Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that home-schooled children are able to receive grades for (a) GCSE, (b) iGCSE and (c) A-Level examinations in the same way as children in the main school system.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In light of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the Government considers that exams cannot be held in a way which is fair. The Department have therefore announced that GCSE, AS and A level exams will not go ahead this summer as planned.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has asked the Chief Regulator at Ofqual to find a clear and accessible route for private candidates and those not in school this year to be assessed and receive a grade. The Department and Ofqual have launched a two-week consultation on how to fairly award all pupils a grade that supports them to progress to the next stage of their lives, including consulting specifically on four different approaches for private candidates to receive a grade.
The consultation can be accessed via this link and will be open until 23:45 on 29 January 2020: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-how-gcse-as-and-a-level-grades-should-be-awarded-in-summer-2021. The Department and Ofqual strongly encourage all our stakeholders, including private candidates and their parents, to respond. We will continue to engage with a range of relevant stakeholders when developing plans for our policy on GCSE, AS and A level assessments in 2021, as will the exams regulator Ofqual.
International GCSEs are not regulated by Ofqual and are not part of the arrangements for summer 2021 that apply to GCSEs and A/AS levels. The Department is in contact with the exam boards that provide these qualifications to understand their current position and make clear our views before they take a final decision.
Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Adoption Support Fund, how many claims have been received on behalf of previously looked after children now on special guardianship orders; how many of those claims have been successful (a) in total and (b) by local authority area; and what the average amount awarded was (i) in total and (ii) by local authority area.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Between the period 1 April 2016 to 25 September 2018[1], there were 1,929 applications submitted on behalf of previously looked after children now living in special guardianship arrangements, of which 1,767 were successful; 12 were unsuccessful; 92 are currently being processed; and 58 were withdrawn. The total average amount awarded was £2,950.
Local authority area information can be found in the attached table.[2]
[1] The Adoption Support Fund was extended to previously looked after children now living in special guardianship arrangements on 1 April 2016.
[2] All amounts have been rounded to the nearest pound.
Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many previously looked after children on a (a) special guardianship order, (b) child arrangements order and (c) residence order in each local authority area are in receipt of a pupil premium grant.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We publish annual figures for the overall number of previously looked after children eligible for the pupil premium plus grant, in each local authority area at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-conditions-of-grant-2018-to-2019.
A breakdown of these figures is provided in the attached table showing the post looked after arrangements which children have left local authority care in England and Wales through either adoption, a special guardianship order, a residence order or a child arrangement order.
Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department provides to Directors of Children's Services to help them understand their responsibility to provide support services to kinship care families; and what monitoring his Department undertakes to measure the efficiency of those services nationally.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government issued statutory guidance in 2011 for local authorities about supporting family and friends providing care for children who cannot live with their parents. The guidance makes it clear that children and young people should receive the support that they and their carers need to safeguard and promote their welfare. It explains that support can be provided under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989.
Local authorities are required to publish a policy setting out their approach to promoting and supporting the needs of all children living with family and friends as carers, regardless of their legal status. The department monitors whether local authorities are meeting this requirement and we have recently written to non-compliant local authorities to remind them of this duty and that the policy should be clear, regularly updated, and made freely and widely available.
Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children in Hartlepool were eligible for free school meals before the introduction of universal credit.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department does not differentiate between pupils eligible for free school meals under the pre-Universal Credit free school meals system and those that have become eligible since Universal Credit has been introduced. The number of pupils eligible for and claiming free school meals is published in the file “Underlying data: SFR28/2017” in the annual ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistical release.
For 2017, the information is available at:
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2017.
Information for earlier years is available at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-school-and-pupil-numbers.
Asked by: Mike Hill (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of the student loan system on the affordability of higher education for students from disadvantaged areas.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Government publishes Equality Analyses setting out the impact of the annual changes to student finance on protected and disadvantaged groups of students.
The student finance system ensures upfront costs of tuition are not a barrier to accessing higher education. Eligible students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, can apply for up-front fee loans to meet the full costs of their tuition.
Full-time students from disadvantaged backgrounds also have access to the highest ever amounts of cash in hand loan support for their living costs. Monthly loan repayments are linked to income, not to interest rates or the amount borrowed.
The current system has enabled record numbers of students to benefit from higher education with progress continuing to be made on widening participation. There are record numbers of people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university. Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data shows young people from the most disadvantaged areas were 43% more likely to enter higher education in 2016 than they were in 2009. Provisional 2017 data shows the entry rate for 18 year olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is already at a record high this year, significantly higher than at the end of the 2016 cycle.