Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2023 to Question 161361 on Children: Swimming, what proportion of Year 6 pupils in London met the three swimming and water safety National Curriculum expectations in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not collect data on the percentage of pupils in Year 6 in London who met each of the three swimming and water safety National Curriculum expectations.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to (a) document and (b) ban relationships between staff and students.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Office for Students (OfS), the higher education (HE) regulator, is consulting on instituting regulatory interventions in the matter of relationships between staff and students at all registered HE providers. The consultation closes on 4 May 2023. The OfS will publish its conclusions in due course and will take the appropriate action.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with universities on mental health safety for students.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The mental health and wellbeing of young people is high a priority for this government. It is crucial that students get the mental health and wellbeing support they need to allow them to flourish at university.
The department engages regularly with the higher education (HE) sector on the mental health of university students and works closely to ensure that effective practice is funded and shared more widely. This engagement is supported by Vice-Chancellor Edward Peck, who was appointed earlier this year as HE's first ever Student Support Champion. Edward Peck works closely with ministers and officials, and provides sector leadership to promote effective practice in areas such as mental health and information sharing,
The Office for Students (OfS) works with the HE sector to ensure providers have the necessary funding and tools to support the mental health of their students. Through annual strategic guidance to the OfS, the department asked that the OfS distributes £15 million of funding in the 2022/23 financial year to give additional support for transitions from school or college to university, and through targeting funding to support partnership working with NHS services to provide students with a pathway of care to local mental health services. This strategic guidance is available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/bb422aae-54fb-42c8-b5db-26e7ed48df80/strategic-priorities-grant-20220331_amend.pdf.
This government strongly supports the University Mental Health Charter, which is led by Student Minds. The Charter brings together universities to share effective practice and create cultural change around mental health. Programme members can work towards the Charter Award, which recognises those universities that demonstrate excellent practice in supporting student mental health. The department has written to all providers to make clear our ambition that they all sign up to the mental health charter programme by the end of 2026. The Charter is accessible at: https://www.studentminds.org.uk/charter.html.
The department has recently surveyed HE providers about their policies and practices to support student wellbeing and mental health. The study will gather sector wide insights on specific activities in this area and broad evidence on the overall approach to supporting students across HE. 179 providers have responded to this survey and results are due to be published in spring 2023.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) primary and (b) secondary comprehensive schools in England have provided swimming classes to students as part of the 2022-23 curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Swimming and water safety are compulsory elements of the PE and Sport National Curriculum at Key Stages 1 and 2.
The Department does not collect data on how many primary or secondary schools provide swimming lessons. All schools in receipt of the primary PE and Sport premium are required to publish the percentage of their Year 6 pupils who met each of the three swimming and water safety National Curriculum expectations.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussion she has had with school leaders on the the oversubscription of children with special educational needs and disabilities in state-funded schools.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department engages regularly with school leaders and their representatives on a wide range of issues, including special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Local authorities must ensure there are sufficient good school places for all pupils, including those with SEND. They are statutorily required to keep the services and provision for children and young people with SEND under review, including its sufficiency.
Nationally, 16% of pupils are identified with some form of SEND, three quarters of whom receive SEND support from their mainstream school, funded from its own resources.
In March 2022, the department announced High Needs Provision Capital Allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment. This funding is to support local authorities to deliver new places for academic years 2023/24 and 2024/25 and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require AP. This funding forms part of the £2.6 billion we are investing between 2022 and 2025 and represents a significant investment in new high needs provision. This will also deliver up to 60 new special and AP free schools, in addition to the 48 special free schools that are already in the pipeline.
The SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, published on 2 March 2023, sets out how the government intends to support schools to meet the special educational needs of their pupils.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) recruit and (b) retain more SEND specialist teachers for state-funded schools in England.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 full-time equivalent teachers working in state-funded schools across the country. This is over 24,000 more than in 2010.
The department’s priority is to ensure that we continue to attract, retain, and develop highly skilled teachers. This is why we are taking action to improve teacher supply and quality by transforming the training and support we provide for teachers to attract more people to teaching and enable them to succeed.
All teachers are teachers of special education needs and disabilities (SEND). The department is committed to ensuring that all pupils can reach their potential and receive excellent support from their teachers.
