Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the EBacc on the opportunity pupils have to study religious education.
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 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.