Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the number of threatening calls that were made to schools in (a) Romford constituency and (b) the UK in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Schools in England do not have a legal requirement to report to the department threats that are received via phone calls. However, schools are expected to have policies and procedures in place to handle these situations. The procedures may include reporting threats to local authorities and the police, this depends on the nature and severity of the threat. Schools may also choose to inform the relevant authorities as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety and security of students and staff.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has taken steps with relevant authorities to provide out of hours academic tutoring provision in state schools in (a) England and (b) Romford constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The department is investing over £1 billion in tutoring via its flagship National Tutoring Programme (NTP). This has seen nearly five million tutoring courses commence since the programme started in November 2020, including over two million in each of the last two academic years. In the current academic year, 346,000 courses have started up to 5 October 2023.
The principal objective of the NTP is to improve the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. In the 2023/24 academic year, schools are required to consider offering tutoring to all of their pupils who are eligible for the pupil premium. The department is continuing to recommend that schools use pupil premium funding to cover their contribution to the cost of tutoring. Pupil premium funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, an increase of £80 million from 2023/24. This represents a 10% increase in per pupil rates from 2021/22 to 2024/25.
The department is committed to the objective that tutoring should be embedded across schools in England following the final year of the NTP. The department will expect tutoring to continue to be a staple offer from schools, with schools using their core budgets, including pupil premium, to provide targeted support for those children who will benefit.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support kinship carers in Romford constituency.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In December 2023, the department published Championing Kinship Care, the first ever national kinship care strategy. The department is investing £20 million of funding in financial year 2024/25 for Championing Kinship Care, to help move towards a children’s social care system with kinship at its heart.
It may be helpful to look at Kinship’s website to see whether there are local peer to peer support groups being delivered for kinship carers in Romford. The website can be found here: https://compass.kinship.org.uk/groups/.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to tackle anti-Semitism in higher education institutions in the South East.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Antisemitism, intimidation, and threats of violence must never be tolerated on university campuses. The Community Security Trust 2023 annual report highlights the unprecedented increase in antisemitic incidents in higher education (HE). This unacceptable rise is deeply concerning. All antisemitism is abhorrent, and universities should have robust systems to deal with incidents of support for unlawful antisemitic abuse and harassment. The department will not tolerate unlawful harassment or the glorification of terrorism.
Ever since the October 7 attacks, the department has actively intervened to ensure that universities, including those located in the South East, act swiftly and appropriately to deal with incidents of antisemitism. I have reached out to many Vice Chancellors personally when a concern has been raised about antisemitism on their campus.
Furthermore, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, and I wrote to all universities on 11 October 2023, urging them to respond swiftly to hate-related incidents and to actively reassure Jewish students that they can study without fear of harassment or intimidation. I wrote again to Vice Chancellors on 16 November 2023, emphasising that they must use disciplinary measures wherever appropriate, highlighting the importance of police engagement, and reiterating that student visas could be suspended where a foreign national is found to have committed or incited acts of racial hatred. This was one of the key actions set out in the five point plan for tackling antisemitism in HE, which was published on 5 November 2023. The plan also involves:
On 22 November, the government announced in the Autumn Statement an additional £7 million over three years to tackle antisemitism in education. The Quality Seal will be the cornerstone of this package for universities, providing a framework of measures that will make clear what good practice is in tackling antisemitism in HE, and making sure that our universities are a safe and welcoming space for Jewish students and staff, as for all students and staff.
The department will not hesitate to take further action across education to stamp out antisemitism and harassment of Jewish pupils, students and staff.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to support the playing of rugby in schools in (a) England and (b) Romford constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Physical education (PE) is a compulsory subject within the national curriculum from key stage 1 to key stage 4. It is for schools to decide which sports to choose for pupils both in PE and during extracurricular opportunities. The national curriculum does not specify what schools should provide, but rugby is included as an example of a sport that can provide important elements of the PE and Sport national curriculum programme of study in key stage 3 and 4.
Where schools want to provide specific sports, they can draw on support from the relevant national governing body. The Rugby Football Union (RFU) offers a wide range of resources and age appropriate guidance and advice for delivering rugby to primary and secondary age pupils. The RFU has been conducting a review into the future of rugby in schools, and the department looks forward to seeing the outcomes of this work and engaging with them accordingly.
