Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has had discussions with (a) teachers and (b) eduction organisations on the potential merits of the Oak National Academy being a publicly funded body.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy is continuing to work with teachers across the country, giving them and their pupils access to high quality digital curriculum resources which are free, optional and adaptable. Oak is helping to tackle longstanding challenges, such as teacher workload, a significant driver of retention issues in the sector.
Over 30,000 teachers continue to use Oak each week. A significant proportion of the £43 million set aside to support Oak is expected to be provided directly to schools, publishers, and other organisations for the creation of resources. As an integral part of the process to set up Oak as an arm’s length body, the Department produced a business case, which included an assessment of potential market impact. This business case was published on GOV.UK, and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oak-national-academy-business-case.
Where Oak needs to use existing third party content, such as texts, Oak will seek to have an overarching licence with relevant licensing bodies wherever feasible so the copyright holder receives full payment for their work.
Oak’s future and operating model was discussed with teachers and others in the sector in multiple forums. Ministers held roundtable discussions with teachers and school leaders from a range of schools and multi academy trusts. The Department held a series of public webinars for teachers, school leaders and sector bodies. Plans for Oak’s future have also been discussed with teacher representatives, including school leaders and unions, and teacher viewpoints have been collected through surveys.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the 43 million funding for the Oak National Academy on revenue for teacher authors.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy is continuing to work with teachers across the country, giving them and their pupils access to high quality digital curriculum resources which are free, optional and adaptable. Oak is helping to tackle longstanding challenges, such as teacher workload, a significant driver of retention issues in the sector.
Over 30,000 teachers continue to use Oak each week. A significant proportion of the £43 million set aside to support Oak is expected to be provided directly to schools, publishers, and other organisations for the creation of resources. As an integral part of the process to set up Oak as an arm’s length body, the Department produced a business case, which included an assessment of potential market impact. This business case was published on GOV.UK, and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oak-national-academy-business-case.
Where Oak needs to use existing third party content, such as texts, Oak will seek to have an overarching licence with relevant licensing bodies wherever feasible so the copyright holder receives full payment for their work.
Oak’s future and operating model was discussed with teachers and others in the sector in multiple forums. Ministers held roundtable discussions with teachers and school leaders from a range of schools and multi academy trusts. The Department held a series of public webinars for teachers, school leaders and sector bodies. Plans for Oak’s future have also been discussed with teacher representatives, including school leaders and unions, and teacher viewpoints have been collected through surveys.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of converting the Oak National Academy to an arms-length body producing publicly-funded material to support the curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy is continuing to work with teachers across the country, giving them and their pupils access to high quality digital curriculum resources which are free, optional and adaptable. Oak is helping to tackle longstanding challenges, such as teacher workload, a significant driver of retention issues in the sector.
Over 30,000 teachers continue to use Oak each week. A significant proportion of the £43 million set aside to support Oak is expected to be provided directly to schools, publishers, and other organisations for the creation of resources. As an integral part of the process to set up Oak as an arm’s length body, the Department produced a business case, which included an assessment of potential market impact. This business case was published on GOV.UK, and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oak-national-academy-business-case.
Where Oak needs to use existing third party content, such as texts, Oak will seek to have an overarching licence with relevant licensing bodies wherever feasible so the copyright holder receives full payment for their work.
Oak’s future and operating model was discussed with teachers and others in the sector in multiple forums. Ministers held roundtable discussions with teachers and school leaders from a range of schools and multi academy trusts. The Department held a series of public webinars for teachers, school leaders and sector bodies. Plans for Oak’s future have also been discussed with teacher representatives, including school leaders and unions, and teacher viewpoints have been collected through surveys.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of proposals relating to the curriculum Arms-Length Body in the Schools Bill on educational publishers across the country; and if he will take steps to ensure that educational publishers are able to compete on equitable terms.
Answered by Robin Walker
As announced in the Schools White Paper, the department will establish a new arm’s length curriculum body, building on the success of Oak National Academy’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will work with thousands of teachers to co-design, create, and continually improve packages of optional, free, adaptable digital curriculum resources and video lessons. These optional resources will be available across the UK, helping teachers deliver a high-quality curriculum.
