Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support the mental health of children from (a) families seeking asylum and (b) refugee families in educational settings.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government wants all children, regardless of their background or the challenges they face, to grow up happy, healthy and safe.
While education settings are not specialist mental health support providers, schools and colleges have an important role to play in identifying and responding to mental health needs, whether by providing targeted pastoral support or ensuring referrals are made to external specialist support. The department has put in place a wide range of training and guidance to help education staff do so effectively.
The department’s mental health and behaviour guidance supports education staff to identify children in need of extra mental health support. This includes information on how adverse childhood experiences, including loss or separation and traumatic incidents, can affect children’s mental health, and on working with external agencies to put in place effective support. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-behaviour-in-schools--2.
The department is offering every state school and college in England funding to train a senior mental health lead, who can oversee an effective whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing. This approach should include robust processes for identifying pupils or groups of pupils in need of further support, which may include children from refugee or asylum-seeking families.
To ensure more children and young people have access to early intervention support, the department is continuing to roll out mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. These teams currently cover over 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education and the department is extending coverage to at least 50% by April 2025.
Further information on these programmes and other sources of support to help schools and colleges promote and support mental health can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mental-health-and-wellbeing-support-in-schools-and-colleges.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many academies were re-brokered in (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (b) 2023; and for what reasons each academy was re-brokered.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Between 2021 and 2023, 649 academies have transferred trust. The below table provides detail on the reasons for transfer. Further information is available via the Academy Transfers and Funding publication, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/academy-transfers-and-funding.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
Due to Intervention | 40 | 32 | 24 |
Transfer Initiated by Trust | 135 | 162 | 179 |
Sponsor Closure | 26 | 41 | 10 |
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of statutory educational assessments on the mental heath of children undertaking those assessments in (a) primary and (b) secondary education.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
At present, there are no statutory assessments in secondary education. Regarding statutory assessments in primary education, I refer the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles to the answer my right hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Schools, gave on 21 February 2023 to Question 141620.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to The National Food Strategy: The Plan, Appendices 3 and 14, published in July 2021, whether her Department has taken steps to implement the Eat and Learn initiative for schools in that Plan; and whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing the requirement to serve meat three times a week from the mandatory School Food Standards in the context of developing a sustainability and health-driven national reference diet.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department believes it is vital that pupils are taught about food and nutrition. Making healthy choices is relevant at all Key Stages, which is why these principles are taught and applied throughout school. Early Years practitioners encourage children to learn the importance of healthy eating using both narrative and visual resources. Pupils are then taught to understand healthy eating and lifestyle, including cooking, through science, design and technology and health education curricula at both primary and secondary level. Since autumn 2022, pupils have had the opportunity to be taught about food through the Climate Leaders’ Award.
Older pupils can understand the employment opportunities and the pathways leading to careers in the food sector. Ten high quality apprenticeships are available across a range of catering and hospitality professions and a T Level in Catering will teach the core knowledge and skills needed to enter such occupations, from September 2023.
Regarding the School Food Standards, the Department believes the standards provide a robust yet flexible framework to ensure that pupils in England continue to receive high quality and nutritious food that builds healthy eating habits for life. The standards are being kept under review.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to meet annual teacher recruitment targets.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As of the last School Workforce Census (November 2021, published in June 2022), the number of teachers remains high, with over 465,500 full time equivalent teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 24,000 more than in 2010. The Department recognises there is more to do to ensure teaching remains an attractive, high-status profession.
The Department recognises that some subjects remain more challenging to recruit to than others. The Department has announced a £181 million financial incentives package for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department has expanded the offer to international trainees in physics and languages.
The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has recently raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching. The Department has also implemented the School Teachers' Review Body recommendation of a 5% pay uplift for experienced teachers and leaders in 2022/23.
In autumn 2021, the Department launched the ‘apply for teacher training’ digital service. This enables a more streamlined, user friendly application route to attract and train teachers.
The Department is also taking action to attract more people to teaching and enable them to succeed through transforming their training and support. The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development underpinned by the ITT Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework. Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the final report of the Independent Commission on Assessment in Primary Education; and what plans the Government has to implement that report's recommendations.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Primary assessments play a crucial role in supporting pupils to grasp the basics of reading, writing and mathematics and to prepare them for secondary school. They allow parents and schools to understand pupils’ achievements in relation to the age-related attainment expectations outlined in the National Curriculum.
