Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to protect children that have underlying health conditions that attend special educational needs provision from covid-19.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Supporting education settings to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 is the department’s highest priority.
We are working closely with colleagues across the government to ensure that all appropriate arrangements and support are in place for all of the department’s sectors, from early years and childcare to schools and children’s social care and also for vulnerable groups including children with long-term medical conditions.
Schools should continue to support their pupils’ health needs as normal and should follow Public Health England advice at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to tackle teacher shortages.
Answered by Nick Gibb
There are over 453,000 teachers in our schools – 12,000 more than in 2010 – and postgraduate recruitment to teacher training is at its highest level since 2010-11. The Government recognises that we need to do more to attract and retain teachers, particularly as the economy improves, pupil numbers grow and the demand for talented graduates increases.
Last year, the Department launched the first ever integrated strategy to recruit and retain more teachers. This included the biggest teaching reform in a generation: the Early Career Framework (ECF). The ECF will provide new teachers with the solid foundations for a successful career in teaching, backed by £130 million a year in funding when fully rolled out in 2021.
The strategy also set out priorities to make it easier for great people to join the profession, develop clearer career pathways for classroom teachers, and help school leaders establish more supportive school cultures to reduce teacher workload.
The Department has committed to raising starting salaries for new teachers to £30,000 by 2022-23, putting teaching on a par with other top graduate professions. We are also offering generous bursaries of up to £26,000 during training in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics and modern foreign languages. Additionally, physics, mathematics, languages and chemistry trainees starting initial teacher training in 2020-21 will receive three early-career payments totalling £6,000 spread across years two, three and four of teaching. This total may increase to £9,000 if the trainees are teaching in local authority areas the Department has identified as having high need for teachers, as determined by our published data.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to reduce the pupils per teacher ratio in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As the context of individual schools is different, there are varying approaches to effective staff deployment. It is for school leaders to determine how best to deploy their teachers and the Government trusts them to make the right staffing decisions for their schools. The Department is committed to supporting schools to achieve excellent outcomes for pupils with a wide range of different staffing models.
The Department is also working to ensure school leaders can access the advice, tools and data they need to make the best use of school resources and plan their workforce deployment effectively and efficiently. We have published practical guidance and tools on school resource management, including the School Workforce Planning Guidance[1], which encourages school leaders to plan their workforce together with the curriculum and finances over three to five years.
The Department is taking steps to keep teachers in the classroom so that the teaching workforce is as strong as possible. In January 2019, we launched the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, which set out four priorities to attract and retain teachers in the profession. We will transform support for early career teachers through the Early Career Framework (ECF), which will underpin a two-year package of structured training and support for early career teachers, backed by £130 million a year in funding when fully rolled out in 2021.
The other key priorities set out in the strategy are around making it easier to train to become a teacher, supporting schools to establish more supportive school cultures, and developing coherent career pathways for those teachers who wish to stay and excel in the classroom.
In addition, the Department plans to raise starting salaries for new teachers to £30,000 by 2022-23, aligning teaching with other top graduate professions. We have introduced financial incentives including bursaries of up to £26,000 for mathematics, physics and modern foreign languages trainees, as well as early career payments for new chemistry, languages, mathematics and physics trainees in 2020-21, in order to encourage good trainees to join and remain in the profession.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-workforce-planning
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the proportion of looked-after children that have (a) run away and (b) gone missing from homes and hostels not subject to the children’s homes regulations since 2014.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Information on the proportion of looked after children who ‘run away’ from homes and hostels, not subject to children’s home regulations, is not collected and categorised under this definition. The information that is collected is the number of looked after children who go missing from residential homes or hostels not bound by children homes regulations. The definition of ‘missing’ is defined as a looked after child who is not at their placement or a place they are expected to be, such as a school, and their whereabouts is not known.
The table presents the proportion of the number of children who had been looked after at some point during this year in this same type of placement. As these statistics are experimental statistics and based on data collected for the first time in 2015, the figures are not comparable between years. Some authorities have informed the department that they do not record any incidents as 'away without authorisation' but instead report all incidents as 'missing' information. We estimate that around 1 in 3 local authorities record this data this way. We will continue to assess whether the figures are considered robust enough to be classed as national statistics, rather than experimental.
