Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the provision of financial education in schools in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Financial education forms a compulsory part of the national curriculum for mathematics at key stages 1 to 4, and citizenship at key stages 3 and 4. Together these cover personal budgeting, saving for the future, managing credit and debt, and calculating interest.
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review is considering whether there is sufficient coverage of key knowledge and skills, including financial education, to prepare children and young people for future life and to thrive in a fast-changing world.
The interim report highlighted that the Review has heard consistently from children and young people and their parents that they want more focus on the applied knowledge and skills that will equip them for later life and work, such as financial education.
The Review’s final report and recommendations will be published in autumn with the government’s response.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support employer engagement with the apprenticeship programme in SMEs in Milton Keynes.
Answered by Janet Daby
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley to the answer of 19 March 2025 to Question 37179.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of foundation apprenticeships on addressing sectoral skills shortages in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Janet Daby
This government’s first mission is to kickstart economic growth. We know that we need to support employers to invest in skills training and fuel innovation in businesses across the country.
That is why we are transforming the apprenticeships offer into a new growth and skills offer, to support greater flexibility for employers and learners. Foundation apprenticeships are a key part of this offer. They will support employers in key sectors to meet their current and future skills needs by developing new opportunities to engage with younger employees and build pipelines of talent. This is expected to drive up to 30,000 apprenticeship starts across this Parliament.
The first foundation apprenticeships will be focused on industrial strategy and priority areas including construction, engineering, health and social care, and digital. This will begin in August with the introduction of seven new foundation apprenticeship standards, including three in construction, enabling young people to earn a wage while developing vital skills. We will continue exploring how to make foundation apprenticeships work in other sectors, such as hospitality and retail.
The growth and skills offer is informed by Skills England’s engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, to ensure that levy-funded training meets the needs of employers and learners.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the four per cent pay award for teachers in 2025/26 on retention rates in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
High-quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s educational outcome. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new teachers across secondary and special schools and in our colleges over the course of this Parliament.
The department cannot currently provide a breakdown of this progress by constituency, however, over 2,000 more people are training to become secondary school teachers this year. Recruitment is on track to improve further for 2025/26, with 1,070 more acceptances to postgraduate and teacher degree apprenticeship initial teacher training courses in secondary subjects by the end of April 2025, compared to the same time last year. Additionally, over 2,500 more teachers are expected to stay in the profession over the next three years.
This is, in part, due to the 5.5% pay rise announced last year, which, combined with this year’s above-inflation pay award of 4%, will mean school teachers in maintained schools will see an increase in their pay of almost 10% over two years. This will apply across all teachers in all constituencies across England and is already having a significant impact on teacher retention. Alongside this, the department is offering targeted retention payments to teachers of key subjects working in disadvantaged areas in the first five years of their careers. Teachers in four schools are eligible for these payments, up to £4,000 tax free, in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency, 12 in Milton Keynes, and 24 in Buckinghamshire County.
To further improve retention, the department is actively promoting flexible working in schools, such as allowing planning, preparation, and assessment to be undertaken from home. We are also funding bespoke support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and multi-academy trusts, ensuring schools are capturing the benefits of flexible working, whilst protecting pupils’ face-to-face teacher time. Upton Court Grammar School of Pioneer Educational Trust is the flexible working ambassador school for the South East, providing local, tailored peer support for Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made in recruiting additional expert teachers in (a) secondary schools, (b) special schools and (c) colleges in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
High-quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s educational outcome. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new teachers across secondary and special schools and in our colleges over the course of this Parliament.
The department cannot currently provide a breakdown of this progress by constituency, however, over 2,000 more people are training to become secondary school teachers this year. Recruitment is on track to improve further for 2025/26, with 1,070 more acceptances to postgraduate and teacher degree apprenticeship initial teacher training courses in secondary subjects by the end of April 2025, compared to the same time last year. Additionally, over 2,500 more teachers are expected to stay in the profession over the next three years.
This is, in part, due to the 5.5% pay rise announced last year, which, combined with this year’s above-inflation pay award of 4%, will mean school teachers in maintained schools will see an increase in their pay of almost 10% over two years. This will apply across all teachers in all constituencies across England and is already having a significant impact on teacher retention. Alongside this, the department is offering targeted retention payments to teachers of key subjects working in disadvantaged areas in the first five years of their careers. Teachers in four schools are eligible for these payments, up to £4,000 tax free, in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency, 12 in Milton Keynes, and 24 in Buckinghamshire County.
