Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 November 2020 to Question 113060, if he will disaggregate the take-up rate of the period products programme by (a) primary schools, (b) secondary schools and (c) colleges.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As previously answered in question 113060, on 20 January 2020, the department launched a new scheme which makes free period products available for state-funded primary schools, secondary schools and colleges, in England.
Our delivery partner, phs Group, reported in August, that since the scheme launched, almost 40% of eligible organisations have placed orders for period products and we are continuing to monitor the scheme closely.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of take-up among schools and colleges of the period products programme; and what steps his Department is taking to publicise that programme.
Answered by Vicky Ford
On 20 January 2020, the department launched a new scheme which makes free period products available for state-funded primary schools, secondary schools and colleges in England.
Our delivery partner, phs Group, reported in August that since the scheme launched, almost 40% of eligible organisations have placed orders for period products and we are continuing to monitor the scheme closely.
The scheme remained in operation during partial school and college closures, and we continue to work with phs Group to encourage engagement with the scheme.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made, for each region of England, of the proportion of households with children attending schools in more than one local authority area.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the level of student enrolment for T Levels courses starting in September 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Despite the challenges, 44 high performing colleges, schools and other providers will teach the first T Levels from this September. This is testament to the hard work and dedication of staff in these organisations. We have worked closely with the providers to support them over the summer as recruitment moved online and to monitor predicted student numbers.
We will receive confirmed enrolment figures once the September recruitment has been formally reported. All indications are that recruitment has progressed well in the circumstances and a viable cohort of young people will benefit from taking these new, high quality qualifications, leaving them in a great position to move into skilled employment or further training.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment in the autumn term of the effect on children's progress of exposure during the covid-19 lockdown to different types and amounts of education technology and online learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Understanding the effect of time outside of the classroom, what factors have driven lost attainment and how quickly it is being recovered and how it is recovered over the next academic year is a key research priority for the Department to inform strategic policy for supporting the school system.
To help schools provide effective online teaching, the Department has supported sector led initiatives such as Oak National Academy, which covers curriculum for every year group from reception through to year 11. The Department has also published guidance based on the current experiences and practices of teachers and school leaders so that other teachers can learn from examples of teaching practice during the COVID-19 outbreak as they develop their own approaches to providing remote education. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remote-education-practice-for-schools-during-coronavirus-covid-19.
The Department recognises that barriers to online access can make engaging with remote education more difficult, which is why we have committed £100 million to fund devices and 4G connectivity to help pupils overcome them.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the level of preparedness of schools for the provision of mandatory relationships, sex and health education from September 2020.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is committed to supporting schools to deliver high quality teaching of Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education.
In light of the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, and following engagement with the sector, the Department is reassuring schools that although the subjects will still be compulsory from 1 September 2020, schools have flexibility over how they discharge their duty within the first year of compulsory teaching. For further information, I refer my right hon. Friend, the Member for East Hampshire to the answer I gave on 5 June to Question 55660.
The Department has worked extensively with schools, teachers and experts throughout the development of these subjects. This has included over 150 interviews and multiple surveys which informed our support programme to help all schools to increase the confidence and quality of their teaching practice in these subjects.
The support programme will include online training modules to enable subject leads to train non-specialist teachers in their schools, an implementation guide, and case studies from early adopter schools. This support will cover all of the teaching requirements in the statutory guidance and will be inclusive to all pupils. The first training module for teachers, covering mental wellbeing, is now available on GOV.UK, and additional content, including teacher training modules covering online safety, internet harms and media literacy will be added in the coming months.
Regarding the review of the teaching online safety in school guidance, the guidance is framed around current curriculum requirements in a number of subjects, and we have no plans to update it before September 2020. We will keep the guidance under review to make sure it remains relevant to curriculum requirements.