Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement on (a) academy chains and (b) the ability of US or European companies to establish academy chains in the UK.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Government remains committed to academies and providing the best quality education for all children and young people. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) will not change this. The Government of the day will always set the rules governing how the education system is run.
We have protected public services, including education, in all of our trade agreements and will continue to do so in the EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This is non-negotiable.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many agency staff were contracted to cover classes in primary and secondary schools in England and Wales in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department collects details of all teachers working in state funded schools through the annual School Workforce Census. However, this census does not separately identify agency teachers.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to increase the number of teachers in training.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing heavily in the future of our teaching profession. Between now and 2020, we have committed to spending more than £1.3bn on initiatives aimed at attracting more people into the profession.
Teaching remains a profession that is attracting the brightest and best new graduates as well as career changers. We achieved 94% of our postgraduate ITT target for 2015/16, of which 7% was additional recruitment beyond the target in primary, English, history and PE. Although we recognise that teacher recruitment remains challenging, particularly in some priority subjects and in certain areas of the country, we are nevertheless confident that overall recruitment to ITT remains strong.
We have already put in place a number of measures aimed at attracting more top graduates into teaching, particularly in the core academic subjects that help children reach their full potential. We are continuing to offer generous financial incentives, including prestigious scholarships, worth up to £30,000 tax-free for trainees with top degrees in priority subjects.
In March 2015, the Prime Minister announced a package of up to £67m to recruit an additional 2,500 maths and physics teachers and to train 15,000 existing non-specialist teachers in those subjects over the term of this Parliament.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to improve teacher retention.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It is vital for schools to be able to retain good teachers – that is why we have made policy interventions in the areas that teachers tell us matter most, such as improving pupil behaviour and reducing unnecessary workload.
We have appointed behaviour expert Tom Bennett to lead a review to ensure new teachers are fully trained in managing behaviour in 21st century schools.
In response to our Workload Challenge, we set up three independent review groups to address unnecessary workload in the key areas of marking, planning and data management. The groups reported early this year, and set out clear principles about what should happen in schools to reduce unnecessary workload in these areas. The Government has accepted all the relevant recommendations made by the groups, and we will continue to work with the teaching profession to make sure they have the ongoing support they need to continue reducing unnecessary teacher workload.
We have recently conducted the first biennial Teacher Workload Survey, which will allow us to track teacher workload over the coming years. The results of the first survey will be published later this year.
Approximately 90 per cent of all teachers are in service in state-funded schools the year after they qualify, and 72 per cent of those who qualified in 2009 were still in teaching five years later. Over the longer term, over 60 per cent of teachers remain in service 10 years after qualifying.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to amend adoption rules to facilitate the adoption of children resettled under the Immigration Act 2016.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Government has no plans to amend adoption legislation to facilitate the adoption of children resettled under the Immigration Act 2016. The United Nations and other humanitarian charities advise that no new adoption applications should be considered in the period after a disaster or from a war zone before the authorities in that State are in a position to apply the necessary safeguards. This is because it is not uncommon in an emergency or unsettled situation for children to be temporarily separated from their parents or other family members who may be looking for them. So whilst some lone refugee children may come to the UK for temporary care, we would wish to support them to be reunited with their parents or other relatives where this is possible.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what weighting her Department gives to deprivation as a factor affecting educational outcomes.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The department recognises that deprivation is a strong predictor of pupils’ future attainment and acts as a proxy for a range of barriers to educational success, including low aspiration for the future, low levels of parental education and special educational needs.
Overcoming these barriers can create additional costs for schools as they seek to provide additional support. This is why we have committed to continuing the pupil premium at current rates for the duration of this Parliament. Worth £2.5bn this year, the pupil premium provides schools with significant extra funding to help disadvantaged pupils achieve their full potential. Since its introduction in 2011 the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed at age 11 and age 16, offering disadvantaged pupils a more prosperous future as adults.
We are committed to introducing a national funding formula so that schools’ funding is matched fairly and consistently to need. In our recent consultation on the principles and building blocks of a national funding formula we proposed to include a deprivation factor. We will set out the detail of the formula in a second consultation, to be published later this year.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how deprivation factors are taken into account in school funding formulae.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
In current funding arrangements, each local authority devises a local funding formula through which they distribute funding to schools in their locality. The formula must include a deprivation factor, and local authorities have the flexibility to use a pupil-based measure (eligibility for free school meals (FSM)), an area-based measure (the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, which is known as IDACI) or both in order to identify pupils eligible for this funding.
