Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve the retention rate of teachers in England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is firmly committed to addressing the issues that teachers say make them consider leaving teaching.
The Department continues to work with the sector to remove practices that create unnecessary workload and to develop a workload reduction toolkit.
The Department published guidance in February 2017 to help schools and employers to encourage, support, and enable flexible working requests.
The Department is piloting a new approach for mathematics trainee teachers to test whether offering a proportion of the bursary as a retention incentive remains as effective in encouraging candidates to train to teach. The teachers’ student loan reimbursement scheme is also a pilot programme aimed at increasing recruitment and retention in areas of greatest need. All eligible teachers will be able to apply for a reimbursement on their student loan payments made in the first 10 years of their careers, and can receive up to £1,350 in payments.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the School Direct route into teaching.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Initial teacher training (ITT) recruitment and performance data shows School Direct makes a valuable contribution towards the teacher workforce.
In the academic year 2017/18, there were 10,070 new entrants to School Direct courses, making up 36% of the total number of entrants to post-graduate ITT.
In the academic year 2015/2016, 93% of trainee teachers on School Direct courses achieved Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and 96% of those who qualified were in a teaching post within six months. This compares favourably to trainees on Higher Education Institution courses, with 90% awarded QTS and 93% of those who qualified being in a teaching post within six months.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools that have been converted to academies have not been inspected by Ofsted within three years of opening.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to you and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools in Bethnal Green and Bow constituency have become an academy in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Two schools in Bethnal Green and Bow constituency have become academies since 2010. The Green Spring Academy Shoreditch opened in 2012 and the Old Ford Primary School opened in 2013.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Government has made of the regional disparities in funded childcare places in England.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On 19 December 2017, we published ’30 hours free childcare: autumn term 2017’ which showed for the first time the number of children in a 30 hours place.
This showed that, based on local authority returns to a voluntary survey, an estimated 202,800 children were in a 30 hours place. At a national level, this was 90% of the total number of codes generated. At a regional level this ranged from 85% in the South East to 97% in the North East.
This is the first term of delivering a new national programme and it is encouraging that no region has under 85% of children with a 30 hours code in a 30 hours place. We cannot account for a parents’ preference and behaviour which could, of course, vary across the country depending on individual circumstances.
Our new Early Years National Funding Formula includes an ‘Area Cost Adjustment’ to reflect the fact that the costs of delivering childcare vary between different local authority areas. We will monitor all 30 hours data over the first year of delivery to understand how the new policy is being delivered and identify any operational challenges.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many childcare providers in (a) Bethnal Green and Bow, (b) London and (c) England have fallen off the register in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Ofsted is the non-ministerial government department responsible for the regulation of early education and childcare providers. They publish a regular series of statistics relating to early years providers, which can be viewed from this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted/about/statistics.
This is a matter for Ofsted. I have asked, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, to write to the hon. Member. A copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many foreign languages have been available at (a) GCSE and (b) A-Level in each of the last 10 years; and how many such languages will be available at both levels of examination in each of the next three academic years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Full historical data about all qualifications (including GCSEs and A levels in modern foreign languages) and the respective dates when they were available to pupils across England are available at http://www.education.gov.uk/section96/download.shtml.
The Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) maintains a register of current, withdrawn and expired regulated qualifications and their operational start and end dates. The register includes qualifications available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is available at http://register.ofqual.gov.uk/.
19 modern foreign languages are available to students starting courses in September 2016. These are: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Modern Greek, Gujarati, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. Classical languages - classical Greek, Latin and Biblical Hebrew - are also available.
We expect all of these, except Dutch, to continue to be available for students starting courses in September 2017 and September 2018.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to make the entitlement to an early education place a legal requirement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
English local authorities have a statutory duty under section 7 of the Childcare Act 2006 to secure a free early education place of 15 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year for all three- and four-year-olds and two-year-olds who meet the eligibility criteria. The early education entitlement is not a legal requirement for parents, and we know that the current model is extremely successful, with 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds taking up a place. And, Based on survey data collected from local authorities in the autumn of 2015 it is estimated that 182,000 two-year-olds - around 72% of eligible children - have taken up a place on the two-year-old programme.
The Secretary of State has a statutory duty under the Childcare Act 2016 to secure an additional 15 hours a week of free childcare for 38 weeks of the year for working parents of three- and four-year-olds.
The Secretary of State will discharge the duty in clause 2 of the Childcare Act, the duty to secure 30 hours of free childcare for working parents, through all local authorities in England. Local authorities will, therefore, be required to secure childcare provision free of charge to qualifying children.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policy on extending 30 hour free childcare to three and four year olds of the findings of the Family and Childcare Trust 2016 childcare survey on the ability of nurseries to provide places for the current offer of 15 hours.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The childcare sector is healthy, vibrant and growing. More parents than ever are accessing high-quality free childcare and thanks to our plan to double the offer for working parents. We expect that trend to continue. Government statistics released in June 2015 show that the current take up rate for the 15 hours free early education entitlement is 99% for 4-year-olds and 94% for 3-year-olds. These latest figures also show 7,000 more providers are offering the universal 15 hours offer with 1.3 million children, the vast majority, taking it up. The statistics are available on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/provision-for-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2015.
We will be investing over £1 billion more a year by 2019-20 on free childcare places for 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds. This includes at least £50 million of capital funding to create additional early years places, and over £300 million a year to increase the average hourly rate paid to childcare providers. This is in addition to our commitment to capital funding to create nursery provision as part of new Free Schools, which we estimate will create up to 4,000 places.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of (a) two years old and (b) three to four years old have been signed up to free early education in (i) the UK, (ii) London and (iii) Bethnal Green and Bow constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Funded early education for two-year-olds was first introduced in September 2013 and first reported in 2014 in the statistical publication “Provision for children under-five years of age in England”. This is available online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-childcare-and-early-years. Figures are provided at national, regional and local authority level. Information at constituency level is not available.