To further improve retention, the department is actively promoting flexible working in schools, such as allowing planning, preparation, and assessment to be undertaken from home. We are also funding bespoke support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and multi-academy trusts, ensuring schools are capturing the benefits of flexible working, whilst protecting pupils’ face-to-face teacher time. Upton Court Grammar School of Pioneer Educational Trust is the flexible working ambassador school for the South East, providing local, tailored peer support for Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support colleges in Milton Keynes to utilise new technologies to (a) tackle workload and (b) improve outcomes.
Answered by Janet Daby
The department has promised to take up a new era in technology, to back our teachers and deliver better life chances for students across the country.
We are investing millions of pounds in further evidence generation on the safe and effective use of EdTech in colleges. The Edtech Impact Testbed Pilot, announced at Education World Forum, aims to explore how technology can address significant challenges in the education sector. This pilot will test Edtech products and practices already in use in schools and colleges. The goal is to generate evidence of the impact on improving staff workload, pupil outcomes, and inclusivity. The expression of interest for this pilot will launch shortly on Citizen Space and colleges will be able to apply to get involved. The website where colleges can express their interest is available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/.
In addition, we plan to publish support materials for teachers and leaders to help them with the safe and effective use of artificial intelligence (AI), so dedicated professionals working in education can spend more time doing what they do best and what they enjoy, face to face engagement with students.
The department also provides funding for Jisc, who operate the UK’s ultra-fast national research and education network ‘Janet’, one of the most secure and powerful data networks in the world. This central funding allows colleges to connect on Janet and benefit from a good level of connectivity and cyber security, ensuring that the foundations for technology infrastructure are in place for colleges to be able to harness the opportunities that technology presents.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many nursery places she expects the programme to deliver 6,000 new school-based early years places to create in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Of the 300 schools which received funding under the School-Based Nurseries Capital Grant 2024/2025, three are in Milton Keynes and one is in Buckinghamshire. These projects are all expanding their existing nursery provision to provide additional childcare places for families in the area, which is crucial to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give children the best start in life.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of early years providers in England that may increase their capacity through the use of free flow outdoor space under the proposed changes to the early years foundation stage statutory framework.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The expansion of funded childcare is continuing to support families. The department is exploring new ways to help providers offer more high-quality childcare places for working families, which includes access to outdoor space. Therefore, the department has launched a consultation on whether to introduce flexibility into the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework that will allow free-flow outdoor space to be included in the indoor space requirements, with a possible cap on the number of additional places that can be offered. The consultation can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/space-requirements-in-early-years-childcare-settings-in-england. The EYFS framework can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2.
The department’s ‘Pulse surveys of childcare and early years providers’, which were published April 2024, found strong support for these proposals with the majority of providers, with 70 per cent (7 in 10), saying they would be likely to use these flexibilities. The survey results can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pulse-surveys-of-childcare-and-early-years-providers. The results of the consultation, and the department’s response, are expected to be published in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the proportion of five-year-olds in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire who met a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Information on the proportion of five year-olds who have a good level of development by local authority is published annually in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results statistics release. The release is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results/2023-24.
The proportion of five year-olds in Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire who had a good level of development in the latest academic year, 2023/24, can be accessed at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/c7642b61-084e-46e3-a412-08dd8e33d0bf.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the availability of T Level industry placements in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Janet Daby
The department works closely with education providers and employers to ensure the availability and quality of T Level industry placements across the country.
We do not hold industry placement data at regional level, but our latest national results data shows that 97.5% of T Level students from the 2022 cohort (those who finished their T Level in 2024) completed their industry placement.
Whilst it is the overall responsibility of T Level providers to source industry placements for their students, the department has a range of support in place to help ensure the availability and quality of placements. This includes online guidance, workshops, and practical tools to help providers identify, plan and design placements, and a 900+ strong ambassador network to raise the profile of T Levels across different industries, including representatives across Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire. In January 2025 we also updated our industry placement delivery approaches to enable students to access a wider range of placement opportunities. This can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/678a7a302080f65f988bd3a1/T_Level_industry_placement_delivery_guidance.pdf.