Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to promote the recruitment of special educational needs and disability support staff in schools.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is committed to enabling the potential of every pupil through maintaining a high-quality teaching workforce. Over 37,000 new trainee teachers were recruited to start training in the academic year 2021/22. We are enhancing the appeal of teaching by raising the starting salary for teachers to £30,000 to ensure teaching remains a popular graduate option.
All teachers are teachers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It is a requirement for Teachers’ Standards to be fully incorporated into Initial Teacher Training courses. Before Qualified Teacher Status is gained, trainee teachers must be able to understand and respond to the needs of all pupils, including pupils with SEND.
Through our contract with the National Association for Special Educational Needs, we fund the Whole School SEND (WSS) consortium to equip staff in mainstream and special schools to deliver high quality teaching to all pupils with SEND. A further £2 million of funding is being provided in the 2021/22 financial year for WSS to continue this work.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that pupils with disabilities are given preferential treatment during the selection of school places to ensure their access needs are met.
Answered by Will Quince
The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on all schools to support disabled children and young people. It includes making reasonable adjustments to prevent them from suffering discrimination and supplying additional aids and services to assist with individuals’ disabilities.
Parents of children who do not have education, health and care plan (EHCP) apply for a school place using local school admission arrangements. Each school has an admission authority to set its admission arrangements, which include the criteria that it will use to allocate places in the event that more applications are received than there are places available. Where a school receives more applications than it has places available, places must be allocated in accordance with the school’s published admissions criteria (also known as oversubscription criteria). School admission processes must not discriminate against or disadvantage disabled children, or those with special educational needs. Admission authorities may give priority within their oversubscription criteria to children who have a particular social or medical need to attend their school. They may also prioritise pupils based on the parent’s medical or social needs (for instance, limited mobility and the need to take their infant child to a nearby school). They must set out clearly how they define social and medical need and what supporting evidence will be required, for example a letter from a doctor or social worker.
Furthermore, each local authority must have a fair access protocol to ensure that unplaced and vulnerable children, and those who are having difficulty securing a place in year, are allocated a place as quickly as possible. The School Admissions Code lists children with special educational needs (but without an EHCP), disabilities or medical conditions, as one of the groups of children for whom a place can be sought via the fair access protocols, where necessary.
If the local authority issues an EHCP, it also has a statutory duty to secure the provision specified in the plan. This includes responsibility for securing a place at the school, college or early years setting named on the EHCP. The local authority must consult with the requested school or post-16 institution in order to establish that the placement would meet the needs of the child or young person, would be compatible with the efficient education of others and would be an efficient use of its own resources. If these criteria are all met, the local authority must name that school in the final EHCP and the school or institution will be required to admit the child or young person.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the news story published by his Department on 1 February 2022, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that funding in Education Investment Areas is distributed within local authority areas according to need.
Answered by Robin Walker
In the Levelling Up white paper, the government announced plans to drive school improvement in England through new Education Investment Areas (EIAs). These 55 local authorities will receive significant support, including retention payments to help schools with supply issues in these areas to retain the best teachers in high-priority subjects and investment in trust growth. The department will also be consulting on moving schools with successive requires improvement judgements by Ofsted into strong multi-academy trusts, which will enable such schools in EIAs to access the support they need to improve.
As part of the government’s plans to drive improvement in education, the Levelling Up white paper sets out our intention to increase access to leading universities for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will include targeting new specialist 16-19 free schools where they are most needed and prioritising EIAs when taking these decisions. In many areas of the country, colleges and schools are providing excellent opportunities for disadvantaged students to progress to leading universities. The intention of this policy is to reach those areas where students’ potential is not currently being realised.
Decisions have not yet been taken on where new sixth forms will open, but the need for places and the quality of existing providers will be important considerations, just as in any other free school proposal. The department will set out further detail on the process for approving further free schools in due course.
On distributing investment according to local need more broadly, the department has also announced it will make more intensive investment across some EIAs identified as priority areas, where there are entrenched barriers to school improvement. More details will be set out in the schools white paper in the spring.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the rollout of Education Investment Areas (a) integrate with and (b) complement existing local post-16 education provision.
Answered by Robin Walker
In the Levelling Up white paper, the government announced plans to drive school improvement in England through new Education Investment Areas (EIAs). These 55 local authorities will receive significant support, including retention payments to help schools with supply issues in these areas to retain the best teachers in high-priority subjects and investment in trust growth. The department will also be consulting on moving schools with successive requires improvement judgements by Ofsted into strong multi-academy trusts, which will enable such schools in EIAs to access the support they need to improve.
As part of the government’s plans to drive improvement in education, the Levelling Up white paper sets out our intention to increase access to leading universities for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This will include targeting new specialist 16-19 free schools where they are most needed and prioritising EIAs when taking these decisions. In many areas of the country, colleges and schools are providing excellent opportunities for disadvantaged students to progress to leading universities. The intention of this policy is to reach those areas where students’ potential is not currently being realised.
