Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations he has received on the (a) adequacy of the Government’s summer catch-up provision, and (b) suitability of providers who have applied for contracts to provide such programmes.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to helping children and young people make up education lost as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In January 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, committed to work with parents, teachers and pupils to develop a long-term plan to help pupils make up their education over the course of this Parliament. As an immediate step to support nurseries, schools and colleges, on 24 February the Department committed an additional £700 million to support summer schools, tutoring, early language interventions, and additional support to schools to help pupils make up their education. This builds on the £1 billion from last year and brings the total available to £1.7 billion.
The £1 billion package includes a £650 million catch up premium to support schools in helping their pupils to make up lost education. The funding will be issued in three tranches, two of which have already been delivered. The third, and largest (£271 million), will be delivered in the summer term. Schools can use catch up premium funding to support pupils to catch up in the summer. To help schools make the best use of this funding, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) has published a support guide for schools with evidence-based approaches to catch up for all students, which is available here: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/national-tutoring-programme/covid-19-support-guide-for-schools/#nav-covid-19-support-guide-for-schools1. The EEF have also published a further school planning guide: 2020 to 2021, available to view here: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/.
The £700 million announcement in February also included a new one-off recovery premium of £302 million for the next academic year. The recovery premium will build on the pupil premium to further support pupils who need it most. Schools’ allocations from the recovery premium will be based on the number of their pupils who are eligible for the pupil premium. Schools should use the recovery premium, alongside their existing catch up premium, and their pupil premium as a single total from which to prioritise support for pupils according to their need, including to support catch up in the summer.
£200 million will be made available to secondary schools to deliver a face to face summer school. A mix of academic and enrichment activities should help the pupils involved to recover some of their lost education and should also support their mental health and wellbeing. The Department has not contracted any providers to deliver summer schools. Schools will be funded directly and they are free to resource the support to best meet the needs of the school and its pupils. The Department will shortly publish guidance that includes signposts to additional support for schools should they need it.
The Department has made an additional £630,000 available for Oak National Academy to support education recovery by developing free, high-quality resources that will be available online throughout the summer holidays. This optional suite of resources covering Reception to Year 11 will provide support to pupils who have missed important curriculum content. It can be used by teachers or holiday clubs when setting holiday homework or running summer schools.
In addition, the Department’s holiday activities and food programme will make up to £220 million available to local authorities to coordinate free holiday activities, including healthy food and enriching activities, during the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays in 2021. The programme will be available to children who receive benefits-related free school meals in every local authority in England. The programme is delivered through grants to local authorities, and local authorities will therefore hold any contracts with local providers.
In summer 2020, as part of the initial £1 billion catch-up package, the Government launched a £350 million National Tutoring Programme (NTP). The NTP is an ambitious scheme which provides additional, targeted support for those children and young people who have been hardest hit from disruption to their education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
As part of the £700 million plan announced on 24 February, this included £200 million to expand our successful tutoring programmes. This will fund an £83 million expansion of the National Tutoring Programme for 5–16-year-olds in 2021/22, which has been shown to boost catch up education by much as 3-5 months, a £102 million extension of the 16-19 Tuition Fund for a further year to support more students in English, maths and other vocational and academic subjects, and £18 million funding to support language development in the early years, supporting a critical stage of child development.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, in the event of future covid-19 lockdown restrictions to schools, what proposals he has to ensure that all children have access to appropriate devices for online learning.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including making 1.3 million laptops and tablets available for disadvantaged children and young people. To date, over 1.2 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, academy trusts, local authorities and further education colleges.
The Government is providing this significant injection of laptops and tablets on top of an estimated 2.9 million already owned by schools before the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Once received, the laptops and tablets will be owned by schools, academy trusts, local authorities or further education colleges who can lend these to children and young people who need them the most. These laptops and tablets are intended to give schools the flexibility to provide remote education support and can continue to be used in the longer term either in the classroom or from home.
The Department also provided support for over 100,000 families to get online through uplifts in mobile data and 4G wireless routers.
We are considering future options on digital education, and we will set out our plans in due course.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on students' exam performance of their disrupted schooling as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department acknowledges that pupils due to sit examinations next summer have experienced considerable disruption to their education. The Government is determined to do everything possible to ensure that no pupil is prevented from fulfilling their potential due to COVID-19.
The Department has been working closely with Ofqual, the examination boards and groups representing teachers, schools, colleges, and students, to consider its approach to examinations and other assessments for 2021. It is working closely with the sector representatives to identify any risks to examinations at a national, local, and individual pupil level, and consider measures needed to address any potential disruption. The extent of necessary public health restrictions over the year is of course unknown so the Department is planning for every eventuality.
Working jointly with Ofqual, the Department is also considering the approach to grading, to ensure the 2021 cohort is treated fairly compared to previous cohorts. It continues to believe that examinations are the best and fairest way of judging pupils’ performance and the Government is committed to GCSE, AS and A level examinations taking place next year.
More detail will be published later this autumn.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the change in the level of food insecurity among children during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As both my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer have made clear, the government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID-19.
Our latest guidance for schools is set out below:
These are rapidly developing circumstances. We will continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
The government has taken a series of significant actions, including actions regarding families’ access to food, to support families affected by COVID-19.
During this period, the Department for Education is asking schools to support children who are eligible for and claiming benefits-related free school meals by providing meals or food parcels through their existing food providers wherever possible. However, we recognise that providing meals and food parcels is not a practicable option for all schools. That is why, on 31 March, we launched a national voucher scheme as an alternative option, with costs covered by the Department for Education.
Schools are best placed to make decisions about the most appropriate arrangements for eligible pupils. This can include food parcel arrangements, alternative voucher arrangements or provision through the national voucher scheme. Our national voucher scheme supplier, Edenred, has reported that over £101.5 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of Friday 22 May.
On 8 May, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced up to £16 million to provide food for those who are struggling as a result of COVID-19. The programme will provide millions of meals over a 12-week period, as delivered through charities including FareShare and WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme). At least 5,000 frontline charities and community groups in England will benefit, including families, refuges, homeless shelters and rehabilitation services. It will cover rural areas as well as cities, targeting those who are struggling to get food.
In addition, the government continues to invest significantly each year on welfare benefits for people of working age, supporting people when they need it, including those who are out of work or on a low income. During the COVID-19 outbreak, the UK government’s package of support in response to COVID-19 is one of the largest in the world. We have increased Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit by over £1,000 a year for this financial year, benefiting over 4 million households. We have also increased Local Housing Allowance rates, putting an average of £600 into people’s pockets. Taken together, these measures provide over £6.5 billion of additional support through the welfare system for people affected by COVID-19.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the national voucher scheme offered to children eligible for free school meals during school closures will include support to cover the costs of breakfast.
Answered by Vicky Ford
While schools are closed to the majority of pupils, they are able to provide meals or vouchers to children who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals. More information can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance.
In addition to this, we are working to consider options to support children who currently receive a free breakfast through the department’s contract with Family Action and Magic Breakfast. Family Action with Magic Breakfast will liaise directly with the schools involved in the programme.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to increase the provision of cooking classes in schools to ensure that all pupils are taught cookery until the end of key stage 3.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Cooking and nutrition are compulsory in state-maintained schools for Key Stages 1 to 3, from ages 5 to 14. It is a discrete strand of the design and technology programme of study within the national curriculum, which can be used as an exemplar for free schools and academies.
The programme of study for cooking and nutrition aims to teach children how to cook and apply the principles of healthy eating and good nutrition. It recognises that cooking is an important life skill that will help children to feed themselves and others healthy and affordable food, now and in the future. By the end of Key Stage 3, pupils should be able to cook a repertoire of predominantly savoury dishes and be competent in a range of cooking techniques.
A food preparation and nutrition GCSE is also available for pupils who are interested in continuing to study cookery. It requires pupils to understand and apply the principles of food science, nutrition and healthy eating when preparing and cooking food. This was introduced in 2016, with the first exams in this qualification taken in summer 2018.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to (a) increase the take-up of school meals and (b) improve compliance with school food standards.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The government encourages all schools to promote healthy eating and provide healthy, tasty and nutritious food and drink. Compliance with the School Food Standards is mandatory for all maintained schools. We also expect all academies and free schools to comply with the standards, and since 2014 we have made this an explicit requirement in their funding agreements.
School governors have a responsibility to ensure compliance and should appropriately challenge the headteacher and the senior leadership team to ensure that the school is meeting its obligations. Should parents feel that school food standards are not being met at their child’s school, they may choose to make a complaint using the school’s own complaints procedure.
In particular, we want to ensure that as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their free school meals (FSM) and we also want to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility. To support this, we provide an Eligibility Checking System to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities. We have also developed a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM. Additionally, we provide guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.