Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many applications to the adoption and special guardianship support fund were (a) made and (b) successful (i) in total and (b) by local authority area; and what the average amount awarded was for those claims (A) in total and (B) by local authority area in each of the last five years.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The information requested can be found in the attached table.
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Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department has provided through the adoption and special guardianship support fund in each of the last five years.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The information requested can be found in the attached table.
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Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which schools in Eastbourne constituency have applied for a grant for senior mental health lead training.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department began offering schools and colleges a grant to train senior mental health leads in October 2021. A list of schools and colleges receiving a senior mental health lead training grant is published and updated throughout the year. This list can be found at the following link, alongside details of other payments to institutions: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-data-on-funding-claims-by-institutions.
In the 2021/22 financial year, seven schools and colleges within the Eastbourne constituency applied for the senior mental health training grant. In the 2022/23 financial year, a further five schools and colleges applied for the grant, which totals twelve grant applications to date. In the 2023/24 financial year, there were no grant applications in this constituency for Q1 and Q2.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers with responsibility for providing careers advice have had training in autism.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Department for Education (DfE) does not hold information on the number of teachers with responsibility for careers advice who have been trained in autism.
Since 2011 the DfE has funded the Autism Education Trust (AET) www.autismeducationtrust.org.uk to deliver autism training at three levels to staff in early years, school and post-16 settings. Level 1 training is a basic 90-minute awareness session and Levels 2 and 3 are more in depth and aimed at staff who are working with autistic pupils on a daily basis. The AET has also developed a competency framework and standards for supporting pupils with autism.
To date, the AET has trained more than 130,000 people – not just teachers and teaching assistants, but also support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will consider extending to maintained schools exemptions similar to those which exist for small academies from the Apprenticeship Levy; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Halfon
There are no exemptions to the Apprenticeship Levy. All employers, including public sector employers, with an annual pay bill of over £3 million will be required to pay the apprenticeship levy.
It is ultimately down to each local authority in scope of the levy to decide how to spread out the cost across the organisations that fall within their remit, including maintained schools. We have made it clear that we expect local authorities to work closely with the schools in their areas, to agree how this will work; and to ensure non-maintained schools contributing to the levy can access the funding for apprenticeship training. Department and Skills Funding Agency officials are already working closely with the LGA and local authorities to support them in doing this.
A guidance document for schools and local authorities on the apprenticeship levy has been published on GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeships-reforms-guide-for-schools
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve the number of available places in good and outstanding schools; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We are committed to making sure as many children as possible have a place at a good school. The latest Ofsted report clearly shows that standards have risen. Compared to 2010 almost 1.8 million more pupils are now taught in good or outstanding schools. The ‘Schools that work for everyone’ consultation sets out plans to make more good school places available, to more parents, in more parts of the country. This includes scrapping the ban on new grammar school places, and harnessing the resources and expertise of universities, independent and faith schools.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to increase the uptake of Mandarin.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Between 2012 and 2015, entries for Chinese GCSE in England increased by 34%.
We introduced the Mandarin Excellence Programme this year for highly motivated pupils. It has started in 14 schools with more to follow over the next two years.
The programme will result in at least 5,000 young people heading towards a high level of fluency in Mandarin by 2020.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that schools make use of a broad curriculum in meeting their EBacc obligations under the new performance measures; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
All state-funded schools, including academies and free schools, must provide a broad and balanced curriculum that promotes spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils. Ofsted inspectors examine whether schools are providing a broad and balanced curriculum which meets statutory requirements and the needs and interests of pupils.
The EBacc has been designed to be limited in size to provide a rigorous academic core whilst leaving space in the curriculum for other subjects. On average, pupils in state-funded schools enter nine GCSEs and equivalent qualifications, rising to more than ten for more able pupils. For many pupils, taking the EBacc will mean taking seven GCSEs; and for those taking triple science, it will mean taking eight. This means that there will continue to be room for pupils to study other subjects.
We set out our EBacc proposals in our consultation. We will respond to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers in the school system lacked Qualified Teacher Status in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The following table provides the full-time equivalent number of teachers without Qualified Teacher Status in service in state funded schools in England, November 2010 to 2014. November 2015 data will be available at the end of June.
| FTE number of teachers without QTS | % of teachers without QTS |
2010 | 16,700 | 3.8 |
2011 | 16,100 | 3.7 |
2012 | 16,000 | 3.6 |
2013 | 16,600 | 3.7 |
2014 | 20,300 | 4.5 |
Source: School Workforce Census
Our recent White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, announced that we intend to replace the current arrangements for teacher qualification with a new, stronger accreditation that will be based on clear evidence of effective teaching practice. The new system will allow schools to employ as teachers individuals with appropriate qualifications and experience and put them on a pathway to full accreditation, recognising their proficiency in the classroom.
Asked by: Caroline Ansell (Conservative - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to assist teachers in managing their workload.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We are continuing our extensive work with the profession to remove unnecessary workload so that teachers can concentrate on teaching and not bureaucracy and paperwork.
This includes establishing three review groups to tackle the top issues raised by teachers in the Government’s Workload Challenge in 2014: marking, lesson planning, and data management.
The reports from these review groups were published on 26 March 2016. We have accepted all their recommendations for Government.
As the reports make clear, it is for everybody involved in education to act on the principles and recommendations in these reports so teachers can focus on what really matters – inspiring their pupils to achieve their full potential.
We will continue to work with the teaching profession to make sure they have the ongoing support they need. We have recently conducted the first biennial Teacher Workload Survey, a commitment which will allow us to track teacher workload over the coming years. The results of the first survey will be published later this year.