Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish an Equality Impact Assessment of The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department completed both an equality impact assessment and a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment before introducing the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, which will ban the placement of children under 16 in independent and semi-independent settings from September. We can confirm that the government will publish both documents shortly.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish a Child Rights Impact Assessment of The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The department completed both an equality impact assessment and a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment before introducing the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021, which will ban the placement of children under 16 in independent and semi-independent settings from September. We can confirm that the government will publish both documents shortly.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department has issued to local authorities on the return of SEND pupils to school.
Answered by Vicky Ford
Supporting all children and young people and keeping them safe is the highest priority for the government, especially at this time. That is why, throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, educational settings have been asked to ensure that children and young people with education, health and care (EHC) plans can continue to attend where appropriate and, following a risk assessment, where their needs can be safely met in the educational environment.
Returning to normal educational routines as quickly as possible will be critical for children and young people’s education and wellbeing. From 1 June, we asked special educational settings to welcome back as many children and young people as could be safely catered for in their setting, based on their risk assessment as the primary deciding factor. In mainstream settings, we asked that children and young people with EHC plans in eligible year groups experience the same return to settings as their peers without EHC plans in the same year group, informed by their risk assessments. However, the prevalence of COVID-19 has decreased and the balance of risk is now overwhelmingly in favour of all children and young people, including those with special educational needs and disability (SEND), returning to their educational setting so that they can receive high-quality teaching and specialist professional care.
On 2 July, the government published detailed plans for schools and colleges that set out what is needed to plan for a full return of their pupils and students in September, including for special education settings. We have also updated the guidance for higher education providers on reopening university campuses.
The guidance has been developed with medical experts from Public Health England and we continue to work closely with the country’s best scientific and medical experts to ensure that children, young people and staff are as safe as possible. The guidance provides specific advice on approaches for reducing the risk of transmission as well as other operational considerations for educational settings to follow as they prepare for welcoming back all pupils and students with SEND in both mainstream and specialist settings.
The guidance for special educational settings can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings.
The guidance for mainstream settings is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.
The guidance for further education settings is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision/what-fe-colleges-and-providers-will-need-to-do-from-the-start-of-the-2020-autumn-term.
The guidance for higher education settings is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-reopening-buildings-and-campuses/higher-education-reopening-buildings-and-campuses.
We will continue to work closely with special education settings, parents and carers, local authorities and other partner organisations ahead of September. For instance, we know that specific transport arrangements for children and young people with SEND will be critical. We will publish guidance for local authorities who provide dedicated school transport shortly.
Asked by: Paul Bristow (Conservative - Peterborough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to allocate addition and (a) funding and (b) resources to the provision of music teaching in schools in (i) England and (ii) in Peterborough constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes that music is an important subject and that all pupils should receive a high-quality music education. The subject is compulsory in the national curriculum up to age 14.
To support schools to deliver high quality music education for all their pupils, the Government has provided funding of over £300 million for music education hubs across England between 2016 and 2020, including £76 million in 2019-20, and further funding to support hubs with the additional costs under the teachers’ pension scheme. This is a significant increase over the £58 million we gave hubs in 2014.
The Government recently announced a further year’s funding for music hubs, to help thousands more children learn to play musical instruments, as well as continued support for a range of smaller music and arts programmes, totalling £85 million. We will also be offering an ‘arts premium’ of £90 million each year for secondary schools in England from 2021 to fund enriching activities for all pupils.
Peterborough is served by the Peterborough Music Education Hub. In 2020-21, we will be providing the hub with over £360,000 of funding to continue to support the city’s schools to deliver high-quality music education. In 2016-17, the last year data for which data is available, the hub provided individual lessons to over 2,500 pupils, small group lessons for over 1,000 pupils and whole class ensemble teaching to over 3,300 pupils. The hub also supported or delivered 215 ensembles. The Government trusts that with this announced funding, this important work will continue, both in Peterborough and across England.