Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to provide additional funding to universities to help support international students from Sudan whose families have been displaced by the war in that country.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government appreciates the difficult circumstances that students from Sudan may currently be facing.
Students experiencing financial difficulties should contact their university to discuss their circumstances. Higher education (HE) providers have their own hardship funds to support students who have financial issues and, like domestic students, international students can apply to their provider to access these funds. HE providers also offer a range of dedicated support to their international students pre-arrival, on-arrival and during their studies.
In addition, the UK Council for International Student Affairs offers a range of information and guidance for international students who may be experiencing unexpected financial hardship, which can be found here: https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Information--Advice/Fees-and-Money/Unexpected-financial-hardship.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has had discussions with representatives of Oxford Cambridge and RSA on the adequacy of the GCSE Computer Science examination taken by students on 25 May 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Dr Jo Saxton, to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential impact of trends in the level of overcrowding in social housing in Birmingham on (a) primary and (b) secondary school children's education outcomes in that area.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has evaluated the national impact of poverty on educational outcomes. Evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation, Star Assessments and Renaissance Learning shows that disadvantaged pupils have fallen further behind non disadvantaged pupils compared with pre COVID-19 pandemic levels, at Key Stages 1, 2 and 4. This is indicated by a rise in the disadvantage gap index between 2019 and 2022 at KS2 and KS4. That is why the Department has increased its range of support for pupils, families, and schools.
In 2022/23, the Department will be allocating approximately £2,000 per pupil for all pupils who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, which will be delivered through the National Funding Formula, the Pupil Premium, and the 2022/23 School Supplementary Grant together. The Pupil Premium, of which £107.5 million will be allocated to Birmingham schools in 2023/24, enables schools to provide extra support for disadvantaged pupils to help improve their academic and personal achievements. Of the 82,408 eligible pupils in Birmingham, £1,455 per pupil will go to each primary school, £1,035 per pupil to each secondary school, and schools will also receive £ 2,530 per looked after and previously looked after child.
Support also includes the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), where funding has been allocated to schools based on rates of disadvantage. Since the launch of the NTP in November 2020, around 2.85 million tutoring courses have been started, as at 6 October 2022. The six million courses the Department committed to creating in the Schools White Paper will be delivered by 2024. The Department has made available almost £5 billion for education recovery, including multi year direct investment, so that schools can deliver evidence based interventions, based on pupil’s needs. Collectively, these programmes are making a difference to pupils and schools. Recent data from the Education Policy Institute and Rising Stars/Hodder Education shows that for primary age pupils, most year groups have either caught up in English and mathematics or are now on average 4 to6 weeks behind pre COVID-19 pandemic levels, a significant increase from previous studies which suggested pupils were 2.5 to 3 months behind.
In addition, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities leads an interministerial group for Levelling Up to facilitate cross Government work on the Levelling Up agenda. This group includes Ministers from all Departments leading on missions, including an ambition to reduce the number of poor quality rented homes by one half and for 90% of pupils to achieve the expected level at Key Stage 2. The group provides an opportunity for support, challenge, and accountability on the progression of these missions.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her planned timetable is for the publication of a Government response to the report by the Competition and Markets Authority entitled Children’s social care market study: final report, published on 10 March 2022.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department is rapidly working on a detailed implementation strategy in response to the three independent reviews into children’s social care published in 2022. A response will be published early this year.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in Birmingham (a) applied and (b) were successful with their application to the School Rebuilding Programme in the last two years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department announced the next 239 schools prioritised for the School Rebuilding Programme (SRP) on 16 December 2022. This included 10 schools of the 30 nominations received from within the Birmingham Local Authority area. This is in addition to the five schools previously announced in rounds one to three of the programme and means that a total of 15 schools will be rebuilt or refurbished as part of the SRP.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent estimate of the number of children in poverty in Birmingham who are not eligible for free school meals.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Education, including free school meals (FSM), is a devolved matter and the response outlines the information for England only.
The latest published statistics from the Department are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics. The figures show that around 1.9 million pupils are claiming FSM. This equates to 22.5% of all pupils, up from 20.8% in 2021. Together with a further 1.25 million infants supported through the Universal Infant Free School Meal policy, over one third of school children are now provided with FSM, at a cost of over £1 billion a year. The Department currently has protections in place, ensuring that eligible pupils keep their FSM entitlement even if their household circumstances improve.
The Department believes that the current eligibility threshold level, which enables children in low income households to benefit from FSM while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one. The Department will continue to keep FSM eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them, as well as continuing to monitor current issues that impact disadvantaged families, such as the rising cost of living, and its impact on FSM.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of vacancies in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools for roles with SEND responsibilities in (i) Birmingham and (ii) the West Midlands.
