Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) reception, (b) Year 1 and (c) Year 6 students have tested positive for covid-19 since 1 June 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Keeping close track of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases in schools is a priority for the Government. The Department collects data on daily suspected COVID-19 related absences as well as data on the number of schools that have indicated they have sent children home due to COVID-19 containment measures. However it is not possible to extrapolate from this the number of confirmed positive cases.
Public Health England (PHE) collects data on infection, incidence and COVID-19 cases overall. PHE publishes data on COVID-19 incidents by institution, including educational settings, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports (page 20). The data are not broken down by year group, nor by profession.
All children, young people, members of staff and their households have access to a test if they are displaying symptoms of coronavirus and are encouraged to get tested in this scenario. Where a positive result is identified local health protection teams will work with the setting to carry out a rapid risk assessment and advise them of the actions to be taken.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential long-term effects of the covid-19 lockdown of the social development of children between the ages of 0 and eighteen.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department is working closely with educational institutions, sector organisations, the Department for Health and Social Care, NHS England and Public Health England to understand the effects of the measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on the mental health and wellbeing of children and identify the children and young people that need help and will continue to do so as more pupils return to school.
We have been working closely with partners to provide resources and to update guidance to support and promote children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes signposting to resources on supporting and promoting mental wellbeing among the list of resources to help children to learn at home, which are available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-online-education-resources.
The return to school is a key part of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of pupils. In addition to providing more opportunities for physical activity, attendance at school allows for social interaction with peers, carers and teachers, which benefits wellbeing. To support this, we have encouraged schools to focus on mental wellbeing as pupils return. The department has now published detailed plans for all children and young people to return to full-time education from September. The guidance for schools is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.
We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care to put in place further specific support for school staff to understand the issues that pupils will face with their mental wellbeing. This includes training for teachers, such as a new module developed with clinical experts on how to teach about mental health in health education:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-mental-wellbeing.
Access to mental health support is more important than ever during the COVID-19 outbreak. NHS services remain open, and leading mental health charities are being supported to deliver additional services through the £5 million Coronavirus Mental Health Response Fund. During Mental Health Awareness Week, the government also announced that a further £4.2 million will be awarded to mental health charities. including the Samaritans, Young Minds and Bipolar UK.
All NHS mental health trusts have been asked to ensure that there are 24/7 open access telephone lines to support people of all ages. Public Health England and Health Education England have also developed advice and guidance for parents and professionals on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing.
In addition, children and young people can access free confidential support any time from government-backed voluntary and community sector organisations either by texting SHOUT to 85258, or by calling Childline on 0800 1111 or The Mix on 0808 808 4994. Children and young people can also find online information on COVID-19 and mental health on the Young Minds website, which is available here:
https://youngminds.org.uk/about-us/reports/coronavirus-impact-on-young-people-with-mental-health-needs/.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the free school meal national voucher scheme, whether (a) Edenred's contract as the Government's supplier will be renewed or (b) there will be a competitive tendering process after 21 June 2020.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Provision for free school meals is ordinarily term time only. However, owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, the government understands that children and parents face an entirely unprecedented situation this summer. To reflect this, the Edenred contract was extended to enable free school meal provision until the end of the summer term (through the national voucher scheme) and to support the Covid Summer Food Fund.
The free school meal vouchers contract was extended on 22 June following ministerial direction to extend the contract to cover the summer holiday period. In order to ensure families receive the support they needed in a timely manner, the department did not have sufficient time to run a competitive procurement for the extension. The extension did not make any substantial changes to the extant contract as defined by PCR Reg 72(1)(e).
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to collect and publish data relating to the progress of pupils at independent schools on a similar basis to the data collected for secondary maintained schools and academies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are no plans to collect or publish such data.
The Department’s progress measures, particularly Progress 8, aim to capture the progress that pupils make from the end of Key Stage 2 to the end of Key Stage 4. They are a type of value added measure, which means that pupils’ results are compared to the actual achievements of other pupils nationally with similar prior attainment.
As pupils at independent schools are not required to take end of Key Stage 2 tests, we are unable to include independent pupils in the calculation of Progress 8 scores. We do publish other attainment headline measures on independent schools. The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 require that independent schools enable pupils to make good progress according to their ability, and this is checked during inspections of all independent schools.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has plans to allocate additional funding for the provision of early years childcare.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government plans to spend £3.6 billion to support early education in the financial year 2020-21. Details of how this funding is distributed across local authorities was published in December 2019 and can be found here:
The funding allocations for local authorities are based on actual take-up of the entitlement hours. Therefore, allocations for 2020-21 will be updated, first in summer 2020 using updated data from the January 2020 schools and early years censuses, and then in summer 2021 using January 2021 census data for the final allocation.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the costs incurred by local education authorities as a result of schools becoming academies; and what criteria his Department uses to risk assess the financial health and governance standards of (a) trusts and (b) sponsors planning to take on new academies.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not routinely collect data on costs incurred by local authorities as a result of schools becoming academies.
