Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the accreditation system introduced by The Independent Game Developers’ Association in ensuring that universities and colleges can provide graduates with skills relevant to the game development sector.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Driving up quality of higher education (HE) provision is a key priority for this government, and we are working with Office for Students to ensure all students receive high quality outcomes and are supported to progress to high skilled employment or further study through their HE course.
We expect higher and further education providers to ensure their courses at level 4 to 7 support students to progress into the workplace. Professional standards and progression frameworks like those developed by The Independent Game Developers’ Association can help providers design and deliver courses and work experience and ensure students can progress in professions. Assessment of the benefit of these standards is a matter for the provider.
As part of our technical education reforms, we want to make sure that the majority of technical qualifications at level 3 and below are based on employer-led occupational standards.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage the growth of new Grammar Streams and (b) facilitate the expansion of existing Grammar Streams within schools.
Answered by Robin Walker
Setting and streaming by ability is common in secondary schools. We believe that teachers are best placed to decide the approach in their own schools. It is therefore a matter for the school in question whether to test pupils on entry for ability and place them in a grammar stream, or to otherwise stream pupils by ability.
The census data we collect from schools does not include information on whether children are streamed by ability.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many pupils attend secondary schools that offer a grammar stream for high achieving students in England.
Answered by Robin Walker
Setting and streaming by ability is common in secondary schools. We believe that teachers are best placed to decide the approach in their own schools. It is therefore a matter for the school in question whether to test pupils on entry for ability and place them in a grammar stream, or to otherwise stream pupils by ability.
The census data we collect from schools does not include information on whether children are streamed by ability.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is planning to take to increase the number of foreign-language teachers available in (a) the South West and (b) England.
Answered by Robin Walker
The 2020/21 academic year saw an increase of more than 5,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded secondary schools across the whole of England, including the south-west. This equates to a 2.5% growth on the year before, the largest observed in the last 10 years, and has resulted in the largest qualified teacher workforce since 2015/16.
To support the recruitment of modern foreign language (MFL) teachers, the department has raised the languages bursary to £15,000 for the 2022/23 academic year to incentivise candidates to train to teach MFL. All MFL trainee teachers on tuition fee-funded initial teacher training routes are also able to apply for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan to support their living costs. Additional student finance is also available depending on individual circumstances, such as the Childcare Grant.
The department has also now launched our early career framework reforms, as part of the department’s Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy. These reforms provide a funded entitlement for all early career teachers trained in England to access high quality professional development at the start of their career.
To support international recruitment across several subjects including MFL, the department is also piloting a new Support Overseas Teachers acclimatisation service in 2022. It is designed to provide newly recruited overseas trained teachers moving to England with pre-arrival training and support during the first term, to ensure they make a successful transition to teaching in England, with the intention of improving retention.
In line with the government’s Professional Qualifications bill, in 2022 the department will review how we recognise the qualifications of overseas teachers with qualified teacher status (QTS). This includes foreign-languages teachers and aims to ensure that overseas teachers with the right overseas qualifications can be awarded QTS, meaning they can work unrestricted in English schools.
The department is also launching a new international teaching qualification called iQTS, with a pilot beginning in September 2022. iQTS will allow teachers to train to English standards overseas, meaning a greater global pool of employable teachers trained to our domestic standards.
In addition, the department continues to develop policies to increase the supply of specialist MFL teachers by focusing on new interventions. This covers a broad range of areas, including growing awareness and experience of teaching among undergraduates.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to review the performance of students in mathematics compared to their performance in English and science in schools.
Answered by Robin Walker
The government has no current plans to review the performance of students in mathematics compared to their performance in English and science in schools.
The department’s secondary school accountability measures are designed to encourage schools to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, with a strong academic core, and to incentivise schools to focus on improving the attainment of all pupils. School performance tables include information on pupil entries and attainment across a range of subjects and qualifications, compared to national and local authority averages.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of vocational educational opportunities in Swindon.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
We are investing £3.8 billion in further education and skills, to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses skills gaps, boosts productivity and supports levelling up.
We are introducing T Levels, boosting access to high quality technical education for thousands of 16-19 year olds. Young people in Swindon are now benefitting from these new qualifications, as New College Swindon began teaching T Levels in Digital, Education & Childcare, Health and Science from September last year.
The department is also committed to supporting more people to benefit from the high-quality training that apprenticeships offer, including those at the start of their career or those looking to retrain. Funding for apprenticeships will grow to £2.7 billion by financial year 2024-25, delivering the first increase to employer-led apprenticeships funding since financial year 2019-20. We are also investing over £550 million by financial year 2024-25 to make sure adults can upskill to reach their potential, delivering on the National Skills Fund commitment.
The Free Courses for Jobs offer, launched in April 2021, gives adults the chance to access their first level 3 qualification for free. We have also recently announced that from April, any adult in England earning under the National Living Wage annually (£18,525) or unemployed, will also be able to access these qualifications for free, regardless of their prior qualification level. New Swindon College is amongst many training providers who have been allocated funding to deliver this offer.
