Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he will respond to the correspondence of 23 May 2022 from the hon. Member for West Lancashire on remote learning, reference ZA59785.
Answered by Will Quince
I can confirm that a response has been sent to the hon. Member for West Lancashire on 19 July 2022.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to respond to the letter of 11 June 2021 from the hon. Member for West Lancashire on financial support for student nurses, reference ZA56747.
Answered by Robin Walker
I can confirm that a response has been sent to the hon. Member for West Lancashire.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for West Lancashire of 21 July 2021 on a constituent's student finance decision, reference ZA56976.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I can confirm that a response has been sent to the hon. Member for West Lancashire.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of adopting a long-term strategy to help improve physical activity and wellbeing in young people.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health and Social Care to provide children with greater opportunities to do 60 minutes of sport and physical activity every day inside and outside school.
The Government set out initial actions in the School Sport and Activity Action Plan in July 2019. The Department has worked to adapt to the challenges of the COVID-19 outbreak and is delivering on the actions set out in the plan. This includes providing £11.6 million to Sport England to understand and overcome barriers to schools opening their sport facilities, funding nine teaching school networks to develop and deliver Physical Education (PE) continued professional development programmes and Sport England has provided £1.5 million of National Lottery funding to launch a new digital schools’ platform, designed to reach girls who have disengaged from PE. The Department subsequently announced £10.1 million in funding to support schools to open sports facilities outside of the school day.
The Government has confirmed its intention to publish an update to the action plan following the Spending Review later this year and is working closely with sport organisations through the School Sport and Activity Sector Forum to discuss the Government’s long term approach to PE and school sport.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress he is making on implementing his policies on improving children's health and wellbeing through the provision of physical education and school sport; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department of Health and Social Care to provide children with greater opportunities to do 60 minutes of sport and physical activity every day inside and outside school.
The Government set out initial actions in the School Sport and Activity Action Plan in July 2019. The Department has worked to adapt to the challenges of the COVID-19 outbreak and is delivering on the actions set out in the plan. This includes providing £11.6 million to Sport England to understand and overcome barriers to schools opening their sport facilities, funding nine teaching school networks to develop and deliver Physical Education (PE) continued professional development programmes and Sport England has provided £1.5 million of National Lottery funding to launch a new digital schools’ platform, designed to reach girls who have disengaged from PE. The Department subsequently announced £10.1 million in funding to support schools to open sports facilities outside of the school day.
The Government has confirmed its intention to publish an update to the action plan following the Spending Review later this year and is working closely with sport organisations through the School Sport and Activity Sector Forum to discuss the Government’s long term approach to PE and school sport.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the role that physical education and school sport can play in promoting mental wellbeing among children and young people.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department works with the Department of Health and Social Care to regularly review the latest evidence on children and young people’s mental wellbeing, including the impact of physical activity and sport. Physical education (PE) and school sport play a central role in ensuring that pupils have the opportunity to take part in sport and exercise. For this reason, PE is a foundation subject in all four Key Stages of the National Curriculum.
Evidence suggests that good quality sporting activity can have a positive impact on children and young people’s general wellbeing and mental health. For example, research by the National Centre for Social Research shows that participating in organised sports and joining after school clubs can help to improve primary school children’s academic performance and social skills.
There is also evidence that organised sporting activity can have a positive effect on personal development and contribute to wellbeing such as improved self-esteem, self-confidence, and social skills. Such activity can have a beneficial effect on mental health in terms of reducing anxiety, emotional distress, and depressive symptoms.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that children with disabilities can participate in appropriate physical activity at school.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has provided £900,000 to the Inclusion 2020 programme since 2018, which supports 9,328 schools with continuing professional development to ensure that physical education (PE) and school sport is inclusive of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This programme funded the development of new teacher resources such as the ‘All about Autism, All about Me’ digital toolkit, endorsed by the National Autistic Society, which provides support for making PE and sport inclusive to pupils with autism spectrum conditions.
The Department has committed to continue to fund a programme to support children and young people with SEND to take part in PE and school sport. It launched an open competition process last month to select a new programme.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the UK Committee for UNICEF and Carnegie UK Trust’s recent report, Closing the Digital Divide for Good; and what steps his Department plans to take to implement the recommendations outlined in that report.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s investment in devices, platforms, training and digital services is being built on to develop a sustainable strategy for digital technology in education. As part of this, the Department will review the report and consider the implications.