Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will amend the eligibility criteria to lead a basic maths Centre for Excellence so that it is based on the total number of students with low prior attainment in maths rather than the number of students contained in the 2017 maths progress measure.
Answered by Anne Milton
There are no plans to amend the eligibility criteria for the basic maths Centres for Excellence programme. The Centres for Excellence programme will build on the success of the Maths Hubs model in schools, adapting it to improve the quality of teaching post-16.
The eligibility criteria is for institutions to have a minimum of 250 maths students with prior attainment below a grade 4 included in the maths progress measure. This will make sure institutions have a substantial number of students at the end of their 16-19 study programme who have directly benefited from the programme as they work towards achieving a GCSE standard pass in maths. We view this as an important criterion as we trial teaching approaches and evaluate their impact on the quality of teaching and learning over the length of the study programme to inform a wider rollout.
We have allowed and have actively encouraged institutions to partner up to be Centres for Excellence through consortium bids. This will also serve to encourage improved networking between a mix of institutions and institution types with a shared goal of improving maths teaching and attainment.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2018 to Question 156624, how many and what proportion of maths teachers in receipt of bursaries are still teaching after (a) three, (b) four and (c) five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is currently undertaking detailed analysis of teacher training and school workforce data to explore the proportion of bursary holders awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) and the progression of bursary holders into the state funded workforce in England. This will include analysis of employment and retention rates by trainee bursary status (whether a trainee received a bursary), and whether the subject for which a trainee received a bursary is the subject they go on to teach. The Department intends to publish this analysis later in the year.
Table 8 of the School Workforce Census 2017 includes analysis of teacher retention rates over time, but this data is not currently available by subject and does not consider whether the teacher received a bursary during teacher training. This table is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2017.
Whilst not a direct measure of retention, the Department has recently published new analysis of employment rates of trainees awarded QTS in state-funded schools in England. This analysis does not consider whether a trainee received a bursary during their teacher training, but does include employment rates by subject in Table T1.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (February 2018) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-3. Analysis of teacher wastage rates can also be found by subject in Tables T2.1 to T2.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (May 2017) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-2017.
The Department is piloting a phased bursary for mathematics trainee teachers starting initial teacher training in the 2018/19 academic year, which comprises a lower bursary upfront followed by two additional early-career payments once in teaching. The pilot will test whether this approach secures a greater supply of teachers than the upfront bursary.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2018 to Question 156624, how many and what proportion of teachers of subjects other than maths are still in teaching after (a) three, (b) four and (c) five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is currently undertaking detailed analysis of teacher training and school workforce data to explore the proportion of bursary holders awarded qualified teacher status (QTS) and the progression of bursary holders into the state funded workforce in England. This will include analysis of employment and retention rates by trainee bursary status (whether a trainee received a bursary), and whether the subject for which a trainee received a bursary is the subject they go on to teach. The Department intends to publish this analysis later in the year.
Table 8 of the School Workforce Census 2017 includes analysis of teacher retention rates over time, but this data is not currently available by subject and does not consider whether the teacher received a bursary during teacher training. This table is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2017.
Whilst not a direct measure of retention, the Department has recently published new analysis of employment rates of trainees awarded QTS in state-funded schools in England. This analysis does not consider whether a trainee received a bursary during their teacher training, but does include employment rates by subject in Table T1.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (February 2018) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-3. Analysis of teacher wastage rates can also be found by subject in Tables T2.1 to T2.4 of the Teacher Analysis Compendium (May 2017) is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/teachers-analysis-compendium-2017.
The Department is piloting a phased bursary for mathematics trainee teachers starting initial teacher training in the 2018/19 academic year, which comprises a lower bursary upfront followed by two additional early-career payments once in teaching. The pilot will test whether this approach secures a greater supply of teachers than the upfront bursary.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 25 June 2018 to Question 153261, on teachers: recruitment, how his Department plans to use the money within the remaining budget.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Spend on teacher bursaries is determined by the number of trainee teachers recruited annually. As recruitment varies year-on-year it is difficult to accurately predict expenditure when budgets are set, which means that underspends and overspends often materialise. All underspends are collected centrally and targeted towards high-priority areas of education spending.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effectiveness of initiatives to encourage more people to enter the teaching profession.
Answered by Nick Gibb
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has made it his top priority to ensure teaching remains an attractive and fulfilling profession.