Complementing this, Skills Bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills and fast-track to an interview with an employer. Skills Bootcamps are now available in areas across the country as well as online, covering digital, technical, construction, logistics (HGV driving), and green skills. In Swindon, Skills Bootcamps in HGV driving are currently available. We continue to expand Skills Bootcamps further, and more courses will become available across England over the next few months.
We are also launching Multiply, a new £560 million programme to help people improve their basic numeracy skills through free digital training, flexible courses and tutoring. Launching in Spring 2022, the Multiply programme is in addition to the England-wide statutory entitlement for numeracy and will give people who don’t have at least a GCSE Grace C/4 or equivalent in maths, access to free new flexible courses to improve their maths skills. This will include a new website with bitesize training and online tutorials, as well as flexible courses.
Apprenticeships have long been a growth area for New College Swindon and in September 2021, the college opened the Swindon and Wiltshire Institute of Technology, with a mission to be a high-quality employer-led training facility delivering high level technical and digital skills training for young people and to those already in employment.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of people in (a) apprenticeships and (b) vocational educations in (i) Swindon and (b) England.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The latest published apprenticeship starts data covers the 2020/21 academic year and was published in November 2021 in the apprenticeships and traineeships statistics publication: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships/2020-21.
Apprenticeship participation for Swindon between academic years 2018/19 and 2020/21 is contained in the below table:
| 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
Participation | 3,030 | 2,920 | 2,720 |
More data on apprenticeship participation by region can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/7cb8ccbd-43d2-4909-822d-6cac2fae30eb
Apprenticeship participation for England between 2018/19 and 2020/21 is contained in the below table:
| 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
England - Participation | 742,400 | 719,000 | 713,000 |
More information on apprenticeship participation can be explored here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8b98defb-9b2b-4edd-89a5-4177bbf27fed
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will take steps to ensure that regional school commissioners encourage multi-academy trusts to follow the national curriculum.
Answered by Robin Walker
Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based, which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.
Academies and free schools have greater freedom and autonomy in how they operate for areas such as the curriculum. They are expected to teach a curriculum that is comparable in breadth and ambition to the national curriculum, and many choose to teach the full national curriculum to achieve this.
The curriculum at an academy or free school is the responsibility of the academy trust. The curriculum provided in each academy to pupils up to the age of 16 is set out in their academy and free school funding agreement, which provides the framework for an academy or free school to operate in. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-and-free-school-funding-agreements.
If autonomous academies or multi academy trusts wish to deliver the national curriculum in their schools, they can do so. Academies may use their freedoms to develop their own curricula, tailored to meet the particular needs of their pupils, local area, or the particular ethos of the school.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide the overall cost to the public purse for regional schools commissioners since their inception.
Answered by Robin Walker
The annual workforce budgets for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and wider Regional Delivery Directorate (RDD) that support them in their roles is set annually through the internal departmental business planning process. Funding is allocated proportionately amongst commissioners according to the size of region, delivery challenges and staffing requirements. However, the directorate works flexibly and collaboratively to ensure priorities are delivered in an effective and efficient manner.
Since the financial year 2014-15, the overall cost for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and the regional teams that support them is £197.65 million.
Workforce budget spend for Regional Schools Commissioners and RSC regions | ||||||||
Financial Year | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 [1] |
£ million | £4.10 | £4.75 | £26.35 | £31.55 | £32.31 | £32.07 | £34.67 | £32.15 |
[1] forecast as at November 2021.
With regard to the costs set out above, the costs for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and their teams were £4.1 million in financial year 2014-15 and £4.75 million in 2015-16. This was funded from existing departmental resources.
As a result of structural changes within the Department for Education in 2016-17, the Academies Regional Delivery Group (ARDG) was created, which amalgamated the National Schools Commissioner and Regional Schools Commissioners with complementary regional and other functions. Workforce costs for ARDG and its successor, RDD, are therefore not comparable with predecessor structures and organisation.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the annual budget is for regional schools commissioners; and how that budget is allocated among commissioners.
Answered by Robin Walker
The annual workforce budgets for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and wider Regional Delivery Directorate (RDD) that support them in their roles is set annually through the internal departmental business planning process. Funding is allocated proportionately amongst commissioners according to the size of region, delivery challenges and staffing requirements. However, the directorate works flexibly and collaboratively to ensure priorities are delivered in an effective and efficient manner.
Since the financial year 2014-15, the overall cost for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and the regional teams that support them is £197.65 million.
Workforce budget spend for Regional Schools Commissioners and RSC regions | ||||||||
Financial Year | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 [1] |
£ million | £4.10 | £4.75 | £26.35 | £31.55 | £32.31 | £32.07 | £34.67 | £32.15 |
[1] forecast as at November 2021.
With regard to the costs set out above, the costs for the National Schools Commissioner, Regional Schools Commissioners and their teams were £4.1 million in financial year 2014-15 and £4.75 million in 2015-16. This was funded from existing departmental resources.
As a result of structural changes within the Department for Education in 2016-17, the Academies Regional Delivery Group (ARDG) was created, which amalgamated the National Schools Commissioner and Regional Schools Commissioners with complementary regional and other functions. Workforce costs for ARDG and its successor, RDD, are therefore not comparable with predecessor structures and organisation.