Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a list of school transport plans with no mechanism for engaging schools and colleges as active stakeholders.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The statutory responsibility for transport to education and training for children of compulsory school age and for 16 to 19 year olds rests with local authorities, enabling them to make decisions which best match local needs and circumstances.
Local authorities are required to consult a range of stakeholders including schools and colleges about their post-16 transport policies. When developing transport policies for children of compulsory school age statutory guidance strongly encourages local authorities to consult.
Local authorities publish transport policies for school age children and post-16 young people on their websites. The department does not assess these to determine the extent to which local authorities meet these expectations for consultation. Links to post-16 transport policies can be found at www.gov.uk/subsidised-college-transport-16-19.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the cost of the Immigration Skills Charge to NHS and social care sponsors of Tier 2 visas in 2016-17; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The income raised from the Immigration Skills Charge will support the provision of skills for the resident population, to address the skills gaps that employers face. Further information will be set out in due course. We have not estimated the potential annual cost to NHS and social care sponsors. The cost will depend on employer use of the Tier 2 skilled worker route.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the revenue raised by the Immigration Skills Charge applied to NHS and social care sponsors of Tier 2 visas will be hypothecated for investment in apprenticeships in health and social care; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The income raised from the Immigration Skills Charge will support the provision of skills for the resident population, to address the skills gaps that employers face. Further information will be set out in due course. We have not estimated the potential annual cost to NHS and social care sponsors. The cost will depend on employer use of the Tier 2 skilled worker route.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to work with local authorities to ensure that the education provided to home educated children is effectively regulated and safeguarded.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department for Education has frequent contact with local authority officers and elected members on the subject of elective home education. Published guidance for local authorities is available on the GOV.UK website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government has taken to assess whether the home education of children in consistent with Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department for Education has published guidance on ‘Listening to and involving children and young people’, which makes clear that in keeping with Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, local authorities (LAs) should take steps to ensure that the views of children are obtained and taken into account. This published guidance is available on GOV.UK at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/listening-to-and-involving-children-and-young-people
The guidance is issued under s.176 of the Education Act 2002, which requires LAs to use guidance on consulting children when they exercise their functions in relation both to schools and to elective home education. It is for each local authority to decide how best to take account of the views of children who are being educated at home.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to extend the mental health and schools link pilot scheme to post-16 further education establishments.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department will make a decision on how to build on the outcome of the pilot once the training workshops have been delivered and the evaluation has been completed. This pilot is currently running in 27 Clinical Commissioning Group areas.
Officials are working with the Association of Colleges to ensure that effective links are being made between the pilot areas and their local colleges, so that they are involved in the development of shared protocols and longer term planning for the provision of children’s mental health services.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of statutory PSHE education for the health of school pupils; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Timpson
We want all children to lead healthy and active lives. Schools have a key role to play in supporting this; the new national curriculum sets the expectation that pupils are taught, across a variety of subjects, about the importance of leading healthy and active lives.
Schools and teachers already recognise the importance of good PSHE education and know that healthy, resilient, confident pupils are better placed to achieve academically and to be stretched further. In the introduction to the national curriculum, we have made clear that all schools should make provision for PSHE, drawing on examples of good practice.
The Secretary of State for Education has regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Health about children’s health and the role schools can play in tackling childhood obesity.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Health on the Chief Medical Officer's recommendations that PSHE education be made a routine part of children's education.
Answered by Edward Timpson
We want all children to lead healthy and active lives. Schools have a key role to play in supporting this; the new national curriculum sets the expectation that pupils are taught, across a variety of subjects, about the importance of leading healthy and active lives.
Schools and teachers already recognise the importance of good PSHE education and know that healthy, resilient, confident pupils are better placed to achieve academically and to be stretched further. In the introduction to the national curriculum, we have made clear that all schools should make provision for PSHE, drawing on examples of good practice.
The Secretary of State for Education has regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Health about children’s health and the role schools can play in tackling childhood obesity.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of statutory PSHE education on lowering the level of violence against women and girls; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Timpson
High quality Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education has a vital role to play in ensuring that young people leave school prepared for life in modern Britain, helping them develop healthy relationships and recognise unhealthy relationships. It can also give them the skills and knowledge to help keep themselves, and each other, safe. The Government has made it clear in the introduction to the framework to the national curriculum that all schools should teach PSHE. Schools and teachers are best placed to develop their own PSHE curriculum based on the needs of their pupils, drawing on guidance provided by expert organisations such as the PSHE Association.
As stated in the Government response to the select committee report, we will take forward work with the sector to improve the quality of PSHE, and intend to make significant progress on this issue during this parliament.
Asked by: Sarah Wollaston (Liberal Democrat - Totnes)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason the Final version of the Specification for Mandatory Qualifications for specialist teachers of children and young people who are deaf was revised between 6 and 13 October 2015.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Our aim is always to ensure that the Mandatory Qualifications (MQ) continue to be a high quality qualification that is flexible in its content and in its model of delivery in order to meet the needs of the sector.
We work closely with the National Sensory Impairment Partnership (NatSIP) as representatives of the sector. We ran a consultation with the sector to make sure that the MQ remained current and reflected changes in policy. As a result of the consultation we made a number of changes to the MQ specification. We published the revised specification on 7 September 2015 on GOV.uk.
After publication, we responded to advice from NatSIP and made a further amendment to the specification making it clearer that the specification reflects the minimum skills required to be a teacher of the deaf.
We have no plans to make changes to the final version of the specification; we will keep the specification under review and continue to engage with the sector through NatSIP.