Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of schools had libraries in (a) Shropshire and (b) England in (i) 2010, (ii) 2015 and (iii) 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes that all pupils deserve to be taught a curriculum that promotes the extensive reading of books and other texts, both in and out of school. School libraries complement public libraries in allowing pupils to do this.
It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils, including whether to employ a qualified librarian. Many head teachers recognise the important role school libraries play in improving literacy and encouraging pupils to read for pleasure and to ensure that suitable library facilities are provided. School libraries can take many forms, with some schools preferring to make books a focus in other ways, including housing them within classrooms.
Given the autonomy granted to schools on how to provide a library service to their pupils, the Department does not collect information on the number of school libraries.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of schools have a library.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes that all pupils deserve to be taught a curriculum that promotes the extensive reading of books and other texts, both in and out of school. School libraries complement public libraries in allowing pupils to do this.
It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils, including whether to employ a qualified librarian. Many head teachers recognise the important role school libraries play in improving literacy and encouraging pupils to read for pleasure and to ensure that suitable library facilities are provided. School libraries can take many forms, with some schools preferring to make books a focus in other ways, including housing them within classrooms.
Given the autonomy granted to schools on how to provide a library service to their pupils, the Department does not collect information on the number of school libraries.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase literacy in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This Government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards to give all pupils a solid base upon which to build as they progress through school. Scores in international assessments such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) have improved notably, particularly for boys and the lowest performing pupils, narrowing the gap between the higher and lower performing pupils. PIRLS scores are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pirls-2016-reading-literacy-performance-in-england.
In 2018, the Department launched the £26.3 million English Hubs Programme, which is dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress in reading. It has since provided appropriate and targeted support to several thousands of schools across England.
In 2021, the Department published non-statutory guidance aimed at improving the teaching of the foundations of reading in primary schools.
The Department’s measures also include an updated list of validated phonics programmes, funding for the purchase of phonics programmes and a new National Professional Qualification for Leading Literacy.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve teacher recruitment and retention rates in subjects including (a) Physics, (b) Maths, (c) Design and Technology, (d) Chemistry and (e) Computing.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 Full Time Equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country, including more rural parts of England. This is 24,000 more than in 2010.
The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects. Reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department is making £181 million available in bursaries and scholarships to attract trainee teachers in high priority subjects for academic year 2023/24. This is a £52 million increase on the current academic year. As graduates in science technology, engineering, and mathematics attract the highest salaries outside teaching, the Department is offering a £27,000 tax-free bursary or a £29,000 tax-free scholarship in chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics. The Department is also offering a £20,000 tax-free bursary in design and technology.
The Department also offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools across England, including in rural areas and Education Investment Areas (EIAs). This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in the subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.
To make teaching here even more attractive to the best teachers from around the world, the Department plans to introduce a new relocation premium for overseas nationals coming here to train or teach languages and physics. This will help with visas and other expenses. The Department will also extend bursary and scholarship eligibility to international trainees in physics and languages.
The Department launched its new digital service, ‘Apply for teacher training’, in autumn 2021 to make it easier for people across the country to train to become teachers, particularly in shortage subjects.
In autumn 2022, the Department expanded the ‘Engineers Teach Physics’ initial teacher training programme with a national rollout. This course has been designed to support more engineers and material scientists to train to become physics teachers. The Department is working closely with sector experts, representative bodies and academic institutions such as the Institute of Physics, Engineering UK, University of Birmingham and the Gatsby Institute to ensure that the course reflects best practice and includes the most up to date industry knowledge.
These initiatives all support the work of the Department in creating a world-class teacher development system by transforming the support teachers and school leaders receive at every stage of their career. This begins with initial teacher training through to an Early Careers Framework based induction for early career teachers, and specialist and leadership National Professional Qualifications for more experienced teachers.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to tackle teacher shortages in rural areas.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 Full Time Equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country, including more rural parts of England. This is 24,000 more than in 2010.
The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high status profession, and to recruit and retain teachers in key subjects. Reforms are aimed not only at increasing teacher recruitment through an attractive pay offer and financial incentives such as bursaries, but also at ensuring teachers stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department is making £181 million available in bursaries and scholarships to attract trainee teachers in high priority subjects for academic year 2023/24. This is a £52 million increase on the current academic year. As graduates in science technology, engineering, and mathematics attract the highest salaries outside teaching, the Department is offering a £27,000 tax-free bursary or a £29,000 tax-free scholarship in chemistry, computing, mathematics, and physics. The Department is also offering a £20,000 tax-free bursary in design and technology.
The Department also offers a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools across England, including in rural areas and Education Investment Areas (EIAs). This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in the subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.
To make teaching here even more attractive to the best teachers from around the world, the Department plans to introduce a new relocation premium for overseas nationals coming here to train or teach languages and physics. This will help with visas and other expenses. The Department will also extend bursary and scholarship eligibility to international trainees in physics and languages.
The Department launched its new digital service, ‘Apply for teacher training’, in autumn 2021 to make it easier for people across the country to train to become teachers, particularly in shortage subjects.
In autumn 2022, the Department expanded the ‘Engineers Teach Physics’ initial teacher training programme with a national rollout. This course has been designed to support more engineers and material scientists to train to become physics teachers. The Department is working closely with sector experts, representative bodies and academic institutions such as the Institute of Physics, Engineering UK, University of Birmingham and the Gatsby Institute to ensure that the course reflects best practice and includes the most up to date industry knowledge.
