Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps her Department has taken to provide funding for mental health services for children in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
While it is not for schools to provide clinical mental health services and teachers should not be expected to diagnose or treat mental health, schools are best placed to decide what pastoral support to put in place to support their pupils.
To help schools to make informed decisions on what support to provide, the department is funding all schools and colleges in England to train senior mental health leads who can put in place effective whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. This includes how to ensure they are including robust processes for identifying students or specific groups who need additional mental health support. Two thirds of schools and colleges will have been able to access funding by April 2023, backed by a £10 million investment for the 2022/23 financial year. The department is also providing over £1 billion Recovery Premium funding for schools for the 2021/22 and 2023/24 academic years which, on top of pupil premium, can be used to support pupil mental health and wellbeing, including providing counselling services.
The department is working with the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England to increase the number of Mental Health Support Teams working in schools and colleges. These teams offer support to children and young people experiencing common mental health issues and facilitate smoother access to external specialist support. As of Spring 2022, there are 287 Mental Health Support Teams covering 26% of pupils in schools and learners in further education. More teams are on the way, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of child mental health provision in (a) primary and (b) secondary school settings.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
I refer the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree to the answer I gave on 25 January 2023 to Question 126752.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the level of school holiday hunger; and whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing support to local authorities to help tackle school holiday hunger.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
The department is investing over £200 million a year in our holiday activities and food (HAF) programme. Delivered through grants to local authorities across England, HAF provides free holiday club places to children from low-income families, providing them with enriching activities and healthy meals over the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays.
Last summer, the department reached over 685,000 children and young people in England, including over 475,000 children eligible for free school meals.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the Waste Management Policy of schools in England; and if she will make an estimate of the number of schools that have policies in place to ensure that waste materials are recycled.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not currently collect data on waste management policies of schools in England. Due to the different services provided for recycling by Local Authorities, it is not possible to provide a national estimate.
In the sustainability and climate change strategy for the education system, the Department has set out its commitment to supporting schools to align with the Resources and Waste Strategy to reduce all waste, moving away from single use items and towards re-usable alternatives, wherever possible.
The Department will be supporting schools to establish climate action plans, which will set out the action they will take to enable greater sustainability in how their school operates, including waste management.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to guarantee places in higher education settings for disadvantaged students.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
Access to higher education (HE) should be based on a student’s attainment and their ability to succeed, rather than their background.
In November 2021, the department issued guidance to the Office for Students (OfS) to refocus the Access and Participation Regime. We asked them to create a system that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by ensuring students can make the right choices, accessing and succeeding on high-quality courses which are valued by employers and lead to good graduate employment. We have appointed John Blake as Director for Fair Access and Participation at the OfS, and he will play a pivotal role in driving this work forward.
It is very important that providers focus on supporting students to see good outcomes, not just getting more disadvantaged students through the door, this will ensure that HE remains an engine of true social mobility. We know that prior attainment is a key determinant of successful participation in HE, and that is why we are asking universities to take on a more direct role in driving up the standards in schools.
The department also recently consulted on the design of a new National State Scholarship, worth up to £75 million, which will help the highest achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds overcome barriers to attending and succeeding on the course that is right for them.
Ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to access a world-class education remains a top priority, and we expect universities to do all they can to help disadvantaged students. This year, more students from disadvantaged backgrounds went to university than ever before.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what process his Department has in place to measure social mobility in children and young people from primary school age to (a) leaving education and (b) entering higher education.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department monitors key metrics internally and publishes data on outcomes of children and young people from early years to post-16. This includes breakdowns of data by disadvantaged and vulnerable cohorts, and by regions and local authority.
The most relevant measures that the department tracks by these cohorts are described below, with links to the latest statistical publications: