Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to implement the recommendation of the Fifth Report of the Education Select Committee, Life lessons: PHSE and SRE in schools, published on 17 February 2015, on the teaching of personal, social, health and economic education in all primary and secondary schools; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Government wants all young people to leave school prepared for life in modern Britain. We agree with the Committee that high-quality physical, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and sex and relationships education (SRE) has a vital role to play in this. We are carefully considering the Committee’s recommendations and how best to address this.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will implement the recommendations of the Fifth Report of the Education Committee of Session 2014-15, on Life Lessons: PHSE and SRE in schools, HC 145, on the teaching of age appropriate sex and relationship education in all primary and secondary schools; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Government wants all young people to leave school prepared for life in modern Britain. We agree with the Committee that high-quality physical, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and sex and relationships education (SRE) has a vital role to play in this. We are carefully considering the Committee’s recommendations and how best to address this.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what evidence her Department holds to support the proposition that academies are better performers than local authority schools; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Sponsored academies have played a significant role over several years in bringing about the improvement of many failing and struggling schools in some of our most disadvantaged areas.
By 2014, the proportion of pupils that achieved five good GCSEs, including English and Mathematics, in sponsored secondary academies open for four years had risen by an average of 6.4 percentage points compared to the schools that they replaced (a rise from 36.8 per cent in 2010 to 43.2 per cent in 2014). Over the same period, results in local authority schools rose by an average of 1.3 percentage points (a rise from 54.4 per cent to 55.7 per cent).
The first sponsored primary academies had been open for two years by the time of the 2014 results. The proportion of pupils that achieved the expected level in reading, writing and mathematics increased by an average of 9 percentage points (from 58 per cent to 67 per cent) in that time, compared to an average 4 percentage point rise (from 75 per cent to 79 per cent) in local authority schools.
We want more schools to achieve these rates of improvement.
Statistics for the attainment of local authority schools and academies can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/statistics
Since 2010, many successful schools have become converter academies and are sharing their educational expertise with other schools. Over half of approved sponsors are converter academies. In 2014, attainment in converter academies continued to remain above that in local authority schools.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve the performance of careers services.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
It is essential that all young people leave school fully prepared for life in modern Britain. All schools should have a clear strategy for careers guidance which inspires pupils about a range of ambitious careers. We have set this expectation through revised statutory guidance, which underpins schools’ duty to secure independent careers guidance. In addition, a new employer-led Careers and Enterprise Company will encourage greater collaboration between schools and colleges and employers, helping young people to access the best advice and inspiration.
The National Careers Service provides over 1 million people annually with impartial and professional careers information advice and guidance to help them enter work, learning or progress in life. Last year the National Careers Service went through a complete reconfiguration with all its contracts procured through a comprehensive open and competitive tendering process. The new contracts awarded in October 2014 are on a payment by results basis. 94% of face-to-face and telephone customers agreed that the overall quality of the service was good.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to give local authorities responsibility to plan, commission and build facilities to tackle classroom overcrowding; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by David Laws
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area.
Supporting local authorities to create school places where they are needed most is one of the Department for Education’s main priorities. This is why we have committed £5 billion in capital funding between 2011 and 2015 to help local authorities create new school places. This is more than twice the £1.9 billion in the equivalent four year period 2007/8 to 2010/11. In addition, the Department has announced an additional £2.35 billion in capital funding to help create new school places that will be needed by September 2017, giving local authorities a three-year planning horizon.
Local authorities can use this funding to expand any existing schools and can also run competitions to establish new schools.