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 an assessment of the potential merits of setting different school term times for different regions in order to spread the demand for school holidays and thereby reduce holiday costs for parents and school staff.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department does not have any plans to propose changes to term dates. School holidays are not determined at national level, they are agreed locally by trusts, schools, and local authorities (depending on school type). We believe that they are best placed to set school term and holiday dates in the interests of the pupils at their schools and their parents.
If schools do decide to change their term dates, they are required to act reasonably, giving parents notice and considering the impact on those affected. This includes pupils, teachers, the local community, parents’ work commitments and childcare options for both parents and teachers.
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 an assessment of the potential merits of encouraging schools to use their powers to alter term dates in order to spread the demand for school holidays and reduce holiday costs for parents and school staff.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department does not have any plans to propose changes to term dates. School holidays are not determined at national level, they are agreed locally by trusts, schools, and local authorities (depending on school type). We believe that they are best placed to set school term and holiday dates in the interests of the pupils at their schools and their parents.
If schools do decide to change their term dates, they are required to act reasonably, giving parents notice and considering the impact on those affected. This includes pupils, teachers, the local community, parents’ work commitments and childcare options for both parents and teachers.
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 implications for his policies of concerns highlighted by The Independent Game Developers’ Association on the impact of removing funding for BTECs for young people on people wishing to pursue a career in the video games industry.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
In July 2021 the department published the response to the second stage consultation in its review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reforms-to-post-16-qualifications-at-level-3-in-england. The consultation outlines the types of qualifications that we plan to fund in the future.
This will include some applied general type qualifications, for example BTECs, as part of mixed programmes alongside A levels where there is a need and they meet quality and other criteria. We will also fund high-quality alternative qualifications as a whole study programme in areas not well served by A levels and where they do not overlap with a T Level.
The department has made no decisions on the individual qualifications. We will shortly publish a provisional list of qualifications that will have public funding approval withdrawn as they duplicate the content and purpose of wave one and two T Levels. Qualifications that do not overlap with T Levels will be replaced by high quality reformed technical qualifications in future.
The updated impact assessment published alongside the response to the second stage consultation can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-post-16-qualifications-at-level-3-in-england. The assessment looked at the potential impact of the review on students, but it did not look specifically at those looking to pursue a career in the video games industry.
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.