Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 15 June 2020 to Question 55133 on Schools: Coronavirus, for what reasons his Department is not reimbursing schools that have used their existing resources to fund increased costs resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We are providing additional funding to schools, on top of existing budgets, to cover certain unavoidable costs incurred due to the COVID-19 outbreak that cannot be met from their existing resources.
Schools are eligible to claim for increased premises related costs associated with keeping schools open over the Easter and summer half term holidays; support for free school meals for eligible children who are not in school, where schools are not using the national voucher scheme; and additional cleaning costs required due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements.
Schools are not eligible to make a claim against this fund if they expect to add to their existing historic surpluses in their current financial year (September 2019 to August 2020 for academies and April 2020 to March 2021 for maintained schools). This means schools cannot claim if they began their current financial year with an accumulated historic surplus and expect to increase that surplus this year and thereby finish the year with a higher level of reserves than they started.
Schools are eligible for reimbursement where the additional costs associated with COVID-19 would result in a school having to use historic surpluses; increase the size of a historic deficit; or prevent the planned repayment of a historic deficit.
It is reasonable for taxpayers to expect that further public funding through this period is not adding to existing surpluses that are held by schools. Schools will continue to receive their budgets for the coming year, as usual, regardless of any periods of partial closure or reduced operations.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to provide support for pre-school children affected by the closure of nurseries during the covid -19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We know that young children have missed out on early education at a crucial period of cognitive and behavioural development. This is especially significant for vulnerable and disadvantaged children, which may widen the early development gap.
The most effective intervention government can take to address this is to get children back into early education.
Since 1 June, early years settings have been able to welcome back children of all ages. We want to ensure councils and early years providers can get children back into settings as quickly as possible, where they can be fully supported during this crucial period for their development.
Fifteen hours of high quality free early education is provided for all three- and four-year olds and disadvantaged two-year olds. An additional fifteen hours (30 hours) is provided for eligible working parents for three- and four-year olds.
We will work with the sector to explore how best to continue to support children’s early development, including through the department’s Hungry Little Minds campaign which we will use to continue to provide support for parents to develop their children’s early language and literacy.
Information on the Hungry Little Minds campaign can be found at: https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what basis the £1bn fund announced by the Prime Minister on 18 June 2020 to help children catch up on what they have missed while schools have been closed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak was determined.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Children and young people have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education during lockdown. We expect the most disadvantaged children to have fallen further behind than their peers. The Education Endowment Fund’s (EEF) median estimate suggests the attainment gap between children from economically deprived households and their peers could widen by 36% as a result of school closures [1].
The Government has therefore announced a package of support to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all children and young people make up for lost teaching time, with extra support in the form of a tutoring programme for those who need it most.
This package of measures includes:
The evidence strongly shows that tutoring is an effective way to accelerate educational attainment. We therefore believe targeted tutoring is the best way to narrow the gaps that emerged during the closure of schools.
To support schools to make best use of the catch up premium, the EEF has published a COVID-19 Recovery Guide for Schools with evidence-based approaches to catch-up for all students: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/Covid-19_support_guide_for_schools.pdf.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much and what proportion of the £1bn fund announced by the Prime Minister on 18 June 2020 to help children catch up on what they have missed while schools have been closed as a result of the covid-19 outbreak will be allocated to Halton.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government has announced a package of support worth £1 billion to ensure that schools have the support they need to help all children and young people make up for lost teaching time, with extra support in the form of a tutoring programme for those who need it most.
This package of measures includes:
The universal catch up premium will be paid as a grant to all state-funded primary and secondary schools in England over the 2020/21 academic year.
This premium will be in addition to schools’ core budgets for 2020-21. We will confirm the timetable for publishing institution-level allocations in due course.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of tutors that (a) will be required and (b) are available in the 2020-21 academic year to help disadvantaged students catch up following the closure of schools as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As plans continue for a full return to education from September, we have announced a £1 billion Covid “catch-up” package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time.
£650 million will be shared across state primary and secondary schools over the 2020/21 academic year. This one-off grant to support pupils recognises that all young people have lost time in education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, regardless of their income or background.
In addition, a National Tutoring Programme, worth £350 million, will increase access to high-quality tuition for the most disadvantaged young people. This will help accelerate their academic progress and prevent the gap between them and their more affluent peers widening.
We are working closely with our delivery partners, including the Education Endowment Foundation, Sutton Trust, Impetus and Nesta, to roll out a programme that ensures we reach the maximum number of disadvantaged students possible while ensuring that tutors all meet a high quality bar.
We will be supporting the highest quality tutoring organisations to increase their recruitment of tutors. Alongside this, we will be supporting a small number of schools in the most disadvantaged areas to directly employ tutors. We will be publishing more detail of the scheme shortly.
This £1 billion package is on top of the £14.4 billion three-year funding settlement announced last year - recognising the additional work schools will need to do to help students to catch up.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many headteachers he consulted in (a) Halton and (b) England on the resources required to help pupils catch up following the closure of schools as a result of covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
We have consulted with stakeholder groups across the sector. We have also conducted more than 300 social and user research interviews with school leaders, teachers and parents from schools across England and Wales to inform our response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding of schools in the Halton constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
School funding is at its highest ever level with core funding for schools and high needs having risen from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion this year and £43.5 billion in 2019-20.
The Department primarily allocates revenue funding for schools at local authority level. Schools in Halton will attract 4.7% more funding, compared to their 2017-18 baselines, under the national funding formula. Local authorities will continue to set local formulae to determine individual schools’ budgets in 2018-19 and 2019-20. It remains the Department’s intention that every school’s budget should be set on the basis of a single, national formula, but the Department believes a period of transition will provide greater stability for schools.
The Department will publish notional funding formula allocations for 2019-20 later this year after updating calculations using the latest autumn census data.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 16 March 2018 to Question 132253 on Schools: Admissions, whether he has plans to strengthen the provisions of the Schools Admissions Code in respect of siblings.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I refer the hon. Member for Halton to the answer I gave on 16 March 2018 to question 132253.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 21 January 2016 to Question 22952 on Schools Admissions, whether he plans to strengthen the position of siblings in school admissions policy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is for admissions authorities to decide whether to give priority to siblings in their admissions arrangements, where the school is oversubscribed, and many schools do choose to do this. The Government expects schools to balance prioritising siblings with ensuring places are also available for other local children who do not have a sibling at the school.
The Department wants fair access to a good school place for every pupil. That is why we routinely keep the admissions system under review and seek regular feedback from stakeholders on the system. Any changes to the School Admissions Code will require a full statutory process, including consultation and parliamentary scrutiny.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2017 to Question 66084, on Sandymoor School, if she will provide an update on the reference to a deficit of £522,760.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The financial statements for the year ended 31 August 2016 for Sandymoor School (published on 5 January 2017), made reference to a deficit of £522,760. The school and their auditors have confirmed that this was an error.
Sandymoor School has since corrected this error and filed updated financial statements for the year ended 31 August 2016 at Companies House on 11 April 2017. The updated statements have also been published on the school’s website. The updated statements confirm that the school had a cumulative surplus on recurrent funds of £173,401 at the end of 2015/16.