Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that all state-funded schools are providing an adequate provision of religious education; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
All state funded schools are required by legislation or by their funding agreements to teach religious education (RE) to all registered pupils aged 5 to 18 years. Teaching RE is also part of schools’ activity to meet their legal duty to promote young people’s spiritual, moral and cultural development.
Each area is required to have a locally agreed syllabus for RE that maintained schools without a religious designation must follow. This is monitored by each area’s Standing Advisory Council for RE (SACRE). As part of school inspections from September 2019, as set out in Ofsted’s published School Inspection Handbook, inspectors will take account of the religious education taught as part of assessing the quality of education provided by the school. It is not Ofsted’s role to inspect denominational religious education in faith schools as part of its inspections. This provision is inspected separately under section 48 of the Education Act 2005.
The requirement for state funded schools to teach RE did not change with the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc).
Many schools choose to teach RE in key stage 4 through offering Religious Studies GCSEs, which are not included in the EBacc. Information on entries to the RE GCSE can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/key-stage-4-and-multi-academy-trust-performance-2018-revised.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) religious education lessons and (b) history lessons are taught by teachers with no post A-level qualification in those subjects; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
For religious education, 24.2% of hours taught in all state funded secondary schools and academies, were taught by a teacher without a relevant post A-level qualification, a decrease from 2010 when the figure was 27.2%. The proportion was considerably lower for history, where 9.1% of hours were taught by a teacher without a relevant post A-level qualification, a decrease from 2010 when the figure was 10.4%.
Information on the proportion of hours taught in state funded secondary schools which are not taught by a teacher with a relevant post A-level qualification in the subject are shown in Table 13 of the publication School Workforce in England, November 2018, which is attached: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2018.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the number of pupils who experience bowel and bladder problems; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the needs of those pupils are met.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The information requested regarding the number of pupils who experience bowel and bladder problems is not held centrally. However, the government is committed to ensuring that pupils with medical conditions are properly supported at school so that they have full access to education.
In 2014, the government introduced a new duty on schools to support pupils with all medical conditions, and has published statutory guidance on this for schools and others. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3.
The guidance does not specify which medical conditions should be supported in schools. Instead, it focuses on how to meet the needs of each individual child and the impact of their medical condition on school life.
Schools also have duties under the Equality Act (2010) to make reasonable adjustments and not to discriminate against disabled children, including those with long-term health conditions such as bowel and bladder conditions, in relation to their access to education and associated services. Schools must make reasonable adjustments to their practices, procedures and policies to ensure that they are not putting those with long term health problems at a disadvantage.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide (a) a list of maintained schools that have been the subject of directive academy orders resulting in them becoming sponsored academies, (b) the date of those orders, (c) the names of the trusts which the schools joined on becoming sponsored academies and the dates of transfer and (d) the names of any trusts which they were subsequently transferred to as a result of rebrokering by his Department and the date of those transfers.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
As at 1 July 2019, there have been 385 maintained schools that have been issued an academy order following an inadequate Ofsted judgement that has resulted in them opening as a sponsored academy. The list of these sponsored academies, the dates of their academy orders, the dates they opened as sponsored academies and the name of the academy trust that they joined can be found in the attached table. Of these 385 sponsored academies, only St Edward’s Catholic Academy has subsequently transferred trust. This occurred on 1 September 2018.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department (a) has taken since September 2015 and (b) plans to take up to 2030 to achieve sustainable development goal four, target seven on education for sustainable development and global citizenship.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are many opportunities in and out of school for young people to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development and global citizenship (as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal 4.7). The Government introduced a reformed national curriculum in 2014, designed to focus on the essential knowledge that must be taught whilst empowering teachers to take greater control over the wider curriculum in schools.
Citizenship education is in the national curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4 and primary schools can teach it if they wish to. Citizenship aims to prepare pupils to play a full and active part in society. It includes teaching about local, regional and international governance and the UK’s relations with the rest of Europe, the Commonwealth, the United Nations and the wider world; human rights and international law; diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding
The reformed curriculum also provides young people with a strong foundation in environmental issues. At Key Stage 2 in geography, pupils must learn about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, and in science they learn about human impact on environments, such as the negative effects of population and development, litter or deforestation.
The national curriculum is just one element in the wide-ranging education of every child and there is enough time and space in the school day and year to expand beyond the national curriculum specifications. The Department also encourages schools to participate in the Department for International Development and British Council funded Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) programme, which builds on previous programmes that were running in 2015 that raised awareness and understanding of global issues in 33% of the UK’s schools. The Department co-launched the new £38 million CCGL programme in 2018, which will provide opportunities for pupils in the UK and in the developing world to learn about global issues, so they are better prepared to live and work in a globalised economy. The programme will build 4,500 long-term relationships between schools and communities in the UK and countries around the world, involving 3 million pupils.
Young people can also participate in the UK Government-funded National Citizen Service (NCS) and the International Citizen Service (ICS), which encourage young people to play a more active role in society by completing short term social action projects in their local communities, or volunteering projects in some of the world’s poorest communities to building understanding of global issues.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to provide dance and drama as subject areas in their own right at primary schools as recommended by the independent review, Cultural Education in England, published in 2012.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are no current plans to provide dance and drama as subject areas in their own right. Dance and drama are compulsory within the National Curriculum as part of the physical education (PE) and English programmes of study, respectively. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has made a commitment to make no further significant changes to the curriculum or to qualifications, other than those already announced, during the remainder of this Parliament.
Through the Primary PE and sport premium, the Government has invested over £1 billion of ring fenced funding to primary schools to improve PE and sport since 2013. Schools can use this to provide dance activities if they wish. The Government is also piloting Youth Performance Partnerships pilots; new partnerships between arts organisations and schools to help children and young people take part in drama performance.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many primary schools have specialist arts teachers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of pupil premium funding is spent by schools on artistic and cultural activities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The pupil premium is additional funding that schools are allocated to help improve the progress and attainment of disadvantaged pupils - those who have been in receipt of benefits-based free school meals at any point in the last 6 years, are currently looked-after or who have left care through adoption or other specified routes.
Schools have flexibility over how they spend the pupil premium, as they are best placed to understand and respond to the needs of their disadvantaged pupils. The department does not routinely collect information from schools about their expenditure of pupil premium funding on particular activities.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to place a statutory duty on new and major refurbished schools to install fire sprinklers.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The safety of pupils and teachers is paramount. Schools have a range of fire protection measures and new schools undergo thorough checks while being designed. All schools must comply with building regulations and where sprinklers are deemed necessary, they must be installed.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Priority Schools Building Programme school fires there have been since the beginning of the 2017 Parliament; and how many of those schools (a) had sprinkler systems installed and (b) had sprinkler systems installed as part of the school rebuild.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has no recorded incidences of school fires on the Priority School Building Programme.
The Home Office publishes data relating to fires in buildings other than dwellings, which includes categories for educational establishments. The most recent published figures cover the 2010/11–2017/18 financial years inclusive. The data can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables.
The 2017/18 data shows that the incidence of fire across the school estate, affecting the whole building, is low.