These initiatives all support the work of the Department in creating a world-class teacher development system by transforming the support teachers and school leaders receive at every stage of their career. This begins with initial teacher training through to an Early Careers Framework based induction for early career teachers, and specialist and leadership National Professional Qualifications for more experienced teachers.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to protect supply teacher salaries and pensions.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are free to recruit supply teachers, and most schools use supply agencies. The Department has a commercial framework which schools can use to recruit supply teachers, and 118 supply agencies have registered.
All agencies on the framework must be transparent about the fees they charge to schools and waive some additional fees.
In addition, supply teachers have a number of statutory rights, including entitlement to equal treatment as someone doing the same role and employed directly after 12 weeks, statutory entitlement to holiday pay, employment rights (such as the national minimum wages and sick pay), and access to workplace pensions.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure teaching agencies are fully regulated.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are free to recruit supply teachers and most use supply agencies. Agencies are required to undertake the same rigorous checks as schools when recruiting staff. The Department has set out these requirements in the Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 statutory guidance, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1101454/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2022.pdf. The Government has a commercial framework which schools can use to recruit supply teachers and 118 agencies have registered.
All agencies on the framework are accredited by an approved accreditation body which audits them on an annual basis. All agencies that do business through the framework must be transparent about the fees they charge to schools and waive some additional fees. The Department recommends that schools consider using preferred suppliers to meet their staffing needs.
In addition, supply teachers have statutory rights, including entitlement to equal treatment after 12 weeks as someone doing the same role and employed directly, statutory entitlement to holiday pay, employment rights (such as the national minimum wages and sick pay), and access to workplace pensions.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools closed in rural areas in England in (a) 2018, (b) 2019, (c) 2020 and (d) 2021.
Answered by Robin Walker
This data has been taken from Get Information About Schools, the department’s register of schools[1]. The data includes all types of mainstream local authority maintained schools, academies, and free schools. Schools are identified as rural via the Office of National Statistics Rural Urban Classification. The data excludes closures of schools where they become an academy as a result of intervention following an Inadequate Ofsted judgement or acquire a new Unique Reference Number on transfer between trusts.
Calendar Year | Number of rural schools closed |
2018 | 13 |
2019 | 8 |
2020 | 7 |
2021 | 2 |
The presumption against the closure of rural primary schools means that when considering proposals to close a rural local authority maintained primary school, decision makers must refer to the list of rural designated schools. For a rural academy, both the department and the local authority need to agree to the closure.
The national funding formula (NFF) recognises the essential role that small, rural schools play in their communities through additional support provided through the sparsity factor. As a result of the changes to the design sparsity factor for the 2022/23 financial year, the total number of schools eligible for sparsity funding through the NFF has increased from over 1,200 to over 2,500, and the total allocation to small, remote schools through the sparsity factor has more than doubled, from £42 million in the 2021/22 financial year to £95 million in the 2022/23 financial year.
[1] Responsibility for updating Get Information about Schools is shared between the department, schools, and local authorities and therefore we cannot guarantee the accuracy of this data.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools have closed in England since 2018, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Robin Walker
This data has been taken from Get Information about Schools, the department’s register of schools[1]. The data shows all types of mainstream local authority maintained schools, academies, and free schools. The attached pdf document shows all parliamentary constituencies where a school has closed between 2018 and 2021, with the number per year provided for each.
The data excludes closures of schools where they become an academy as a result of intervention following an inadequate Ofsted judgement, or acquire a new unique reference number on transfer between trusts.
Constituencies not shown have 0 closures between 2018 and 2021.
There are a variety of reasons for closing a school. These include where there are surplus places elsewhere in the local area, where provision has been rationalised, for example where an infant and a junior school have been amalgamated to form a primary school, or if a school is no longer financially viable.
The table below shows the numbers of schools that have opened between 2018 and 2021.
Calendar Year | Number of schools opened |
2018 | 92 |
2019 | 58 |
2020 | 34 |
2021 | 24 |
[1] Responsibility for updating GIAS is shared between the department, schools, and local authorities and therefore we cannot guarantee the accuracy of this data.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools closed in England in (a) 2018, (b) 2019, (c) 2020 and (d) 2021.
Answered by Robin Walker
Calendar Year | Number of schools closed |
2018 | 30 |
2019 | 24 |
2020 | 19 |
2021 | 26 |
This data has been taken from Get Information about Schools, the department’s register of schools[1]. The data shows all types of mainstream local authority-maintained schools, academies, and free schools. The data excludes closures of schools where they become an academy as a result of intervention following an inadequate Ofsted judgement or acquire a new unique reference number on transfer between trusts.
There are a variety of reasons for closing a school. These include where there are surplus places elsewhere in the local area, where provision has been rationalised, for example where an infant and a junior school have been amalgamated to form a primary school, or if a school is no longer financially viable.
The table below shows the numbers of schools that have opened between 2018 and 2021.
Calendar Year | Number of schools opened |
2018 | 92 |
2019 | 58 |
2020 | 34 |
2021 | 24 |
[1] Responsibility for updating GIAS is shared between the department, schools, and local authorities and therefore we cannot guarantee the accuracy of this data.