The Teachers’ Standards sets clear expectations that teachers must understand the needs of all pupils. All trainees who achieve Qualified Teacher Status must demonstrate that they can adapt teaching to respond to the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND.
To support all teachers in meeting these standards, the department is implementing a golden thread of high-quality teacher training reforms, which begins with initial teacher training and continues throughout their career progression.
Once teachers qualify and are employed in schools, headteachers use their professional judgement to identify any further training, including specific specialisms, for individual staff that is relevant to them, the school, and its pupils.
To teach a class of pupils with sensory impairments, a teacher is required to hold the mandatory qualification in sensory impairment approved by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education. The department has developed a new approval process to determine providers of MQSIs from the start of the 2023/24 academic year. Our aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers of children with visual, hearing, and multi-sensory impairments, in both specialist and mainstream settings.
The school teachers’ pay and conditions document for 2022 sets out that an additional SEND allowance must be paid to teachers in a SEND post that requires a mandatory SEND qualification and involves teaching pupils with SEND. It is for schools to determine the specific amount, but this must be between £2,384 and £4,703 per annum.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 20 July 2022 to Question 37614 on Schools: Buildings, which schools in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency had at least one construction element in (a) condition grade C and (b) condition grade D when that data was collated; and which of those schools (i) have already received funding from the School Rebuilding Programme and (ii) are expected to receive funding from the School Rebuilding Programme in the next two years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Condition Data Collection (CDC) is one of the largest and most comprehensive data collection programmes in the UK’s public sector. It collected data on the building condition of government funded schools in England. It provides a robust evidence base to enable the Department to target capital funding for maintaining and rebuilding school buildings.
The key, high level findings of the CDC programme were published in May 2021 in the ‘Condition of School Buildings Survey: Key Findings’ report. This is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/989912/Condition_of_School_Buildings_Survey_CDC1_-_key_findings_report.pdf.
Individual CDC reports have been shared with every school and their responsible body to use alongside their existing condition surveys to plan maintenance schedules and investment plans. The Department plans to publish detailed school level CDC data. The data is being prepared and will be published as soon as possible.
Well maintained, safe school buildings are a priority for the Department. Our funding is directed both to maintaining the condition of the school estate and rebuilding schools. The Department has allocated over £13 billion for improving the condition of schools since 2015, including £1.8 billion committed this financial year.
The ten year School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) is condition led. 400 of the 500 available places on the programme have been provisionally allocated. A list of these schools and the methodology used to select them is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-rebuilding-programme-schools-in-the-programme.
The following table shows the constituencies specified that have schools or colleges selected for the SRP:
Parliamentary constituency | Schools selected for SRP |
Oxford East | Oxford Spires Academy, announced December 2022 |
Leeds North East | John Jamieson School, announced December 2022 |
Harrow East | The Sacred Heart Language College, announced December 2022 |
The 239 schools announced in December 2022 will enter delivery at a rate of approximately 50 per year, over a five year period from 2023. The Department is currently undertaking due diligence on these schools prior to scheduling them, with schools prioritised according to the condition of their buildings, readiness to proceed, and efficiency of delivery. The scope and funding for each project will be confirmed following detailed feasibility studies and condition surveys of buildings.
Where a school identifies significant safety issues with a building, that cannot be managed within local resources, the Department considers additional support on a case-by-case basis. This includes applications for Urgent Capital Support (UCS) from eligible institutions. Schools eligible for Condition Improvement Fund (CIF) can apply for UCS where there are urgent health and safety issues that threaten school closure and cannot wait until the next CIF bidding round.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report by the Traveller Movement entitled Exploring why Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children experience the school to prison pipeline and how it can be interrupted, published in August 2022, whether she will implement that report's recommendations.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department recognises the issues faced by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and young people and how education can make a positive difference. The report contained seven recommendations for the department and the following sets out how we are responding to those recommendations.
The report recommended that the clear disaggregation of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller identities as adopted by the Office for National Statistics for the 2021 Census, should be implemented across the education sector. As the report references Gypsy, Roma and Traveller data was collected in Census 2021 and phase one of the data has now been released: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021. We are currently reviewing the harmonised standard for ethnicity, with any potential question changes being released in 2024.