Teachers in the UK benefit from a diverse commercial education resources market that offers a range of materials to support high-quality planning and teaching. The curriculum body will work with the market, leading a broad and inclusive national process that will involve commercial education resource suppliers as well as teachers, schools, school trusts, Subject Associations, National Centres of Excellence, and many others, as it develops and delivers its support offer for schools.
Building on our existing understanding, the department is currently working with commercial organisations to gather further information that will help us to understand the potential effect on the market. It is important to us that areas of the market that offer high-quality, carefully sequenced resources that meet teachers’ needs can continue doing so. Opportunities for educational publishers and other partners to work with the curriculum body will be open to all across the sector.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the withdrawal element of the Education Act 1944 on (a) a child’s education in religious education lessons and (b) the expectation that schools promote mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Robin Walker
While the department considers religious education (RE) to be an important subject, we respect parental rights and have no plans to change the right of withdrawal. Legislation gives parents the right to request withdrawing their child from all or part of a school’s RE. Parents are not required to give a reason for their requests, which must be complied with. The right of withdrawal from RE does not extend to other areas of the curriculum where religious matters are spontaneously raised by pupils or arise in other subjects such as history or citizenship.
The department believes that the current position is correct, as it balances the rights of parents and of children.
It is, of course, important that schools promote mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. The Education Act 2002 requires schools to ensure the Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural (SMSC) development of all their pupils. There are many opportunities within the curriculum for schools to promote SMSC, including through RE, history, and citizenship. State-funded schools are also required to actively promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether it is his Department's policy that Local Education Authorities must report how frequently they assess the appropriateness of education services for looked after children.
Answered by Will Quince
Local authorities have a statutory duty to promote the educational achievement of looked-after children, including those placed outside of their authority. They are required to appoint an officer, the local authority Virtual School Head, to ensure this duty is properly discharged.
Statutory guidance on the implementation of these duties can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-the-education-of-looked-after-children.
This requires Directors of Children’ Services and Lead Members for Children’s Services to ensure that the authority’s Children in Care Council regularly considers educational experiences, as reported by looked-after children, and is able to respond effectively to any issues.
Further, the guidance is clear that the Virtual School Head should ensure that the educational attainment and progress of children looked after by the local authority is monitored and evaluated as if those children attended a single school. It is also clear that there are systems in place to report regularly through the authority’s corporate parenting structures. It requires Virtual School Heads to publish an annual report, which should include details of how they have managed the Pupil Premium Plus and Early Years Pupil Premium for looked-after children, and evidence of how the funding has supported the achievement of the children looked after by their authority. Ofsted inspectors are required to ask for the Virtual School Annual Report as part of the framework for Inspections of Local Authority’s Children’s Services.
Asked by: Andrew Lewer (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when will the Education and Skills Funding Agency provide an update on plans to refresh the cap on the number of new apprentices that a non-levy paying employer can take on.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The government recognises the important role that non-levy paying employers play in creating high-quality apprenticeship opportunities, particularly for young people and those in disadvantaged areas.
To support apprenticeships for all employers, the department is increasing funding for apprenticeships in England to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year. Non-levy paying employers can continue to reserve funding for 95% of apprenticeship training and assessment costs.
Since 1 April 2021, all small-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been able to reserve funding for up to 10 new apprenticeship starts. Employers can continue to make reservations into the 2022/23 financial year up to the maximum of 10.
Reservations levels for employers who do not pay the apprenticeship levy are kept under review to ensure that this level is still sufficient to allow SMEs to use apprenticeships to support their business.
Non-levy paying employers can also access apprenticeship funding via transferred funds from levy-paying organisations. The department has made it easier for employers to benefit from levy transfers through a new ‘pledge and transfer’ online service. It is encouraging to see that over 145 employers, including Amazon UK, DPD and HomeServe, have pledged to transfer almost £9 million to support new apprenticeship starts in businesses of all sizes.