In 2017, the Department carried out a consultation into primary assessment in England, with the aim of creating a settled policy in this area. The consultation received over 4,000 responses from a diverse range of backgrounds and specialisms, providing a broad and informed range of views. The Department has reached the end of the programme of reform to the current primary assessment system that followed. The Department has no current plans to undertake further major reform.
The Department remains committed to producing and publishing school-level accountability measures using full-cohort assessment data, which provide important information to support parents when choosing schools. The Department keeps all school performance measures under review, and welcomes feedback on how it can be refined and improved.
As primary school tests and assessments returned in 2021/22 for the first time since 2019, without any adaptations, the results were not published in Key Stage 2 performance tables. The usual suite of Key Stage 2 accountability measures has been produced at school level and shared securely with primary schools, academy trusts, Local Authorities and Ofsted to inform school improvement, inspection and to help identify schools most in need of support. This is a transitional arrangement for the first year in which primary assessments returned. The Department intends to publish Key Stage 2 assessment data on the performance measures website again for 2022/23.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the level of work being undertaken by teachers on educational outcomes.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department knows that there are many factors that affect educational outcomes. There is an ongoing programme of research within the Department to understand the level of work being undertaken by teachers and headteachers, and the perceptions of workload across the workforce. It is not possible to draw direct causal links between teacher workload and educational outcomes from the existing evidence base.
The Department has taken action to improve teacher and headteacher workload, working with the profession to understand and address longstanding issues around marking, planning and data management. The School Workload Reduction toolkit, developed alongside headteachers, is a helpful resource for schools to use to reduce workload. The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, published in 2021, is a set of commitments from the Government, Ofsted, and schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff and includes an explicit commitment by the Department to drive down unnecessary workload.
There was a five-hour reduction in teachers' self-reported working hours between 2016 and 2019. While progress has been made working alongside schools, the Department recognises there is still more to be done. The Department will continue to work together with headteachers, teachers and their representatives to reduce unnecessary workload and promote their wellbeing.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of statutory mental health assessments on children undertaking those assessments in (a) primary and (b) secondary education.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
There are no statutory mental health assessments in primary or secondary schools. It is up to schools to decide what assessments to use with their pupils in order to inform their whole-school mental health provision, as well as the support that might be needed by individual pupils, taking into account the effect of the assessment on pupils.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment the Government has made of the adequacy of levels of student maintenance loans.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is currently considering options for changes to loans and grants for living and other costs for the 2023/24 academic year, starting in August 2023. An announcement will follow in due course.
The department has continued to increase living costs support each year, with a 2.3% increase to maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for the 2022/23 academic year. Students who have been awarded a loan for living costs for the 2022/23 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the 2022/23 tax year has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment, can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.
The department recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year which have affected students. However, decisions on student finance will have to be taken alongside other spending priorities to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of higher education are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
The department is working with the Office for Students to ensure universities support students in hardship using both hardship funds and drawing on the student premium. As part of this, we have invested £261 million into the student premium this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help.
To help with the cost of living all households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount. The Energy Prices Act passed on 25 October 2022 includes the provision to require landlords to pass benefits they receive from energy price support, as appropriate, onto end users. Further details of the requirements under this act are set out in the legislation.
Students whose bills are included in their rent, including energy charges, will typically have agreed their accommodation costs upfront when signing their contract for the current academic year. Businesses, including those that provide student accommodation, are covered by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which provides energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in Great Britain.
A Treasury-led review will be launched to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023.
Any student that has concerns should speak to their university about securing additional support.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to support students through the cost of living crisis.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is working with the Office for Students (OfS) to ensure universities support students in hardship using both hardship funds and drawing on the student premium. As part of this, we have invested £261 million into the student premium this academic year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. Further to this, higher education providers offer additional support programmes.
All households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount. The Energy Prices Act passed on 25 October 2022 includes the provision to require landlords to pass benefits they receive from energy price support, as appropriate, onto end users. Further details of the requirements under this act are set out in the legislation.
Students whose bills are included in their rent, including energy charges, will typically have agreed their accommodation costs upfront when signing their contract for the current academic year. Businesses, including those that provide student accommodation, are covered by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which provides energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in Great Britain.
A Treasury-led review will be launched to consider how to support households and businesses with energy bills after April 2023.
Any student that has concerns should speak to their university about securing additional support.