Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to support children with dyslexia to achieve grade 5 or above in English and Maths GCSEs.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to improving outcomes for all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with dyslexia.
On 5 February 2025, the government announced a £2 million investment to drive high and rising standards in reading and writing. In secondary school, teachers are being offered new training and resources this year to help them support readers at all levels, and next academic year the department will deliver further training that will be focused specifically on struggling readers in secondary school who are at risk of falling behind. The English Hubs programme is also dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress in reading. As part of the continuous professional development provided by the English Hubs, the Reading Ambition for All programme has been launched to improve outcomes for children in primary who need additional support with reading, including those with SEND.
The department funds the Maths Hubs programme, a school-led network aimed at improving the teaching of mathematics for all pupils in publicly funded schools. The programme covers primary, secondary and special schools and uses a mastery-based teaching approach which aims to secure understanding of key concepts. This includes training for teachers on techniques such as avoiding cognitive overload by breaking learning down into small manageable steps, using representations to expose mathematical structure and ensuring that learning is sequenced in a coherent manner so it makes sense to pupils.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is providing to schools that are having to reduce costs in Newbury constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Overall school funding is increasing by £3.7 billion in the 2025/26 financial year, meaning the core school budget will total £65.3 billion. This is a 6% rise in cash terms compared to 2024/25.
Schools in West Berkshire local authority are attracting £143.6 million through the dedicated schools grant. This represents an increase of 2.6% per pupil compared to 2024/25.
We are providing schools with an additional £615 million in the 2025/26 financial year to support them with the 4% teacher pay award and 3.2% support staff pay offer. Schools will be expected play their part in driving productivity across the public sector and find approximately the first 1% of pay awards by ensuring resources are deployed to maximise support for teaching and learning.
We are supporting schools to make savings and bring down operating costs. For example, 400 schools participating in the department’s new energy offer are projected to save an average of 36% compared to previous contracts.
We are also working to secure better banking solutions and provide services such as Get Help Buying for Schools and the Teaching Vacancies Service to reduce procurement and recruitment costs.
We know workforce deployment is the biggest component of school budgets. We will support schools to benefit fully from the tools we already offer to benchmark and integrate resourcing and curriculum planning, such as the Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool. We will also introduce a new toolkit to support schools to adopt evidence-based deployment models.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department is providing to schools to ensure that at least 50 percent of children achieve passes in (a) maths and (b) English GCSEs in Newbury constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
In the 2023/24 academic year, 69.7% of students in the Newbury constituency achieved a grade 4 or above in both English and mathematics, and 49.5% of students achieved a grade 5 or above in both subjects.
High and rising school standards, with excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics, are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.
To drive standards in reading and writing, the government has committed £27.7 million in the 2025/26 financial year. This includes new training and resources for secondary school staff to support reading in key stage 3, with a specific focus on readers who are at risk of falling behind. The department’s English Hubs programme also supports the teaching of phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. Newbury’s nearest English Hub is Whiteknights English Hub.
To drive standards in mathematics the department funds the Maths Hubs programme, supported by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. Local maths hubs provide school-to-school support focused on mathematics subject knowledge and pedagogy training for teachers in primary and secondary schools. The Newbury constituency is served by the Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire Maths Hub, which reports participation from 85% of schools from within its region.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to increase school funding to expand the provision of free school meals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department spends around £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school pupils under benefits-based free school meals, over 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education, and around 1.3 million infants under universal infant free school meals. In addition to this, eligibility for free meals drives billions of additional pounds in disadvantage funding.
Schools have autonomy to allocate their budgets to comply with their duty to provide free meals in line with nutritional guidance set out in the school food standards.
As with all government programmes, including free school meals, we keep our approach under continued review.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that funding allocated to schools for free school meals is not used for other purposes.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department spends around £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school pupils under benefits-based free school meals, over 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education, and around 1.3 million infants under universal infant free school meals. In addition to this, eligibility for free meals drives billions of additional pounds in disadvantage funding.