Answered by Will Quince
Information on the school workforce in state-funded schools in England, including the number of teacher vacancies and temporarily filled posts, is published in the annual ‘school workforce in England’ national statistics site, which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england. The latest information is as of November 2021.
Information on the role of staff vacancies, such as special educational needs and disabilities responsibilities, is not collected by the department.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of teacher training placements that have been filled for the 2022-23 intake in (a) chemistry, (b) computing, (c) mathematics and (d) physics in (i) Birmingham and (ii) the West Midlands.
Answered by Will Quince
As of 19 June 2022, the number of candidates who have been recruited or have accepted offers (pending conditions) to start a postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) course (excluding High Potential ITT) in the 2022/23 academic year with an ITT provider in the West Midlands is: 53 for chemistry, 47 for computing, 176 for mathematics and 37 for physics.[1]
ITT recruitment data is available by subject and region. The department does not hold analysis of the number of acceptances at a local authority district level.
[1] The data provided counts all acceptances by the area of the provider the student applied to. Provider areas are derived from their contact address. These areas may be different to where students do their training. The data provided is based on the region of the training provider, not the accrediting provider.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether adjustments have been made to the target number of trainee secondary teachers being recruited for (a) modern foreign languages and (b) religious education in 2022-23 on the basis of historical recruitment levels.
Answered by Robin Walker
The attached table shows the new entrants to postgraduate Initial Teacher Training for modern foreign languages and religious education for the recruitment years from 2017/18 to 2021/22. These figures have been taken from the ITT Census publication which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census/2021-22#releaseHeadlines-tables.
The table also presents the postgraduate ITT recruitment targets for those subjects as well as the percentage of the target reached in each of the recruitment years. It is not recommended to add up shortfalls to targets over several years to obtain a ‘cumulative shortfall’. This would likely over-state the true recruitment shortfall over the period - a consequence of the methodology used to set the targets each year.
The 2022/23 recruitment year Postgraduate Initial Teacher Training (PGITT) targets include an adjustment to build in impacts of recruitment being below targets for the two PGITT rounds prior to 2022/23 (the 2020/21 and 2021/22 recruitment year rounds).
The 2022/23 recruitment year Modern Foreign Languages (including Classics) PGITT target of 2,170 trainees includes such an adjustment due to missed targets in the two previous ITT cycles.
For Religious Education, the 2022/23 recruitment year PGITT target of 450 trainees does not include any adjustments for under-recruitment in the two previous ITT cycles. Whilst the 2021/22 recruitment year target for Religious Education was slightly below target (99% of target), this under-recruitment was offset by increases in supply from other routes such as returners to teaching.
For more information on the 2022/23 recruitment year PGITT targets and the underlying methodology, please see the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets/2022-23#releaseHeadlines-summary.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the percentage shortfall in the cumulative targets for recruitment of trainee secondary teachers of (a) religious education and (b) modern foreign languages for the recruitment period 2017-18 to 2021-22, excluding the 2020-21 recruitment year.
Answered by Robin Walker
The attached table shows the new entrants to postgraduate Initial Teacher Training for modern foreign languages and religious education for the recruitment years from 2017/18 to 2021/22. These figures have been taken from the ITT Census publication which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census/2021-22#releaseHeadlines-tables.
The table also presents the postgraduate ITT recruitment targets for those subjects as well as the percentage of the target reached in each of the recruitment years. It is not recommended to add up shortfalls to targets over several years to obtain a ‘cumulative shortfall’. This would likely over-state the true recruitment shortfall over the period - a consequence of the methodology used to set the targets each year.
The 2022/23 recruitment year Postgraduate Initial Teacher Training (PGITT) targets include an adjustment to build in impacts of recruitment being below targets for the two PGITT rounds prior to 2022/23 (the 2020/21 and 2021/22 recruitment year rounds).
The 2022/23 recruitment year Modern Foreign Languages (including Classics) PGITT target of 2,170 trainees includes such an adjustment due to missed targets in the two previous ITT cycles.
For Religious Education, the 2022/23 recruitment year PGITT target of 450 trainees does not include any adjustments for under-recruitment in the two previous ITT cycles. Whilst the 2021/22 recruitment year target for Religious Education was slightly below target (99% of target), this under-recruitment was offset by increases in supply from other routes such as returners to teaching.
For more information on the 2022/23 recruitment year PGITT targets and the underlying methodology, please see the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets/2022-23#releaseHeadlines-summary.