The Department reviews a broad range of data and intelligence when assessing the financial health and governance of trusts and sponsors planning to take on academies. This includes trusts’ audited accounts and other financial returns, and key risk indicators such as whether trusts are subject to Financial Notices to Improve, or concerns about financial health, governance, qualified accounts or potential compliance issues.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many qualified teachers are employed in schools run by (a) the local education authority, (b) free schools and (c) academies in Lancashire; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of the number of qualified teachers at each of those categories of schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In Lancashire in 2018, there were 9,2081 full-time equivalent (FTE) qualified teachers employed in state-funded schools. The breakdown of this into local authority maintained, free schools and academies are as follows:
| FTE qualified teachers[1] |
Local-authority-maintained schools[2] | 7,618 |
Free schools | 82 |
Academies | 1,509 |
It is a top priority of the Government to ensure the whole country has a strong teaching workforce. Last year the Department launched the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy – the first ever integrated strategy ensuring there are excellent teachers for every child. The strategy includes the biggest teaching reform in a generation, the Early Career Framework (ECF). The ECF provides new teachers with the solid foundations for a successful career in teaching, backed by £130 million a year in funding when fully rolled out in 2021. We have also committed to plans to raise starting salaries for new teachers to £30,000 by 2022-23, putting teaching on a par with other top graduate professions.
Implementation of the national recruitment and retention strategy will support all schools. However, we recognise that some schools and local areas face greater challenges with recruitment and retention than others. We are making every effort to refocus national teacher recruitment and retention programmes to ensure they address local variations in teacher supply, so that more schools can benefit from tried and tested programmes.
This includes targeting interventions to support teacher recruitment and retention in all school types in Lancashire. Over £20 million of scholarships funding has been made available in 2017-19 to support teachers and leaders in Category 5 and 6 areas to take up a National Professional Qualification (NPQ), doubling our initial intended investment. The aim of the investment is to retain good teachers and leaders in these areas and support their professional development. Burnley and Pendle are areas that received this support in Lancashire.
In addition to this, the Department has set aside £30 million in tailored support for schools struggling with teacher recruitment and retention. This support is designed to help schools improve existing recruitment and retention plans, join national programmes, build local partnerships or fund new initiatives. Three schools in Lancashire local authority are currently receiving this support.
[1] Figures have been rounded to whole numbers.
[2] Includes a small number of centrally employed staff.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many academies are rated by Ofsted as (a) inadequate and (b) requires improvement in (i) Preston constituency, (ii) Lancashire and (iii) the North West; and what steps he is taking to improve educational outcomes for pupils in these areas.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is published by Ofsted and is set out in the tables attached. The first table shows the number of academies in Preston, Lancashire and the North West that are rated as ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’. The second table shows the national breakdown for all school types in England.
As at 31 August 2019, the two academies in Preston constituency were both rated as ‘outstanding’ and 95% of the academies in the Lancashire local authority were rated as ‘good’ or 'outstanding’. Nationally, 86% of all schools in England were rated as either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
Where an academy’s performance is a cause for concern, the Department will respond. Where Ofsted have inspected an academy and issued it with an ‘inadequate’ rating, the Department has powers to take decisive action to bring about school improvement, including whether it is in the school’s best interests to be transferred to a stronger academy trust, with the capacity to deliver strong and rapid school improvement. For ‘requires improvement’ schools, including academies, the Department has published a School Support Offer for the academic year 2019/20. The offer provides support from a National Leader of Education and other funded support for schools, based on published criteria. The details of the School Support Offer are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-improvement-support-for-the-2019-to-2020-academic-year.
There are currently no academies in Preston constituency that were rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’. In Lancashire, however, there was one academy (Fulwood Academy) that was rated as ‘inadequate’ in February 2018 and one academy (Penwortham Priory Academy) that was rated as ‘inadequate’ in July 2017.
The Regional Schools Commissioner for Lancashire and West Yorkshire is overseeing and monitoring the steps that Fulwood Academy is taking to secure improvements, in line with the Schools Causing Concern guidance published at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-causing-concern--2.
Penwortham Priory Academy meets the eligibility criteria for the School Support Offer, which provides support from a National Leader of Education. Eligible schools are supported by the Teaching School Council to access this support.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his policy is on the academies programme for the next five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government's vision is to continue developing a world-class school-led system by giving school leaders the freedom to run their schools in the way they know best. The academies programme can provide opportunities for this through its key principles of autonomy, accountability and collaboration.
Academies will continue to be the at the core of the Government's flagship schools reform policies. Over 7 in 10 sponsored academies that have been inspected by Ofsted are now judged 'Good' or 'Outstanding'. Prior to converting to academies, only 1 in 10 of these schools were judged ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’.
The Government wants to ensure that the opportunities afforded by the academies programme are spread to those areas that are not currently benefitting.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department plans to increase the funding streams of all schools in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has committed to increase core schools funding by £2.6 billion next year, and by £4.8 billion and £7.1 billion in 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively. This has enabled a 5% increase to school funding next year alone, which will continue to be allocated via the National Funding Formula – ensuring that funding is based on schools’ and pupils’ needs and characteristics. On top of this, the Department will provide £1.5 billion per year to fund additional pension costs for teachers. As a result, every school will attract an increase to their core schools funding per pupil next year.