Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made in implementing the Safety Valve high needs intervention programme; and how many more local authorities she plans to invite to receive funding and support through that programme.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Since the Safety Valve intervention programme began in the 2020/21 financial year, the department has struck 14 Safety Valve agreements with local authorities with the highest cumulative deficits on their dedicated schools grants. The agreements hold local authorities to account for delivery of plans that will reform their high needs systems to function well and sustainably, in return for funding to eliminate remaining historic deficits, generally over five financial years. The department continues to monitor these agreements closely.
There are a further 21 local authorities currently involved in Safety Valve negotiations in the current financial year, 2022/23. Any agreements that the department makes will be published on gov.uk in March 2023.
The department has also introduced the new Delivering Better Value in SEND (DBVS) programme, which is working with local authorities with less severe, but substantial deficits. The programme shares the same aim as the Safety Valve programme, to support local authorities to run their high needs systems more effectively and sustainably.
We expect there to be a small number of local authorities that may join the Safety Valve intervention programme in future financial years where historic deficits remain high, but the department expects these authorities to tackle the underlying reasons for their deficit issues in the meantime, with support from the DBVS programme.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of availability of educational psychologists to support the needs of children with SEND.
Answered by Will Quince
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper sets out our vision for an inclusive education system to ensure that all children and young people have timely access to specialist services and support.
Since 2020, the department has increased the number of educational psychologist trainees that we fund to over 200, from 160 per annum, and we invested £30 million to train three more cohorts for academic years 2020, 2021, and 2022, to reflect increased demand. The first cohort will enter the workforce in 2023 to provide crucial support to children and young people, schools, families, and local authorities.
This February the department announced a further investment of over £10 million to train over 200 more educational psychologists. These trainees will begin their courses in September 2023, and graduate in 2026.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide funding to Bristol City Council to enhance the training of additional educational psychologists.
Answered by Will Quince
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper sets out our vision for an inclusive education system to ensure that all children and young people have timely access to specialist services and support.
Since 2020, the department has increased the number of educational psychologist trainees that we fund to over 200, from 160 per annum, and we invested £30 million to train three more cohorts for academic years 2020, 2021, and 2022, to reflect increased demand. The first cohort will enter the workforce in 2023 to provide crucial support to children and young people, schools, families, and local authorities.
This February the department announced a further investment of over £10 million to train over 200 more educational psychologists. These trainees will begin their courses in September 2023, and graduate in 2026.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Green Paper entitled SEND Review: Right support Right place Right time, published on 29 March 2022, when the next cohort of educational psychologist trainees will commence their training.
Answered by Will Quince
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper sets out our vision for an inclusive education system to ensure that all children and young people have timely access to specialist services and support.
Since 2020, the department has increased the number of educational psychologist trainees that we fund to over 200, from 160 per annum, and we invested £30 million to train three more cohorts for academic years 2020, 2021, and 2022, to reflect increased demand. The first cohort will enter the workforce in 2023 to provide crucial support to children and young people, schools, families, and local authorities.
This February the department announced a further investment of over £10 million to train over 200 more educational psychologists. These trainees will begin their courses in September 2023, and graduate in 2026.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the average class size in secondary schools in (a) North Swindon, (b) South Swindon, (c) Bournemouth East, (d) Bournemouth West, (e) Bristol East, (f) Bristol North West, (g) Bristol South, (h) Bristol West, (i) Exeter, (j) Filton and Bradley Stoke, (k) Kingswood and (l) Stroud constituency in (i) May 1997, (ii) May 2010, (iii) December 2019 and (iv) June 2022.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department does not hold figures on class sizes for dates throughout the year. Class size is collected annually on January school census day and regarded as a representative sample of class size. The attached tables give average primary and secondary school class sizes as of January 2019 and 2022 for schools in the constituencies listed. We do not hold the data at constituency level for 1997 or 2010.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the average class size in primary schools in (a) North Swindon, (b) South Swindon, (c) Bournemouth East, (d) Bournemouth West, (e) Bristol East, (f) Bristol North West, (g) Bristol South, (h) Bristol West, (i) Exeter, (j) Filton and Bradley Stoke, (k) Kingswood and (l) Stroud constituency in (i) May 1997, (ii) May 2010, (iii) December 2019 and (iv) June 2022.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department does not hold figures on class sizes for dates throughout the year. Class size is collected annually on January school census day and regarded as a representative sample of class size. The attached tables give average primary and secondary school class sizes as of January 2019 and 2022 for schools in the constituencies listed. We do not hold the data at constituency level for 1997 or 2010.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the number of nursery school places that were available in (a) North Swindon, (b) South Swindon, (c) Bournemouth East, (d) Bournemouth West, (e) Bristol East, (f) Bristol North West, (g) Bristol South, (h) Bristol West, (i) Exeter, (j) Filton and Bradley Stoke, (k) Kingswood and (l) Stroud constituency in (i) May 1997, (ii) May 2010, (iii) December 2019 and (iv) June 2022.
