Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will provide additional training for teachers on supporting pupils with dyslexia.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the hon. Member for The Wrekin to the answer of 1 August 2025 to Question 61402.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to increase the accessibility of adoption files for adoptees who have reached adulthood.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities have been advised to retain adoption records for at least 100 years, an increase from the previous 75-year requirement. The department has also asked them to ensure timely access to these records.
Subject to Parliamentary approval, the department will make this a legal requirement by introducing regulatory changes. These changes will ensure that all adoption case records for individuals adopted before 30 December 2005 are preserved for a minimum of 100 years. This is already a requirement for records for individuals adopted after 30 December 2005.
In addition, the department is supporting and working with Adoption England, who have recently published new guidance to promote consistent and legally compliant practice on access to records across all regional adoption agencies. Adoption England also continues to fund FamilyConnect, a pilot national advice line that supports adopted adults, birth parents, relatives, and professionals with searching for and accessing adoption records.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps with education unions to investigate links between viewing online violent social media content on personal mobile devices and physical attacks on teaching staff in schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
All pupils and staff should feel safe and protected at school, and nobody should face violence or abuse. The department will always support our hard working teachers to ensure they can work in safe and calm classrooms. All school employers have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees.
Schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones and other smart technology with similar functionality throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime, as set out in the 2024 ‘Mobile phones in schools’ guidance. The department expects all schools to take steps in line with this guidance to ensure mobile phones do not disrupt pupils’ learning.
From July this year, the child safety duties under the Online Safety Act will be in force, requiring online services to protect children from content that is harmful to them, including violent and abusive content. The government recognises concerns about the impact of social media on children, which is why the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology commissioned a feasibility study, led by the University of Cambridge, to investigate methods and data to understand the links between children’s smartphone use, social media and their wellbeing.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill on faith communities.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The department has published its Equalities Impact Assessment for all measures of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, setting out impacts across protected characteristics including religion or belief. This can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill-impact-assessments.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will ensure all schools have (a) lock down plans which all teaching staff are taught, (b) direct feed panic alarms to local police stations, (c) security bollards at the main entrances and exits and (d) two door interlocking systems.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This government is committed to ensuring that children, young people and adult learners are safe from terrorist incidents and attacks. This is why the department publishes comprehensive guidance alongside a range of high-quality resources to support education settings in their protective security, and their preparedness and response to incidents and attacks.
The ‘Protective Security and Preparedness for education settings’ guidance, developed in collaboration with the National Counter-Terrorism Security Office, offers a comprehensive approach to enhancing safety and preparedness, ensuring that educational settings can provide a secure and supportive environment for learning. This includes planning for a number of different response options such as lockdown, evacuation and invacuation, communicating during an incident, having plans in place to respond effectively to different types of incidents and testing out those plans.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will increase the powers of local education authorities to take action against parents who threaten teaching staff over decisions taken under school disciplinary procedures.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
No teacher should feel unsafe or face violence or abuse in the workplace. The department will always support teachers to ensure they can work in safe and calm classrooms. All school employers, including trusts, have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their employees.
Schools should have their own clear processes in place for dealing with issues of bullying or harassment from parents. All incidences of bullying or harassment by a parent should be reported immediately to the designated lead and head teacher or governing body or proprietor.
Should the incident constitute a potential criminal offence, it would be for the school to consider involving the police, having followed the advice contained in the ‘When to call the police’ guidance for schools and colleges by the National Police Chief’s Council, written in partnership with the department and Home Office.
For staff who are experiencing bullying or harassment from any source, support is available from sources including Education Support, a charity supporting the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and education staff in schools, colleges and universities.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will have discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on (a) domestic extremist threats and (b) other terror related threats against primary and secondary schools; and what assessment she has made of the potential measures of putting new measures in place to strengthen (i) entrances and (ii) perimeter boundaries in schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Prevent duty safeguards children and young people from extremist ideologies to prevent them from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. The department publishes over 150 resources to support schools, parents and pupils in protecting children from extremism. These resources can be found at: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/.
For any new school building the department recommends a security risk assessment is completed which will set out any necessary safeguarding and security requirements, where they are suitable.
