Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure that 16 to 18-year-olds leave school with access to employment, apprenticeships or training opportunities.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We are supporting young people to stay on and succeed in education and training until at least age 18, and ensure they can take up opportunities to move into work and/or further study. For example, eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazers, backed by £90 million, are helping young people access support for training, apprenticeships or work.
We have introduced foundation apprenticeships and are expanding them into more sectors, like hospitality and retail.
We will ensure that a post-16 destination is identified for every year 11 pupil, and those most at risk of becoming NEET receive personalised transition support
We are piloting the automatic allocation of a place at a further education (FE) provider for anyone aged 16-17 who doesn’t already have one.
We are also investing in improved Risk of NEET Indicator tools and attendance tracking in FE, so that young people at risk of falling out of education are identified and supported.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of careers advice and post-16 employment support provided by secondary schools to pupils who do not intend to follow a further education or college route.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Through our commitments to improve careers advice in schools and to deliver two weeks’ worth of work experience for every young person, we are bridging the gap between the curriculum and the world of work.
The updated Gatsby Benchmarks have been adopted into statutory guidance. The benchmarks provide a framework for good career guidance, tailored to meet each pupil’s needs, with insights into a broad range of career pathways.
Our ambition for a minimum of two week’s worth of work experience by year 11 will further improve employability. Pupils from all backgrounds will be given access to progressive, high quality workplace experiences throughout their education journey.
Evidence shows that these measures will support pupils to make successful transitions from education into training or employment. There is an established link between schools that achieve higher Gatsby Benchmark scores and improved education, employment and training rates for their pupils at post-16 and post-18.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Children and Families Act 2014 section 37, whether her Department has sought legal advice on the legal right to special educational provision.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that every child or young person receives the best possible educational experience, one that is academically stretching, where every child or young person feels like they belong, and that sets them up for life and work.
As part of our Plan for Change, we are determined to fix the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system and restore parents’ trust by ensuring schools have the tools to better identify and support children before issues escalate to crisis point.
We will continue to engage with key stakeholders and seek the appropriate legal advice as we look to build a better system which is grounded in evidence, identifies and supports need at the earliest opportunity, and ensures families can secure support swiftly without a fight. There will always be a legal right to the additional support that children with SEND need.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether children who become eligible for free school meals in 2026 will also be eligible for pupil premium funding.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Pupil premium funding is allocated to eligible schools based on the number of:
Pupil premium funding is allocated to local authorities based on the number of:
Pupil premium will continue to be allocated on this basis, on the basis of household income below £7,400 (after tax, not including benefits) for the 2026/27 financial year.
We are reviewing how we allocate pupil premium funding in the longer term. We will provide more information in due course.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the number of schools which do not meet their statutory duty to teach swimming and water safety during (a) Key Stage 1 and (b) Key Stage 2.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Swimming and water safety lessons are compulsory at key stage 1 and 2 in the physical education (PE) national curriculum. Swimming and water safety are vital life skills, and every child should have the opportunity to learn to swim and know how to keep themselves safe around water by the time they leave primary school.
Sport England’s Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2023/24 reports that 95.2% of state primary schools surveyed confirmed they do provide swimming lessons. The report also states that 70.2% of pupils in year 7 say they can swim 25 metres unaided. Ofsted inspections may include a deep dive into PE, in which case the inspector will consider how the PE curriculum has been designed, and whether the various requirements are met.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions her Department has had with Skills England on potential changes to the funding of apprenticeships.
Answered by Janet Daby
Apprenticeships and skills will play a critical part in the government’s mission to drive growth across the country, supporting people to get better jobs and improve their standard of living.
The government has established Skills England to form a coherent national picture of skills gaps and help shape the technical education system so that it is responsive to skills needs. This will include advising on priorities for the new growth and skills offer.
Skills England engaged with employers and other key partners regarding early priorities for the new growth and skills offer, including proposals to ask more employers to step forward and fund more level 7 apprenticeships themselves.
Skills England spoke to over 700 stakeholders before Christmas as part of their engagement exercise, and have shared their findings with the department. Its findings from this engagement process will be published in early 2025.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve rates of persistent absence among pupils in state-funded (a) primary, (b) secondary and (c) special schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence, which is a fundamental barrier to learning and life chances. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. There is evidence that more students are attending school this year compared to last, thanks to the efforts of families and school staff, although around 1.6 million children remain persistently absent and miss 10% or more of lessons.
Central to the department’s approach to tackling absence are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, which was made statutory on 19 August 2024. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach and sets out clear expectations on how schools, trusts, local authorities and wider services should work together and with families to address attendance barriers and provide the right support, including where a pupil is not attending due to special educational needs.
Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard which is maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.
The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities within the sector to share existing best practice on how to improve attendance. This is why the department set up a network of 31 attendance hubs, who have offered support to 2000 primary, secondary and alternative provision schools and shared their strategies and resources for improving attendance.
In addition to this work, the department also aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice will be shared with schools and local authorities nationally.
From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice across areas including attendance and empowering schools to feel they can better access support and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support, based on a school’s particular circumstances.
School attendance is also supported by broader investments, such as funded breakfast clubs across all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn.
The department is working across government on plans to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures hubs, access to mental health support workers and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.
Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.