Schools: Disadvantaged Pupils

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

My Lords, just over 200,000 16 year-olds are educated through the further education sector. The grant-funded institutions and the Education and Training Foundation have supported colleges, which have done a superb job in moving their provision to remote education. There is of course a 16-to-19 bursary for young people who need that support. I assure noble Lords that we recognise that further support is needed for the further education sector and that it is not viewed by this Government as the poor relation of the higher education sector.

[Baroness Stroud (Con) [V]]

According to the Times, some studies have suggested that as much as two-thirds of the attainment gap between richer and poorer children at the age of 14 can be attributed to the effect of summer holidays. It is therefore clearly of paramount importance that we get our children and teenagers back into school as soon as possible. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, now that the two-metre rule has been reduced, curtailing the summer holidays and splitting the school day in two to ensure that all students are able to return to classes daily would be important measures to address this crisis, as the initial lockdown was to protect our most vulnerable?

[Baroness Berridge [V]]

My Lords, the Government have been clear that we do not expect schools to be open throughout the summer holidays. Many teachers have been teaching since the February half-term. However, this is the third year running of our usual holiday activity clubs, which have funding of £9 million. We have made it clear to schools that the £650 million that will be allocated across state-funded schools can be used by them for interventions to help their students catch up. We have launched a Teach First toolkit to enable them to run summer provision if they choose to spend some of those resources in that way.