We are committed to introducing a national funding formula so that schools’ funding is matched fairly and consistently to need. In our recent consultation on the principles and building blocks of a national funding formula, which closed on 17 April, we proposed to include a deprivation factor which uses a combination of the FSM and IDACI measures to identify eligible pupils. We are now reviewing all responses and will set out the detail of the formula in a second consultation, to be published later this year.
Further detail on our proposals for a deprivation factor in a national funding formula can be found on page 19 in our consultation document: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula/supporting_documents/Schools_NFF_consultation.pdf
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which guidance her Department provides to local authorities on the retention of case files for victims of serious child abuse in local authority-provided care.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Paragraphs 7.10 and 7.11 of Volume 2[1] of the guidance and regulations to Children Act 1989 (on care planning, placement and case review) explains how a local authority should retain and safe keep all looked after children’s case files.
Paragraphs 4.21 et seq of Volume 3[2] of the same guidance (on transition to adulthood for care leavers) includes information about access to records for people who have spent all or part of the childhood or adolescence in local authority care.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government plans to take in response to the findings of the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education project by the Institute for Education; and what steps the Government plans to take to improve access to high quality early years education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
We know from the findings of the Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) study that early education has a significant impact on child outcomes, and that attending high quality pre-school provision has a positive and long term impact not only on children’s attainment progress, but also on their social-behavioural development.
We have now invested in a major longitudinal Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) to update evidence from EPPSE and evaluate the effectiveness of the current early education model in England. Evidence from SEED will be used to continue to ensure that all children receive an effective, high quality early education experience that prepares them for school and allows them to fulfil their potential; that future investment is targeted correctly and policies are developed in the most effective way.
We understand the importance of quality and its impact on children’s outcomes. The Common Inspection Framework recently introduced by Ofsted will give greater clarity, coherence and comparability on early years and education settings to parents and providers. The most recent Ofsted early years and childcare inspection report shows that, 85% of all providers currently on the Early Years Register were judged "good" or "outstanding" for overall effectiveness. This is a 5 percentage point increase on the previous year to 31 August 2014.
And as part of our wider reforms, we will continue to work in collaboration with the early years sector to further develop our workforce strategy to improve the quality of the early years workforce. This will include a review of progression routes to identify what more can be done to ensure that good quality staff can maximise their potential and forge a successful career within the early years.
We want all children, regardless of their starting point, to have access to high quality early education and childcare, as we know this is what makes the difference to outcomes. We are currently funding 15 hours a week of free childcare for all three- and four-year-olds, worth around £2,500 a year per child to parents; and funding 15 hours a week of free childcare for the 40% most disadvantaged two-year-olds, worth around £2,500 a year per child to parents.
We know that the current model is extremely successful with 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds taking up a place. Based on survey data collected from local authorities in the autumn of 2015, it is estimated that 182,000 two-year-olds - around 72% of eligible children - have taken up a place on the two-year-old programme.
From September 2017, we are introducing 15 hours of free childcare a week for the working parents of three- and four-year olds, worth around a further £2,500 a year per child – on top of the existing early education entitlement.
Asked by: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Prevent training programme in schools; what benchmarks her Department uses to assess and train staff who provide Prevent training; and what representations she has received from schools on that training.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The statutory Prevent duty guidance refers to the importance of training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. Individual schools and childcare providers are best placed to assess their training needs in the light of their assessment of the risk. Ofsted assess schools’ effectiveness in keeping children and learners safe from the dangers of radicalisation and extremism and will consider evidence that there is a clear approach to implementing the Prevent duty.
To help raise awareness of Prevent and issues around radicalisation amongst front line staff, the Home Office is continuing to roll out freely available Workshops to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP). There are a number of professionals, particularly in safeguarding roles (many of whom work within local authorities and the police), who are accredited WRAP facilitators. There has been a significant increase in the number of WRAP training sessions delivered since the end of 2014. The greatest volume of WRAP training has taken place in schools with a significant increase in numbers of staff trained. Over 32,000 staff within schools were WRAP trained in 2015.
The Department has received a number of representations from schools about the availability of WRAP training, and we are working with Home Office and other partners to ensure that schools have access to the training they need.
Jointly with Home Office, the Department has also launched a new website, called Educate Against Hate, which brings together the best advice, support and resources available for parents, teachers and school leaders who want to learn how to protect young people from extremism and radicalisation. The website also includes references to Prevent training. http://www.educateagainsthate.com/