Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the findings of the survey by Team Teach on the Hidden Education Challenges during the Pandemic, whether he is taking steps to tackle behavioural matters arising in schools as a result of the measures taken to combat the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Robin Walker
Attending school or college in person plays a central role in promoting well-being for pupils. The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools and to improve the mental health and well-being of pupils and teachers.
The department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April, is projected to support more than 500 schools over 3 years. It will support schools to learn from the best in developing excellent behaviour cultures. In June 2021, the department also launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This evidence will be considered alongside a public consultation later this year on the Behaviour and Discipline in Schools guidance. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance for schools includes specific information about supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2. This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support announced in March 2021, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to around 400, covering an estimated 3 million children and young people by 2023.
To provide further support for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year, including trauma, anxiety, or grief, the government announced the £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme in May 2021. Alongside this, we are providing £9.5 million to train a Senior Mental Health lead in up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England in this academic year; and funding an adapted ‘Link’ programme which is designed to improve partnerships between health and education leaders in local areas.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of increasing the provision of pastoral and behaviour support available to (a) pupils, (b) education staff and (c) parents.
Answered by Robin Walker
Attending school or college in person plays a central role in promoting well-being for pupils. The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools and to improve the mental health and well-being of pupils and teachers.
The department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April, is projected to support more than 500 schools over 3 years. It will support schools to learn from the best in developing excellent behaviour cultures. In June 2021, the department also launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This evidence will be considered alongside a public consultation later this year on the Behaviour and Discipline in Schools guidance. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance for schools includes specific information about supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2. This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support announced in March 2021, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to around 400, covering an estimated 3 million children and young people by 2023.
To provide further support for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year, including trauma, anxiety, or grief, the government announced the £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme in May 2021. Alongside this, we are providing £9.5 million to train a Senior Mental Health lead in up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England in this academic year; and funding an adapted ‘Link’ programme which is designed to improve partnerships between health and education leaders in local areas.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the findings of the survey by Team Teach on the Hidden Education Challenges during the Pandemic, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of new behaviours and the emergence of new behaviour trends on (a) pupils' and teachers' mental health and (b) teaching.
Answered by Robin Walker
Attending school or college in person plays a central role in promoting well-being for pupils. The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools and to improve the mental health and well-being of pupils and teachers.
The department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April, is projected to support more than 500 schools over 3 years. It will support schools to learn from the best in developing excellent behaviour cultures. In June 2021, the department also launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This evidence will be considered alongside a public consultation later this year on the Behaviour and Discipline in Schools guidance. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance for schools includes specific information about supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2. This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support announced in March 2021, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to around 400, covering an estimated 3 million children and young people by 2023.
To provide further support for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year, including trauma, anxiety, or grief, the government announced the £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme in May 2021. Alongside this, we are providing £9.5 million to train a Senior Mental Health lead in up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England in this academic year; and funding an adapted ‘Link’ programme which is designed to improve partnerships between health and education leaders in local areas.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of the covid-19 outbreak on pupil behaviour (a) in schools and (b) at home.
Answered by Robin Walker
Attending school or college in person plays a central role in promoting well-being for pupils. The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to improve behaviour in schools and to improve the mental health and well-being of pupils and teachers.
The department’s £10 million behaviour hubs programme, launched in April, is projected to support more than 500 schools over 3 years. It will support schools to learn from the best in developing excellent behaviour cultures. In June 2021, the department also launched a call for evidence on managing good behaviour and how schools’ behaviour policies have changed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This evidence will be considered alongside a public consultation later this year on the Behaviour and Discipline in Schools guidance. The guidance will provide practical advice to schools about how to encourage good behaviour and respond effectively to incidents of poor behaviour in and out of the classroom and support staff in tackling behavioural issues that have arisen from COVID-19.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance for schools includes specific information about supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2. This is in addition to the £79 million to boost children and young people’s mental health support announced in March 2021, which will include increasing the number of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to around 400, covering an estimated 3 million children and young people by 2023.
To provide further support for staff dealing with children and young people experiencing additional pressures from the last year, including trauma, anxiety, or grief, the government announced the £7 million additional funding for local authorities to deliver Wellbeing for Education Recovery programme in May 2021. Alongside this, we are providing £9.5 million to train a Senior Mental Health lead in up to 7,800 schools and colleges in England in this academic year; and funding an adapted ‘Link’ programme which is designed to improve partnerships between health and education leaders in local areas.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to encourage more young people to study T Levels.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
We want as many young people as possible to benefit from T Levels. The T Level communications campaign launched in October 2019, aimed at potential students and parents of 14-16 year olds. We are working with the Careers and Enterprise Company to ensure that careers staff can articulate their benefits to students and have included T Levels in the Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge programme, which offers free support and resources to schools to upskill their staff.
We continue to support T Level providers with their recruitment, and going forward T Levels will be part of a new ‘Young People’s Futures’ campaign. This will support 14-19 year olds to understand the range of education, training and work options open to them, including T Levels. T Levels also feature in our Employer Support campaign, helping to increase awareness nationally.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of T Levels on social mobility in Bury South constituency.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The provision of high-quality technical education is key to improving social mobility, and we want as many young people as possible to benefit from T Levels. The introduction of T Levels will help raise the standard of technical education, so that it is seen as equal in esteem to our world class academic route. The industry placement element of T Levels helps to build students’ employability skills, developing their confidence in the workplace and giving young people from all backgrounds a head start in accessing skilled work. T Levels carry UCAS points in line with three A levels so will also allow progression to higher education. We have also developed a T Level Transition Programme, which is aimed at students who have potential to complete a T Level but need extra support.
The first T Level providers are situated across the country and we have ensured they are represented in opportunity areas. From this academic year, Bury College and other providers in the wider Bury area began offering T Levels, boosting access to high quality technical education for young people in the area.