than the England average and up from 70% in 2016 when new tests were introduced.
At GCSE level, 71.8% of Nottinghamshire local authority’s pupils achieved a grade 9 to 4 at GCSE Mathematics in 2018, which is slightly higher than the figure for 2017. 75.3% of 19 year olds held a GCSE 9 to 4 or other level 2 qualification in 2018, compared to the national average of 75.6%. 23% of academic students took Mathematics A level at the end of Key Stage 5.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he has taken to ensure that businesses understand the value of the new T Level qualifications before their implementation in 2020.
Answered by Anne Milton
With longer hours and meaningful industry placements, T levels will provide employers with the future skilled workforce they need to thrive. We have placed employers at the heart of T level development and implementation. We have extended the remit of the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) to promote awareness of T levels and industry placements with a wide range of employers – the NAS has worked with and gained the interest of nearly 10,000 employers in 2018/19. The NAS also work with business representative networks and recently held a T levels Twitter panel with myself and the Federation of Small Businesses.
In addition, T level panel members, responsible for developing T level content, have become strong advocates for T levels. Many of these members are now part of the T level Ambassadors Network - a network of business advocates endorsing T levels on a regional and national basis.