Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what events he plans to attend to highlight Learning Disability Week 2019.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government’s ambition for all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities is the same as for all other children and young people: a good start in life; that they achieve well in school and further education; are prepared for adulthood; and lead happy and fulfilled lives.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education would have been delighted to attend an event but unfortunately could not due to competing priorities; he wishes every success to all those who participated in the range of events and activities that were held to mark it.
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 report by the Higher Education Policy Institute entitled Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff, what assessment he has made of the reasons behind the increase in poor mental health among academics and the increasing numbers of university staff being referred to counselling and occupational health services.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Mental health is a priority for this government which is why last week (17 June 2019) my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced measures which overhaul the government’s approach to preventing mental illness. These measures include £1 million to the Office of Students for a competition to find innovative new ways to support mental health at universities and colleges.
The Department for Education is also working closely with Universities UK on embedding the Step Change programme, which calls on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority and take a whole-institution approach to embed a culture of good mental health practice.
The university Mental Health Charter announced in June 2018 will drive up standards in promoting mental health and wellbeing, positive working environments and excellent support for both students and staff.
The Independent Review of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers led by Professor Julia Buckingham has recognised issues of wellbeing and the challenges that arise from the use of short and fixed term contracts. Recommendations are currently under review and a revised concordat is expected by the end of June.
However, universities are autonomous institutions and it is the responsibility of Vice Chancellors to give due consideration to the way their policies and practises impact on staff. This includes responsible use of performance management, workload models and other metrics to assure both student and staff success.
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 allocated additional funding to pupils with special education needs at school in the north of England.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In December 2018, we announced that we would allocate an additional £250 million in funding for pupils with complex special educational needs across England, across the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20. This funding is in addition to the increases we had already promised. Local authorities in the North East, North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber will receive £67.7 million of this funding. The allocation to each local authority can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-needs-funding-arrangements-2019-to-2020. We will also, of course, take the opportunity of the next Spending Review to ensure that we make a strong case for the public funds that enable schools to make provision for their children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to support local authorities and third sector organisations in helping to prevent holiday hunger during school holidays.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Last year I announced a programme of work to explore how best to support disadvantaged children to access healthy food and enriching activities during the school holidays. This included £2 million awarded to 7 third sector organisations to deliver this sort of provision, free, to disadvantaged pupils over the 2018 summer holidays.
We are more than quadrupling that amount for the 2019 summer holidays where we will be exploring how the coordination of this sort of provision across a local authority can help more disadvantaged pupils to access free high quality holiday club provision. Funding will support providers to deliver free high quality holiday provision (including healthy food) to disadvantaged children and young people in a number of local authorities.
We have received applications for a share of this £9 million from a range of organisations including local authorities and third sector organisations, and will be announcing the successful bidders and the geographical locations for the scheme later in the spring.
This programme of work will enable the government to make an evidence-based decision about if, and how, to intervene in this issue in the longer term.
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 effectiveness of his Department's Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy was developed collaboratively with the education sector, including the eight leading sector organisations who co-signed the Foreword to the Strategy. These include Ofsted and the Teaching Unions. It has been warmly received across the education sector, and work is already beginning to deliver the commitments made in the Strategy. Events are being run across the country in March 2019 to communicate the aims of the Strategy, primarily for head teachers and other school leaders. The Department is committed to working with the sector, including Teaching Unions, throughout the implementation of the Strategy.
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 make sleep lessons compulsory for (a) primary and (b) secondary pupils as part of the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education in the National Curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is making relationships education compulsory in all primary schools, and relationships and sex education (RSE) compulsory in all secondary schools. Health education will also become compulsory in all primary and secondary schools. Pupils should be taught the facts about their health to enable them to make good decisions, including lessons about the importance of sleep.
The draft guidance and regulations for the new subjects of relationships education, RSE and health education were laid in Parliament on Monday 25 February. All schools will be required to teach the subjects from September 2020, but they will be encouraged and supported to start teaching them from September 2019 on a voluntary basis.
The draft guidance sets out that pupils should be taught the facts about sleep and about how insufficient sleep can affect both physical health and mental wellbeing, including a person’s weight, mood and ability to learn. Information and resources used should be age appropriate and medically accurate. Existing resources for teaching about sleep as part of health education are already available for schools to use. Examples of these are the PSHE Association’s recently quality assured teaching resources on sleep, as in the following link: https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/curriculum-and-resources/resources/sleep-factor-lesson-plans.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to tackle increasing levels of stress and of mental health issues experienced by primary and secondary school teachers and head teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January 2019, the Department launched the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy. This includes commitments to simplify the accountability system, limit the amount of change that schools have to deliver and provide support to tackle challenging pupil behaviour. The Department is also introducing an Early Career Framework for teachers, which includes mentor training, so that newly qualified teachers receive the support they need. The strategy can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-recruitment-and-retention-strategy.
The strategy marks the beginning of a conversation with head teachers about how they can be supported to reduce unnecessary planning, marking and data requirements; supports teachers to deal with disruptive behaviour; and establishes a culture that values continued professional development and flexible working at all career stages.
The Department continues to work with unions, teachers and Ofsted to challenge and remove unnecessary workload and a joint letter from my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, and other key national organisations was sent to school leaders in November confirming their support to help reduce workload in schools. The Department has accepted all the recommendations of the Making Data Work report and published a workload reduction toolkit as part of an ongoing programme to tackle excessive workload in schools. The report and government response can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teacher-workload-advisory-group-report-and-government-response.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to introduce statutory annual surveys for school staff in (a) primary, (b) secondary schools and (c) colleges.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities, local authority-maintained schools and academies must complete the school workforce census each autumn. This is a statutory data collection on all teaching and support staff in regular employment. More information is available here: www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workforce-census.
The College Staff Survey was published in 2018. The report is available here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/college-staff-survey-2018. This was a standalone, voluntary exercise.
The Department would consider the introduction of any additional future surveys very carefully, weighing up the potential benefits against the possible workload requirements for schools and colleges.
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 (a) collect data on the wellbeing of every primary and secondary school in England and Wales and (b) publish that data in a wellbeing league table.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has no plans to collect or publish school-level data on the wellbeing of pupils in primary and secondary schools in England. Education is a devolved matter; it is for the National Assembly to decide on policy for schools in Wales.
In October 2018, my right hon Friend, the Prime Minister made a commitment that the Government will publish a ‘State of the Nation’ report every year on World Mental Health Day, which will highlight the trends and issues in young people’s wellbeing. The first of these will be published in October this year.
The Government also plans to provide schools with tools later this year to help schools measure their students’ health, including their mental wellbeing, building on the commitment to make education in mental health a compulsory part of the curriculum. The tools are intended to be used voluntarily by schools and will not include a requirement to report back to the Government.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to increase funding allocated to children's services in local authorities in England in the next Comprehensive Spending Review.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government will undertake the next Spending Review in 2019. My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer have agreed that all long-term spending decisions are for the Spending Review, when the government will set out its approach for the future.