Number and percentage of children who went missing from residential homes[1] not subject to Children's homes regulations[2] [3] [4] (Years ending 31 March 2015 to 2018) | |||
| All children looked after during the year | Children who had a missing incident during the year[5] | Percentage |
2018 | 4,690 | 1,460 | 31 |
2017 | 4,310 | 1,170 | 27 |
2016 | 3,970 | 840 | 21 |
2015 | 3,000 | 440 | 15 |
The information provided does not mean that the number of children going missing is increasing in the volumes indicated in the table. All figures on the overall number of children who were looked after during the year - who were missing are still classified as experimental statistics. This is the fourth year these statistics have been collected in this way, and local authorities have reported some variation over recent years in how these incidents are recorded.
For more information, the latest national figures on looked after children who go missing and the number of incidents are published in Table G1 of the statistical release, Children looked after in England including adoption: 2017 to 2018, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.
1. Residential accommodation not subject to the Children’s Homes Regulations, but where some supervisory or advice staff are employed (although they do not have to live on the premises). This placement code includes hostels, foyers, YMCAs. Also includes lodgings, flats and bedsits where supervisory staff or advice workers are specifically employed and available to provide advice and support to the residents.
2. Missing is defined as a looked after child who is not at their placement or a place they are expected to be (e.g. school) and their whereabouts is not known.
3. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number. See the looked after children statistics guide for more information on rounding.
4. Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short-term placements.
5. Includes children who were missing on 1 April, therefore carried over from previous years. Some very young looked after children may go missing with their mothers who may well be looked after themselves.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what figures he holds on the cost of music lessons for (a) primary and (b) secondary school pupils per term for each local authority in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The information requested is not held centrally regarding individual schools and how much they spend on music education, as this is delivered within every school's core funding. However, the Government is clear that music is an important subject and that all pupils should receive a high quality music education, at least up to age 14 as part of the national curriculum. In addition, the Government is providing funding of over £300 million for music education hubs between 2016 and 2020.
Music education hubs cover every local authority area, and focus on assessing and meeting local needs of children, drawing on a range of local, national and regional music and arts provision in each area. The core roles of the hubs are to ensure that every child aged 5-18 can learn a musical instrument through whole-class ensemble teaching programmes for ideally a year (but for a minimum of a term) of weekly tuition on the same instrument. Their role is also to provide opportunities to play in ensembles and to perform from an early stage, to ensure that clear progression routes are available and affordable to all young people, and to develop a singing strategy to ensure that every pupil sings regularly and that choirs and other vocal ensembles are available in the area.
Financial allocations to music education hubs by local authority area can be found at: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/music-education/music-education-hubs.
In order to ensure all pupils are able to enjoy a high quality music education, the Department is developing and publishing a non-statutory model music curriculum for Key Stages 1-3. This will expand on the statutory programmes of study and act as a benchmark for all schools.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support the 2.3 million children estimated by the Children's Commissioner to be growing up with a vulnerable family background.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The government has recently published its own analysis on the review of children in need showing the scale of children needing social care support: 1.6 million children between 2012-13 and 2017-18. Whilst official statistics show that the number of children in need of help and protection has remained broadly stable since 2010, we welcome the Commissioner’s report and its contribution to a developing evidence base.
Across government, we are taking action to address childhood vulnerability, whether this is through reforming children’s social care, prioritising mental health or better protecting victims of domestic abuse. The government has also committed £920 million to the second phase of the Troubled Families Programme, which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families with multiple, high-cost problems.
We have established a What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care to develop the evidence base on what works to support vulnerable children and families. We are also investing a further £84 million over the next 5 years through the Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme, which will support up to 20 local authorities with high or rising demand for children’s social care services to improve the support offered to vulnerable children and their families.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children have been excluded from (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools in Bedford Borough in each year for which information is available; if he will publish those exclusions by school; how many of those exclusions were permanent exclusions; and what the national average in England is for school exclusions at primary and secondary level.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The National Statistics release ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England 2016 to 2017’ includes information on the number and rate of permanent and fixed period exclusions. The full release is available here:
Information at national level, by local authorities and by schools for each academic year from 2006/07 to 2016/17 is available in the underlying data section of the release.[1]
[1] The data can be filtered by the columns “year, “level” and “la_name”.