The report recommended that the department must ensure a race equality and diversity policy is made a statutory element of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) for all schools. Already the PSED requires public bodies, including maintained schools and academies, to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010.
Schools have specific legal duties to publish information to demonstrate how they are complying with the PSED, and to prepare and publish equality objectives. Schools are also required to publish information relating to those who share a relevant protected characteristic and who are affected by their policies and practices. It is for schools to develop their own strategies for meeting their duties, however, the department has published guidance for schools on how to ensure they comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010.
In regard to education, health and care (EHC) plans, the report recommended that all schools must have the ability and resources to provide assessment of them when requested by a parent or guardian, including annual reviews. Also, local authorities should consider providing base-level EHC plans funding to all schools. The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, published in March 2022, sets out our vision to create a more inclusive education system with excellent local mainstream provision which will improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people who need more intensive support. Amongst those consulted was the department’s GRT Stakeholder Group and we are committed to publishing a full response to the consultation through an improvement plan early in 2023.
The report also recommended that the department should require all school and academy trusts to establish an On-Site Inclusion Unit. In July 2022 we published updated guidance on Behaviour in Schools and Suspension and Permanent Exclusion statutory guidance. The Behaviour guidance makes clear some schools can choose to have pupil support units (sometimes called ‘in-school units’) which should be used for two main reasons: to provide planned pastoral support for vulnerable pupils and as a last resort measure to support pupils at risk of exclusion.
Additionally, the report recommended that expert headteacher panels should be established to provide final assessments for proposed permanent exclusions and the department should develop standardised reporting guidelines for monitoring the use of In-School exclusionary practices, and also develop guidance for best practice and use of in-school exclusionary practices.
The updated exclusion guidance is clear that, in all cases, schools should consider initial intervention to address underlying causes of disruptive behaviour which may minimise the need for permanent exclusion. Whilst a permanent exclusion may still be an appropriate sanction, schools should take account of any contributing factors.
The statutory process to review school exclusions is clear that governing boards have a role to review the decision of the headteacher to permanently exclude and if the governing board decides to uphold the permanent exclusion, the parents will have the right to an Independent Review Panel.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to tackle racism towards Gypsy, Roma, Traveller communities in schools.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
All children and young people must be treated fairly. There is no place for hate or prejudice in our education system.
Schools play an important role in preparing pupils for later life. This involves supporting pupils to understand the society in which they grow up and teaching about respect for other people and for difference. Under the Equality Act 2010, schools must not discriminate against a pupil in a number of respects because of a characteristic protected by the Act, including race. The department has published guidance for schools on how to comply with their duties under the Equality Act 2010, and it is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-advice-for-schools.
The department is also providing over £2 million of funding, between August 2021 and March 2023, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. We have deliberately focused this grant programme on preventing and tackling bullying of pupils with protected characteristics. The training and resources provided cover hate-based bullying, including resources specifically relating to the bullying of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions his Department has held with the provider of the Multiplication Tables Check programme to offer an access adaptation for Year 4 students who require additional time through a Education Health and Care or SEND support plan.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) assesses fluent recall of times tables. Pupils answer 25 times tables questions, with six seconds to answer each question. As a check of recall ability, the time available for each pupil to answer is a key element of the MTC.
A range of arrangements are available to support pupils with additional needs. Schools should explore which of these may be most appropriate to support pupils with education, health and care plans and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support plans in completing the MTC programme.
Although the check was designed to be accessible to most pupils, in exceptional circumstances, even with the use of the range of available arrangements, headteachers may decide that some pupils will not be able to participate in the check.
If appropriate, a headteacher should discuss this decision with the pupil’s Special Educational Needs and Disability Coordinator (SENDCO), educational psychologist, medical officer, or other specialist staff. When a pupil is not entered for the check, schools must explain the decision to the pupil’s parents in advance. If appropriate, they should provide parents with documentary evidence to support the decision. To mitigate the effect on pupils unable to participate in the check, schools should also explain how they are helping the pupil with their multiplication tables.
Multiplication and division in a wider context will continue to be assessed through the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 mathematics assessments, enabling further opportunity for pupils to demonstrate their understanding of multiplication tables.