Schools have autonomy to allocate their budgets to comply with their duty to provide free meals in line with nutritional guidance set out in the school food standards.
As with all government programmes, including free school meals, we keep our approach under continued review.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools in deprived areas offer A-level physics courses to pupils.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High and rising school standards are central to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and provide every child with the best start in life. Whilst it is ultimately for individual schools to decide which A level courses to offer their students, the best way of supporting schools to offer A level physics courses, including those in deprived areas, is to ensure high quality physics teaching at all levels by helping schools to recruit and retain good teachers.
For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years, the department is offering a targeted retention incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for physics teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in schools in disadvantaged areas. This is double the payments that were previously offered.
For those training to teach in the 2025/26 academic year, there is a bursary worth £29,000 tax-free or a prestigious scholarship worth £31,000 tax-free to train to teach physics.
There were 688 new entrants to physics postgraduate initial teacher training (PGITT) in the 2024/25 academic year, a 48% increase on the number of 2023/24 entrants.
Recruitment is on track to improve even further for the cohort set to start training in the 2025/26 academic year. As of April 2025, 962 candidates have accepted offers for PGITT courses in physics, an increase of around 47% compared to the same point last year.
Subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) courses support recruitment to initial teacher training in hard-to-recruit subjects, such as physics. SKE participants benefit from blended courses tailored to their individual needs to meet the minimum knowledge required to train to teach their chosen subject, which leads to the award of qualified teacher status.
The department also funds the Subject Knowledge for Physics Teaching programme. This is a series of blended learning courses, with modules available each term to support non-specialist teachers of key stage 3 and 4 physics to enhance their subject knowledge.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that all schools within a local authority accept children with Education, Health and Care Plans.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on schools named by a local authority on an education, health and care plan to admit a child. The local authority must have consulted with the school and carefully considered any views expressed before naming it on a plan. This duty to admit applies to maintained schools, academies, non-maintained special schools and independent schools approved for these purposes by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, under section 41 of the Act.
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, and ensuring special schools cater to children and young people with the most complex needs, restoring parents’ trust that their child will get the support they need.
The department is working closely with experts on reforms, recently appointing a Strategic Advisor for SEND, who will play a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families as we consider the next steps for the future of SEND reform.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure that primary schools can fund their SEND provision without reallocating funding from other budget areas.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an additional £3.2 billion for mainstream schools and young people with complex SEND for the 2025/26 financial year. This means that overall school funding will total almost £64.8 billion in 2025/26. Most schools funding is not allocated and ring-fenced for specific purposes, such as for supporting pupils with SEND. Schools decide how to spend their budgets to meet their legal duties and other responsibilities, including support for their pupils with SEND.
Of the increase in total schools funding, £1 billion will be for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to over £12 billion. Of that total, West Berkshire Council is being allocated over £30 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of £1.8 million on this year’s DSG high needs block. High needs funding is allocated by local authorities to primary schools for the costs of special educational needs support in excess of £6,000 per pupil per annum.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to publish the draft guidance for gender questioning children in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is currently reviewing the draft non-statutory guidance for schools and colleges on gender questioning children, in addition to reviewing the statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has been clear that children’s wellbeing must be at the heart of this guidance and, as such, the government is looking carefully at the consultation responses, discussing with stakeholders and considering the relevant evidence, including the final report of the Cass Review which was published post-consultation, before setting out next steps.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing funding to ensure that the Lifelong Links programme can be extended to all children in care.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to helping children thrive and wants the best for every child and family. We know that a stable support network and loving relationships are crucial to supporting children in care and care leavers to thrive.
To support this, the department is currently funding 50 family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes, being delivered by 45 local authorities. These programmes will help children in care and care leavers to identify and connect with the important people in their lives and create safe, stable loving relationships. Of the 45 local authorities, 23 are delivering Lifelong Links as their family finding programme.
The family finding, befriending and mentoring programme is being evaluated and this will inform decisions about the future of the programme.