On 8 March 2023, the department announced over £600 million in funding for the primary PE and sport premium in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years, and up to £57 million up to March 2025 for the ‘Opening School Facilities’ programme. Schools can use this funding to increase their sport provision such as rugby to a higher standard.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to introduce wildlife education to the early years curriculum.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements that all early years providers must follow to ensure every child has the best start in life and is prepared for school. The EYFS includes an area of learning on ‘Understanding the World’, which requires settings to foster children’s understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. Across the early years curriculum, practitioners can teach children about wildlife and the natural environment in a range of ways, for example through books, activities and play and by visiting parks and other local areas.
At the end of the EYFS, children are assessed on their level of development, against the Early Learning Goals (ELGs). The ‘Understanding the World’ ELGs include exploring the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants, knowing some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to help support the recruitment of early years workers in the Channel Islands.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department regularly engages with Crown Dependency officials and cross-government stakeholders with an interest in early years.
The Crown Dependencies are self-governing in respect of their own domestic affairs and this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the Channel Island governments.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on cyber security threats to educational institutions.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The UK government takes cyber threats to our public institutions very seriously and this threat has been highlighted in both the published Integrated Review and the Government Cyber Security Strategy, which show the cross-government approach the department has to tackling these threats. The Integrated Review is accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/the-integrated-review-2021. The Government Cyber Security Strategy is accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-cyber-security-strategy-2022-to-2030.
The department cyber team continues to work closely with colleagues across government, including those at the National Cyber Security Centre, to manage its cyber risk across educational institutions.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many companies have received training subsidies from the apprenticeship levy in each of the last three years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government introduced the apprenticeship levy to incentivise larger businesses to develop and invest in their own apprenticeship programmes whilst ensuring the availability of funding for smaller employers wanting to offer apprenticeships. The levy has supported the government to increase investment in the apprenticeships system in England to £2.7 billion in the 2024/25 financial year and supports employers of all sizes to boost the skills of their workforces.
Employers in England who pay the apprenticeship levy can access funds for apprenticeship training and assessment by registering for an apprenticeship service account. Since April 2021, all non-levy paying employers hiring new apprentices have accessed funds through apprenticeship service accounts.
The table below shows the number of employer accounts on the apprenticeship service that have accessed funds for apprenticeship training and assessment in each of the last three academic years.
Academic Year | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Number of employer accounts accessing funds | 64,410 * | 106,786 | 118,516 |
*To note that this data does not include employers who started an apprenticeship prior to April 2021 with a training provider who held a contract with the Education and Skills Funding Agency. As non-levy paying employers started accessing funding via the Apprenticeship Service from January 2020, this means that the figure above for 2020/21 will significantly underrepresent the total number of employers accessing funding.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of (a) primary and (b) secondary school provision in Romford constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
All schools in Romford are Ofsted ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’. At primary phase, almost all schools are above the national and local authority average for the percentage achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics. Secondary schools in Romford paint a similar picture for key stage 4 where all schools but one are above the national average for pupils achieving standard and strong passes in both English and mathematics GCSE.
Over the period from 2009/10 to 2022/23, pupil numbers in Havering increased by 29% at primary phase. Primary numbers are forecast to rise by a further 2.9% by 2024/25.
In the Romford planning area, school capacity data (SCAP) for 2022 showed a changing forecast position from 6.8% spare capacity in the 2022/23 academic year to a shortfall position of 1.2% in 2024/25.
The department is co-ordinating the delivery of two primary free school projects in Havering, which will ease localised place pressure, which is associated with significant housing development, in the Rainham and Romford planning areas.
Over the period from 2009/10 to 2022/23 pupil numbers in Havering decreased by 0.6% at secondary phase. Secondary numbers are forecast to rise by 3.8% by 2024/25.
The Romford constituency falls within the central secondary planning area where SCAP data captured in 2022 again shows a changing position. Forecasts showed spare capacity of 7.3% in the 2022/23 academic year.