Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will bring forward legislative proposals to amend the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to introduce mandatory reporting of incidents of restraint in schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not collect or record information about schools’ use of restraint or restrictive practices, and does not intend to introduce mandatory reporting at this time. We trust schools to use their judgement in recording incidents involving force and, when serious incidents occur, we would expect schools to record the incident and let the parents know.
Schools need to be safe and calm environments with effective behaviour management policies and approaches that meet the needs of all pupils, including those with mental health difficulties, special educational needs or disabilities.
At times, it may be necessary to use reasonable force to restrain a pupil – for example, to break up a fight in order to protect teachers and other pupils. Wherever possible, restraint and restrictive intervention should be avoided; and proactive, preventative, non-restrictive approaches adopted in respect of behaviour that challenges.
In June 2019, the Department for Health & Social Care and Department for Education jointly published non-statutory guidance on reducing restraint and restrictive intervention in health and social care services and special education settings. This guidance aims to help settings adopt a preventative approach to supporting children and young people with learning disabilities, autistic spectrum conditions and mental health difficulties.
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 children were subjected to the use of physical restraint in schools in each of the academic years (a) 2017-18, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2015-16.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not collect or record information about schools’ use of restraint or restrictive practices, and does not intend to introduce mandatory reporting at this time. We trust schools to use their judgement in recording incidents involving force and, when serious incidents occur, we would expect schools to record the incident and let the parents know.
Schools need to be safe and calm environments with effective behaviour management policies and approaches that meet the needs of all pupils, including those with mental health difficulties, special educational needs or disabilities.
At times, it may be necessary to use reasonable force to restrain a pupil – for example, to break up a fight in order to protect teachers and other pupils. Wherever possible, restraint and restrictive intervention should be avoided; and proactive, preventative, non-restrictive approaches adopted in respect of behaviour that challenges.
In June 2019, the Department for Health & Social Care and Department for Education jointly published non-statutory guidance on reducing restraint and restrictive intervention in health and social care services and special education settings. This guidance aims to help settings adopt a preventative approach to supporting children and young people with learning disabilities, autistic spectrum conditions and mental health difficulties.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish the block allocations for (a) individual maintained schools and (b) academies for 2019-20; and for what reason the allocations will be published later in the school year than in previous years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In previous years, school-level allocations for local authority maintained schools and academies have been published as transparency statistics in late autumn, but not to a fixed schedule.
This year we will be publishing the individual school-level school’s block allocations, covering allocations for 2019-20, in the Department’s new school funding official statistics report on 30 January 2020.
The Department already publishes detailed information on school funding, including full details of individual grant funding allocations issued to schools and local authorities, but we recognise that this information can be hard to understand and navigate. The aim of this new official statistics report is to help users’ understanding of this issue, and we are including the 2019-20 school-level allocations in that report.
This dataset will include details of more grants than in previous years, giving a fuller picture of school-level funding for the year.
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 applications were made under the first round of the new voluntary-aided schools capital scheme which closed in February 2019.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department received 14 bids in the first round of the voluntary-aided schools capital scheme; one bid (Runnymede St Edward's Catholic Primary School) was deemed ineligible and one bid (Archbishop Romero School) subsequently withdrew.
A full list of applicant information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/voluntary-aided-schools-capital-scheme-applicant-information/voluntary-aided-schools-applicant-information.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to announce a second round of the new voluntary-aided schools capital scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is currently developing the second round of the voluntary-aided capital scheme and expect to launch it shortly.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations have been received by his Department on the provision of RE teaching in schools as part of a broad and balanced curriculum; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department receives regular representation on the matter of religious education (RE). For example, I attended a panel discussion at the All Party Parliamentary Group on RE on 16 July.
All state funded schools are required by legislation or by their funding agreements to teach RE to all registered pupils aged 5 to 18 years. Teaching RE is also central to the duty on state schools to teach a broad and balanced curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral and cultural development of pupils.