Answered by Will Quince
The department continues to monitor the sufficiency of childcare. However, it does not hold figures on the number of places available in nursery classes in schools.
According to findings from the 2021 Childcare and early years providers survey, 7 in 10 group-based providers reported having spare places in their full day provision and almost half of childminders (49%) reported having spare capacity on average across the week. The survey is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2021.
The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children, and Ofsted data currently shows that the number of places offered by providers on the Early Years Register has remained broadly stable since August 2015. The department also discusses sufficiency of provision in regular conversations with local authorities. Local authorities are not currently reporting any substantial sufficiency issues and we have not seen a substantial number of parents unable to secure a childcare place.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that the providers of Early Years Foundation services have adequate numbers of qualified staff from which to recruit.
Answered by Will Quince
The department recognises that recruitment and retention are key issues for the early years sector, with local authorities reporting significant pressures on providers. We are working with the sector to build our understanding of the situation in the workforce and how we might support providers in this area.
We are committed to supporting the early years sector to develop a workforce with the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to deliver high quality early education and childcare.
The department has engaged with early years employers to help them develop three high-quality apprenticeships. These are early years educator, practitioner, and lead practitioner, spanning levels 2 to 5. Since academic year 2018/19, over 32,000 early years apprenticeships have been started and we continue to work with employers on developing these apprenticeships to meet the sector’s needs.
In September 2020, we launched T Levels in education and childcare. The two-year 16-19 technical programme has been designed by employers to provide direct progression into early years education roles. It is aligned to the early years practitioner level 3 occupational standard and covers the early years educator criteria. Over 500 students enrolled in September 2020/21, and approximately a further 1,500 this academic year.
The department continues to fund the early years initial teacher training programme, including grants, bursaries and employer incentives. As part of early years education recovery, we are expanding the number of training places to increase the supply of qualified graduates to the sector.
In April 2021, free level 3 early years qualifications became available through the Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
As part of our education recovery package, we announced a £153 million investment in evidence-based professional development for early years practitioners, including through new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development. This year we will commission a review of the level 3 early years qualification criteria, through the recovery programme, responding to feedback from the sector. This review will consider how we can improve the quality and rigour of the level 3 early years qualification, including the criteria, through consultation and engagement with stakeholders from across early years.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of staff leaving roles in Early Years Foundation service providers.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department for Education has published figures on the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in a representative, national survey of providers, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2021. This report shows that the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in 2021 was estimated at 328,500. This figure is somewhat lower than in 2019 (344,100) but in line with the estimates for 2019 (331,400). 2019 is the earliest year for which comparable data are available. No comparable data was collected in 2020 because of reprioritisation for COVID-19 reasons.
The average (mean) number of paid staff per early years setting remained similar in 2021 compared with 2019 for all provider types.
In spring 2022, we will publish a report on the theme of early years workforce, which will include new data on the number of staff leaving roles in early years providers.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of current regulations for private special educational needs providers in ensuring that the level of education provided is adequate.
Answered by Will Quince
Independent schools must have meet the requirements of the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 which set out the standards for the education, welfare and safety for pupils attending an independent school, including pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. Ofsted and the Independent Schools Inspectorate inspect all independent schools against these standards.
Local authorities are responsible for securing the provision specified in the education, health and care plans (ECHPs) they maintain, including for those placements in private providers. They are required to conduct reviews of all EHCPs that they maintain at least annually. If a review finds that elements of the provision specified in the plan are no longer appropriate, then the local authority should review the EHCP and consider whether the provision should be amended and/or a different institution named.