Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many state-funded nursery schools in England did not have a male teacher in each of the last five years for which school workforce data are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers by gender in each school, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many state-funded secondary schools in England did not have a male teacher in each of the last five years for which school workforce data are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers by gender in each school, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many state-funded primary schools in England did not have a male teacher in each of the last five years for which school workforce data are available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers by gender in each school, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) state-funded special and (b) pupil referral unit schools in England did not have any male teachers in each of the last five school workforce reporting years for which data is available.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers by gender in each school, is published in the ‘School Workforce in England’ statistical publication here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The table below provides the number and percentage of a) state-funded special and (b) pupil referral unit schools in England without any male teachers in each of the last five school workforce reporting years for which data is available.
State-funded special and pupil referral unit schools in England without a male teacher, by census year and school type, number and percentage as at November 2017 to 2021:
| State-funded special schools | Pupil referral units1 | ||
Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | |
2021 | 45 | 4.5% | 16 | 4.9% |
2020 | 45 | 4.5% | 16 | 4.8% |
2019 | 45 | 4.6% | 18 | 5.3% |
2018 | 41 | 4.2% | 17 | 5.1% |
2017 | 48 | 5.0% | 23 | 6.8% |
Source: School Workforce Census
1: Including alternative provision academy schools.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to announce funding arrangements for (a) school games organisers and (b) the PE and sport premium for primary schools for the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Details of funding for the Primary PE and sport premium and School Games for the 2023/24 academic year will be announced shortly.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the statement made by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, HL Deb 24 January 2022, vol 827, col 216 that her Department will send all schools a letter instructing them to show parents who request it the material their children are being taught, when she expects to send that letter.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes that the majority of schools use high quality, appropriate resources and engage with parents openly and transparently on what they plan to use.
The Department has been made aware of cases where this may not be the case. The Department will write to all schools to clarify how materials can be shared to enable schools to engage with parents. The Department will provide a specific date for the publication of this letter shortly.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to review the level of funding provided for children with Education, Health and Care Plans in mainstream education settings.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The Autumn Statement announced significant additional investment in core schools’ funding. The core schools budget, which provides funding for mainstream schools and high needs, will increase by £2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years, over and above totals announced at the 2021 Spending Review.
Schools' funding is £4 billion higher this year than last, and it will rise by another £3.5 billion, on top of that, next year. Taken together, this means an increase of over 15% in just two years.
Local authorities are required by regulations to provide mainstream schools with sufficient funds, through their local schools funding formula, to enable them to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN), including those with an education, health and care (EHC) plan, up to £6,000. Local authorities identify a notional special educational needs and disability (SEND) budget for schools as a guide to what they may need to spend in supporting their pupils with SEN. The department has issued guidance to local authorities on their calculation of the notional SEN budget using their local funding formula.
When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This funding comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. This may follow a statutory assessment producing an EHC plan, though local authorities have the discretion to provide high needs top-up funding for pupils without an EHC plan.
As the department moves towards a different system for funding mainstream schools, in which the department, rather than local authorities, will determine allocations for individual schools through a single, national formula, we plan to move to a standardised calculation of schools’ indicative budgets for their pupils with SEN. Following the recent consultation on implementing this new system, we are considering the detail on how to achieve this and intend to consult further in future.
In addition, the department has committed to publishing a SEND and alternative provision improvement plan early this year, following the Green Paper publication in March 2022, which set out proposals to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND, within a fairer and financially sustainable system.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many UK nationals began a degree apprenticeship by sex in 2022.
Answered by Robert Halfon
In the 2021/22 academic year, there were 43,200 apprenticeship starts in England at Level 6 and 7 (degree level), of which 22,000 were female and 21,200 were male. Information on the nationality of learners is not held for government funded further education courses via the Individualised Learner Record.
Further information on apprenticeship starts can be found in the apprenticeships and traineeships statistics publication, which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships.
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the uptake of foreign languages in schools.
Answered by Robin Walker
Increasing languages take-up is a key priority for the department. In September 2014, a statutory requirement for all key stage 2 pupils to study either an ancient or a modern foreign language was introduced to the national curriculum. The department has also taken steps to increase the uptake of languages at GCSE. GCSEs in all modern and ancient languages have been part of the English Baccalaureate performance measure for secondary schools, first introduced in 2010.
The department also recently completed its review into the subject content for French, German, and Spanish GCSEs – the most popular languages at this level. Although the new GCSE will not be available for first teaching until September 2024, the intention is that more pupils will want to study languages at GCSE level and encourage them to continue with this study to post-16 and beyond. The department published the government response to the consultation alongside the revised subject content in January 2022.
The total number of pupils in state-funded schools in England entered for examinations in at least one language GCSE has increased from 231,224 in 2010 to 253,379 in 2019. This amounted to an increase among all key stage 4 pupils from 40% in 2010 to 47% in 2019. With GCSE examinations due to recommence in 2022, the department will return to publishing, as far as possible, our usual range of English Baccalaureate entry and attainment measures.
The department also provides funding for several programmes to improve teaching quality and take-up in specific languages. These are:
Asked by: Nick Fletcher (Conservative - Don Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that children are assessed fairly in their upcoming GCSE and A Level assessments.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Fairness to young people is fundamental to the Department and Ofqual’s decision making. We want to ensure all young people have the confidence that, despite exams not going ahead, they will receive a grade that reflects their ability and enables them to progress.
Pupils will receive grades determined by their teachers, with assessments covering what they were taught, and not what they missed. Teachers have a good understanding of their pupils’ performance and how they compare to other pupils this year and in previous years. They are best placed to undertake an assessment of the level of learning loss of individuals as they know their pupils best.
Entitlements to reasonable adjustments should be taken into account by teachers when deciding which evidence to use, with flexibility to use or discount evidence. The range of evidence can be tailored to an individual pupil according to coverage of the specification.
Teachers have been provided with grade descriptors and exemplar materials to support them in making an evidence-based judgement of the grade at which each pupil is performing. Pupils will also have multiple chances to show what they know and can do and will be able to see the evidence their teacher plans to submit for them.
Exam boards have set out clear requirements for quality assurance to centres. Every centre will need to produce a policy setting out their approach to assessment and quality assurance, and exam boards will check these. Heads of Centre will also be required to provide a formal declaration about the accuracy and integrity of the grades submitted and the processes supporting them.
Every pupil will have the safety net of the option to appeal their grade if they wish to. If a pupil believes their grade is wrong, they will be able to ask their centre to check for errors and make sure they have followed their own process correctly.