The department publishes comprehensive and well-established ‘Protective Security and Preparedness’ guidance which helps staff prepare for and respond to terrorist and other significant threats. This guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protective-security-and-preparedness-for-education-settings.
The government will further strengthen the national security response through measures included in the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill. The Bill will require all education settings to take forward public protection procedures. This will establish a legal requirement which specifically relates to the response to a terrorist attack.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) in person and (b) online meetings she had with organisations representing children with special educational needs between 14 July 2024 and 14 October 2024.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education meets with a wide range of external stakeholders who represent children’s interests as part of her ministerial work. Details of ministers’ external meetings are published in quarterly ministerial transparency returns.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of VAT on school fees on the shared provision of (a) SEND support, (b) sporting facilities and (c) SEND school transport between the independent and state school sectors.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The 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.
At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced a £1 billion uplift in high needs funding in the 2025/26 financial year, providing additional support and improving outcomes for the more than a million children in the state sector with SEND.
Most children with special educational needs, including most with education, health and care (EHC) plans, are already educated in mainstream state-funded schools. All state-funded schools support children with SEND. All children of compulsory age are entitled to a state-funded school place that is free for parents. Where a private school place is necessary to support a child with SEND, the local authority will fund it through an EHC plan.
Local authorities have a statutory duty for ensuring sufficient state school places in their area. Local authorities routinely support children who need a state-funded school place, including where private schools have closed or where pupils move between schools. The department does not collect data on in-year school applications or admissions, but where local authorities are experiencing difficulties in ensuring there are enough school places for children who need them, the department will offer support and advice.
The department expects all schools admitting new pupils in-year to provide them with appropriate support, including where they have SEND. Schools will need to work with their local authority where pupils have additional needs that cannot be met within the school.
Schools with charitable status are required to demonstrate public benefit to retain their charitable status and engaging in partnership activities with state-funded schools is one such way to do that. This may in some cases include the sharing of private school facilities, such as sporting facilities. The government does not expect the introduction of VAT to reduce a school's obligations to show public benefit or for partnership activity to decrease.
The department’s home-to-school travel policy aims to make sure that no child is prevented from accessing education due to a lack of transport. Local authorities must arrange free home-to-school travel for eligible children of compulsory school age, who attend their nearest school and would not be able to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so. Schools are not required to arrange home-to-school travel for their pupils, but some choose to do so. We do not expect the removal of the VAT exemption on independent school fees to have an impact on the provision of home-to-school travel for children with SEND.
Asked by: Mark Pritchard (Conservative - The Wrekin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a strategy to improve the retention of teaching staff in schools.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The within school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcome is high-quality teaching. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child.
A successful recruitment strategy starts with a strong retention strategy. We accepted in full the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools for 2024/25. In addition to recruiting high-quality teachers, the department wants to ensure teachers stay and thrive in this profession. New teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing in the first five years of their careers will now receive a targeted retention incentive of up to £6,000, after-tax, if working in disadvantaged schools.
The department is also working closely with teachers and school leaders to improve the experience of teaching, including making key resources on reducing workload and supporting wellbeing, developed with school leaders, available to teachers.
To further improve retention, the department is actively promoting flexible working, such as allowing planning, preparation, and assessment to be undertaken from home. The department is also funding bespoke support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and multi-academy trusts, ensuring schools are capturing the benefits of flexible working, whilst protecting pupils’ face-to-face teacher time.
High-quality continuous professional development is also key to ensuring the retention of an effective teaching workforce. Through the revised Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework, new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across Initial Teacher Training and into their induction. The department has also launched an updated suite of national professional qualifications (NPQs) for teachers and school leaders at all levels, from those who want to develop expertise in high-quality teaching practice to those leading multiple schools across trusts. Teaching School Hubs play a significant role in delivering the initial teacher training, the early career framework and NPQs. The Shropshire and Telford Education Partnership hub supports delivery across Shropshire, Telford and the Wrekin.
This government inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes. That is why the department has set out the ambition to recruit 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament. We have made good early progress towards this target by expanding the school teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’, and the further education teacher recruitment campaign, ‘Share your Skills’, alongside making £233 million available for teacher trainee tax-free bursaries for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle.