Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to (a) attract and (b) retain newly-qualified teachers in (i) disadvantaged schools and (ii) deprived areas in West Yorkshire.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Improving teacher quality is vital to improving educational outcomes for pupils wherever they are in the country; high-quality teachers are the single most important factor determining how well pupils achieve in schools.
At a national level we are retaining and recruiting the teachers we need. We recognise, however, that the strengthening economy and growth in pupil numbers have made the situation more challenging and that this is more acute in certain subjects and particular schools or areas of the country. We are therefore spending over £1.3bn in the five years to 2020 to attract high-quality new entrants to the profession; and we are actively addressing issues that lead teachers to consider leaving the profession, such as unnecessary workload and poor pupil behavior.
As part of the recently published Northern Powerhouse Strategy, we will design, fund and test a range of approaches to attracting and retaining high-quality teachers in the North, including West Yorkshire. We will look to engage the regions and the sector as we work up plans. We will provide more details on this in spring 2017.
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the difference in attainment between children under five years old from different socio-economic groups.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 20 October, the department published the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) results for the 2015 to 2016 academic year at a national and local authority level, which are available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2015-to-2016. At a national level, 69.3% of children achieved a good level of development (GLD), which is an increase of 3 percentage points on 2015 (compared to 67.4% in Yorkshire and Humber, which is an increase of 2.8 percentage points on Yorkshire and Humber’s 2015 data).
Every child deserves the best possible start in life and high-quality early education is key to future outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged children. That is why we are working hard to ensure parents and children - wherever they live in England - have access to high quality early years education places through the funded 15 hour entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds and for all three- and four-year-olds. At present, 84% of two-year-olds are taking up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting (compared with 86% in Yorkshire and Humber) and 86% of all three- and four-years-olds take up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting (compared to 83% in Yorkshire and Humber). The Early Years Pupil Premium provides over £300 per eligible child to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children and, from September 2017, working parents who meet the eligibility criteria will also have access to an additional 15 hours of funded early education.
Our early years funding formula includes an additional needs factor – to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs – and an area cost adjustment to reflect the different costs of providing childcare in different areas of the country. This will help to ensure that all children can access quality early education in their area.
The government is taking further steps to understand the regional attainment gap. In May 2016, the department commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the regional gap in early years at age 5, which made recommendations to undertake a further study through longitudinal analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MSC) to assess variation in attainment and evaluate the potential drivers of a regional gap. Acting on the feasibility report, the department has commissioned a study to build on the recommendations of the feasibility report, which will be able to help unpick the potential drivers on the regional attainment gap.
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the difference in attainment between children under five years old in Yorkshire and the Humber and the national average for such attainment.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 20 October, the department published the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) results for the 2015 to 2016 academic year at a national and local authority level, which are available at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results-2015-to-2016. At a national level, 69.3% of children achieved a good level of development (GLD), which is an increase of 3 percentage points on 2015 (compared to 67.4% in Yorkshire and Humber, which is an increase of 2.8 percentage points on Yorkshire and Humber’s 2015 data).
Every child deserves the best possible start in life and high-quality early education is key to future outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged children. That is why we are working hard to ensure parents and children - wherever they live in England - have access to high quality early years education places through the funded 15 hour entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds and for all three- and four-year-olds. At present, 84% of two-year-olds are taking up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting (compared with 86% in Yorkshire and Humber) and 86% of all three- and four-years-olds take up their entitlement in a good or outstanding setting (compared to 83% in Yorkshire and Humber). The Early Years Pupil Premium provides over £300 per eligible child to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children and, from September 2017, working parents who meet the eligibility criteria will also have access to an additional 15 hours of funded early education.
Our early years funding formula includes an additional needs factor – to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs – and an area cost adjustment to reflect the different costs of providing childcare in different areas of the country. This will help to ensure that all children can access quality early education in their area.
The government is taking further steps to understand the regional attainment gap. In May 2016, the department commissioned a feasibility study to investigate the regional gap in early years at age 5, which made recommendations to undertake a further study through longitudinal analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study (MSC) to assess variation in attainment and evaluate the potential drivers of a regional gap. Acting on the feasibility report, the department has commissioned a study to build on the recommendations of the feasibility report, which will be able to help unpick the potential drivers on the regional attainment gap.
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of trends in the cost of external residential care placements for looked after children; and what steps she is taking to assist local authorities with meeting those costs.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Annual average cost per resident week for voluntary and private sector care homes for children is published in the ‘Unit Cost of Health and Social Care’ series of publications: http://www.pssru.ac.uk/project-pages/unit-costs/
The Department publishes information on the average weekly unit cost of residential care in the children’s services finance section of the Local Authority Interactive Tool: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-interactive-tool-lait
Sir Martin Narey’s review of children’s residential care (July 2016) recommends taking steps to improve commissioning arrangements among local authorities. Sir Martin finds that better analysis and planning, on a larger scale, when procuring residential care placements would drive down costs and ensure better outcomes for young people.
The Government published its initial response to Sir Martin’s report in ‘Putting Children First’ and will respond in full shortly. In addition, through the £200million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme we are looking to support new larger, regional commissioning arrangements. I announced the latest round of the programme last week. The press notice can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/education-secretary-announces-extra-investment-in-social-care
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much capital funding for (a) basic needs and (b) school maintenance has been provided from the public purse to Calderdale Council in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We are investing £23 billion over the Spending Review period to open a further 500 free schools, support the provision of over 600,000 additional school places, rebuild and refurbish over 500 schools and address essential school maintenance needs.
Calderdale received £10.8 million between 2011 and 2016, and allocated a further £15.7 million for 2016 to 2019. Basic need allocations are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations
In addition, Calderdale has been allocated condition funding of £15.8 million, and a further £3.7 million in Devolved Formula Capital, between 2011 and 2017. This capital funding is targeted at its maintained schools, and does not include capital funding for academies in the area, which is not channelled through the local authority. Condition allocations and devolved formula capital are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-allocations
Asked by: Craig Whittaker (Conservative - Calder Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support she is providing to standing advisory councils on religious education for developing syllabuses.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Local authorities currently receive funding through the Education Services Grant to support Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education (SACREs) to develop an agreed syllabus for religious education (RE). Local authorities will continue to receive funding to develop an agreed syllabus for RE once the Education Services Grant has been removed.
SACREs and Agreed Syllabus Conferences may use resources that meet the needs of the local area they serve, such as the Religious Education Council’s non-statutory framework for RE which can be found online at: http://resubjectreview.recouncil.org.uk/re-review-report