Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will reverse her Department's decision requiring Level 3 early years educators to have at least grade C GCSEs in English and mathematics.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
A well-qualified workforce in the early years is absolutely crucial and that is why the Government has committed to developing a workforce strategy which will help employers attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision.
This will include a response to a recent consultation the Department published on the literacy & numeracy qualification requirements for level 3 Early Years Educator staff. This consultation closed on 28 November 2016 and received over 4,000 responses.
The Department is currently analysing the responses and a government response will be published in the new year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of full day care staff had an Early Years Educator Level 3 qualification or above in each year since 2013.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The 2013 Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey showed that 87% of staff in full day care settings are now qualified to at least level 3. This is an increase from 75% in 2008.
The Department does not hold this data for the years since 2013, the data for 2016 will be available by early 2017.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she intends to publish the review announced by her predecessor into the mathematics and English GCSE requirements for the Level 3 Early Years Educator qualification.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department has committed to revisiting the GCSE requirement for level 3 Early Years Educator staff and we will be announcing the next steps on this in due course.
The Department has also committed to developing a workforce strategy to help early years settings attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision. We have already spoken to large parts of the sector to seek their views on the challenges they face and we will be considering Government’s role in helping to remove barriers as part of the strategy.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school breakfast clubs there are in (a) Burnley and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The most recent results of the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey suggest that in England in 2013, there were 12,800 before school settings. Of these 1,900 were in the North West. However, it is not possible to identify within this total the number of settings in Burnley and Lancashire.
The findings of the Survey can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2013
Later this year we will update the school performance tables and plan to publish alongside them information about all schools’ childcare provision including breakfast clubs.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the teacher to pupil ratio is in (a) secondary and (b) primary schools in Lancashire.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The following link provides the pupil to teacher ratio (PTR) in (a) state funded secondary and (b) state funded primary schools in Lancashire local authority and in England for November 2014, the latest information available: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014