In addition to a £30 million investment in tailored support for the schools that struggle the most with recruitment and retention, the Department offers several other financial incentives to encourage the recruitment of high quality graduates into teaching. These include; tax-free bursaries, worth up to £26,000 for priority subjects and tax-free scholarships of up to £28,000 in five subjects. The Department is piloting a new approach for mathematics trainee teachers in 2018/19, which tests whether offering some of the bursary once the teacher is employed is effective in incentivising both recruitment and retention. The Department recruited more trainee teachers in 2017/18 than in 2016/17 (a 3% rise).
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether there has been an under-spend in the budget for teacher bursaries in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The table shows the budget and the actual spend for training bursaries in each of the last three complete financial years along with the value of any underspend. These figures take account of the income generated by recovery of unused funding in respect of trainees who withdrew or deferred from training each year as identified through routine assurance processes. The financial year 2017-18 figure consists in part of financial information relating to the 2017/18 academic year, which is yet to conclude, and is subject to further routine assurance before being finalised.
Financial year | Total amount spent on bursaries | Total budget | Underspend |
2015-16 | £163,730,014 | £161,544,000 | (£2,186,014) |
2016-17 | £184,166,893 | £188,755,000 | £4,588,107 |
2017-18 | £183,327,995 | £224,094,000 | £40,766,005 |
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of effect of the Teacher Supply Model on teacher recruitment in the last 12 months.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department uses the Teacher Supply Model (TSM) to estimate, at a national level, the number of postgraduate trainee teachers required each year.
In 2017/18 more trainees were recruited than in the previous year, but despite our improved performance, we fell short of the TSM target by 10%.
The growing pupil population in recent years has seen targets rise; for 2017/18 the target grew by 6% from the previous year. The 2018/19 TSM target has increased further by 4%.
The Department recognises the scale of the challenge this presents, which is why generous tax-free bursaries and scholarships worth up to £28,000 for trainees in priority subjects continue to be offered for 2018/19. The Department has also expanded the number of subjects in which schools and universities can recruit without centrally imposed limits, meaning that no good candidate should be turned away owing to the lack of a place.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the merits of funding tuition fees for prospective teachers to encourage more teachers into the teaching profession.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to ensuring that we recruit the best graduates into the teaching profession, which is why generous bursaries and scholarships are offered to trainees in priority subjects. In addition to this, teachers will benefit from the newly announced student loan repayment threshold rise and, from September 2018, the Department is piloting a new programme to reimburse student loan repayments for languages and science teachers in the early years of their careers.
The Department is developing a recruitment and retention strategy which will make recommendations on the best way to attract graduates into the teaching profession, and will publish the outcomes of this in due course.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education for what reasons the Post-16 skills plan for (a) protective services, (b) sales, marketing and procurement, (c) Social Care and (d) transport and Logistics will be delivered primarily through apprenticeships.
Answered by Anne Milton
Following extensive analysis and stakeholder engagement, the Independent Panel on Technical Education led by Lord Sainsbury, identified that four technical routes would be better suited to delivery via work-based training (apprenticeships), rather than classroom-based provision (T Levels). These were ‘Transport and Logistics’, ‘Sales’, ‘Marketing and Procurement’, ‘Social Care’ and ‘Protective Services’. The government accepted these recommendation and these routes formed the basis for developing the occupational maps, which are now owned by the Institute for Apprenticeships.
T Levels will not be available in all areas for which vocational qualifications currently exist. This is because some occupations are more suitable for delivery through an apprenticeship. However, our review of level three qualifications – confirmed in the recent response to the T Level consultation – will be comprehensive, and will ensure that there is continued provision where there is a genuine need for a qualification. For example, where they serve a genuine and useful purpose, are of a high quality and enable students to progress to meaningful outcomes.
Asked by: Nic Dakin (Labour - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that T-levels enable learners to move between disciplines as their priorities and interests change.
Answered by Anne Milton
We recognise that, as is the case for current provision, some students will choose to change T Levels after starting their course. We want to ensure that T Level courses accommodate this flexibility.
We will be working with the providers of the first T Levels in 2020/21 and 2021/22 to explore how courses could be designed which allow students to change to another T Level early on in the course without it affecting their progress. The core component of the T Level includes content common across all T Levels within a route, which will help when students move between courses. Where students transfer onto another T Level within the same route, where possible, we will make sure that if they have already attained the core component and this is recognised in their new T Level.
Once T Level content is finalised, we will work with higher education providers to identify where a bridging provision may be needed, to allow students to progress from T Levels to an academic route should they wish to do so.
T Levels are much broader in content than apprenticeships. Students will learn about a range of different occupations in the sector and develop skills common to each, meaning they will have more options and scope to move occupations once in work.