Decisions have not yet been taken on where new sixth forms will open, but the need for places and the quality of existing providers will be important considerations, just as in any other free school proposal. The department will set out further detail on the process for approving further free schools in due course.
On distributing investment according to local need more broadly, the department has also announced it will make more intensive investment across some EIAs identified as priority areas, where there are entrenched barriers to school improvement. More details will be set out in the schools white paper in the spring.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with Ofsted to ensure their forthcoming inspections take into account the disruption that the covid-19 outbreak has had on schools, teaching and pupils.
Answered by Robin Walker
Ministers engage regularly with Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, on a range of matters, including inspection arrangements in the changing context of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Ofsted inspection continues to play an important role in providing independent assurance as providers respond to COVID-19. It is right that the arrangements are kept under review, and adjustments made where appropriate.
Ofsted has updated its inspection handbooks and adjusted its inspection approach to take account of the challenges raised by COVID-19. From the start of the calendar year to 31 January, Ofsted temporarily halted use of part time inspectors who are also frontline leaders so they could focus on their leadership responsibilities.
Additionally, schools facing acute disruption, including due to significant staff absence, can request a deferral of the inspection. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector has confirmed that all requests will be considered carefully and sensitively by Ofsted.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what measures he is putting in place to support pupils with long covid who are taking exams in 2021-22.
Answered by Robin Walker
Exams are the best and fairest way of judging students’ performance. Exams give students a fair chance to show their knowledge and understanding of a subject. It is the government’s firm intention that exams and assessments should go ahead this year. The department recognises the disruption many students have experienced and has worked with Ofqual, exam boards, and representatives of the sector to review existing arrangements for exams. This is to ensure they appropriately reflect scenarios arising from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Together with Ofqual, the department has confirmed a package of measures, including adaptations to exams and assessments and changes to grading, to ensure fairness and help mitigate the disruption to students’ education.
Pupils or students absent from their education for a prolonged period due to long COVID-19 should be supported in the same manner as those absent due to other medium to long-term illnesses or medical conditions.
Students with any long-term health conditions, such as long COVID, may be eligible to apply for reasonable adjustments under the existing exam arrangements. Reasonable adjustments are changes made to an assessment or to the way an assessment is conducted that reduce or remove a disadvantage caused by a student’s disability. An example of this could be supervised rest breaks or extra time for assessments. They are needed because some conditions can make it harder for students to show what they know and can do in an assessment than it would have been had the student not been disabled. The Joint Council for Qualification (JCQ) has published detailed guidance on reasonable adjustments.
Furthermore, where students miss an assessment in a subject, for example due to illness, but have completed other exams or non-exam assessments in that subject, they may be able to use the existing special consideration process to apply to receive a grade based on the assessments they did complete. The JCQ has also published guidance on when students may be eligible for special consideration and how it works.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what funding his Department has allocated to projects aimed at supporting the teaching of (a) English, (b) mathematics, (c) music, (d) languages, (e) science, (f) geography and (g) religious education in the last 5 years, excluding examination reform.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department has allocated central funding between financial years 2016-17 to 2020-21 on the curriculum projects and programmes in the attached table. In particular, the department provides funding for 4 curriculum hubs programmes in English, mathematics, music and languages as set out in the table.
The English hubs programme was launched in 2018 and aims to improve the teaching of reading in the primary phase, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress in reading, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. The total departmental funding in the last 2 years is £22 million and the programme works across 34 hubs to provide appropriate and targeted support to several thousands of schools across England.
The maths hubs programme was launched in 2014 and aims to improve the teaching of mathematics from reception to A level. The total departmental funding in the last 5 years is £115 million and the programme works across 40 hubs and the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), supporting over 11,000 primary and secondary schools.
Music education hubs were launched in 2012 and aim to create joined-up music education provision and provide specialist music education services across schools. The total departmental funding in the last five years is £381 million and the programme works across 119 hubs to provide support for around 90% of state-funded schools across England.
The modern foreign language hubs pilot was launched in 2018 and aims to support secondary phase teaching of French, German, and Spanish through the development of teaching resources, assessments, and continuing professional development (CPD). The total departmental funding in the last 3 years is £4.2 million. The programme has worked across 45 secondary schools between December 2018 and December 2021 and now offers free online CPD to over 1,350 teachers nationally in 2022.
Alongside the funding for the subject-specific curriculum programmes, the department also allocated funding over this period that supports teacher development, such as the Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund and subject knowledge enhancement, which have benefitted teaching in a range of subjects, including geography and religious education. The department also provides scholarships and bursaries for initial teacher training in a wide range of subjects.