Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that young performers who are absent from school receive an appropriate education.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The existing legislation on child performance is already sufficient. Under S37 of the Children and Young Persons Act (1963), a licence must be obtained before children can take part in certain types of performance, both professional and amateur, and in paid sport and modelling.
The licensing system is administered by local authorities. A licence will only be granted by the local authority once it is assured that the child’s education, health, and wellbeing will not suffer, and the conditions of the licence will be observed.
The current system provides a check that those responsible for such activities make suitable arrangements to safeguard the children involved and that any potential risks are mitigated. The needs of children, their wellbeing and education are paramount. Indeed, producers and organisers have a responsibility to ensure that each child is kept safe and that their education does not suffer.
All schools can grant leaves of absence for pupils to participate in a regulated performance (paid or unpaid) during school hours. Schools maintained by a local authority and special schools not maintained by a local authority can only do so in the following circumstances, under regulation 11(2) of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024:
On each occasion that schools take the attendance register they must record whether each registered pupil is physically present in school or, if not, the reason they are not in school by using the appropriate national attendance and absence codes from regulation 10 of the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2024.
The Children (Performances and Activities) (England) Regulations 2014 set out details of what safeguards must be in place to ensure that children do not perform excessively, limits are placed on performance duration, and requirements for breaks are set out, as well as ensuring that children do not also work on days that they are performing. They also set out arrangements for tutoring should they be absent from school to ensure that their education does not suffer. Requirements for chaperones, travel, changing, and accommodation arrangements are also defined. The premises for any performance must also be approved by the local authority.
These regulations are vital to children performing in a safe environment whilst ensuring that their education and wellbeing does not suffer.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is also strengthening child employment legislation, giving greater opportunities for meaningful suitable employment to children, whilst ensuring it does not have a negative impact on their health, development, and education.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial support she plans to provide to the Early Years sector to help manage the impact of proposed changes to employer National Insurance contributions.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
I refer the right hon. Member for Daventry to the answer of 11 November 2024 to Question 12804.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to embed a Whole Education Approach to mental health and wellbeing in all education settings.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The government is committed to improving mental health outcomes for all children and young people, as this is critical to breaking down barriers to opportunity and learning.
The department, along with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, provides guidance to schools and colleges on a whole school or college approach to promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/614cc965d3bf7f718518029c/Promoting_children_and_young_people_s_mental_health_and_wellbeing.pdf. The department has also provided a free to access resource hub for mental health leads, which can be found here: https://www.mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/whole-school-or-college-resources/.
Over 70% of all schools and colleges have accessed grants from the department to train a senior mental health lead, who develops their knowledge and skills to embed a whole school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing. Information is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/senior-mental-health-lead-training. In addition, as of April 2024, Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) cover 44% (4.2 million) of pupils in schools and learners in further education (FE) in England. Coverage of MHSTs is expected to cover at least 50% by the end of March 2025.
A key part of our approach is ensuring the right support is available to every young person that needs it, which is why we have committed to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school. The government will also be putting in place new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.
For early years settings, the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children have the best start in life and are kept healthy and safe. The EYFS statutory framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2.
The department works closely with the FE sector to support providers to develop and implement a whole college approach to mental health and wellbeing. This is supported by the Association of Colleges refreshed Mental Health and Wellbeing Charter, which was published in March 2024.
To raise standards in the higher education sector, the Office for Students has provided £400,000 of funding to the student mental health charity, Student Minds. This has enabled significant expansion of the University Mental Health Charter Programme, with 113 universities now signed up. The programme helps universities to adopt a whole institution approach to mental health.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure regional funding equality in the provision of education for children who are in hospital and requiring statutory entitlement to education.
Answered by Edward Timpson
We have been consulting on a national funding formula for high needs, to be implemented in 2018-19. As part of consultation, we have confirmed that for the time being we will continue to distribute funding for the education of children in hospital on the basis of local authorities’ current spending. These amounts are included in the high needs block of the dedicated schools grant that local authorities receive from the Education Funding Agency.
We are exploring with representatives from hospital schools and others how to devise a fairer distribution of funding for hospital education in future. In the meantime, we will continue to make any funding adjustments needed from year to year to reflect recent or forthcoming changes in hospital provision for children. The Education Funding Agency is currently finalising the hospital education adjustments that will be included in local authorities’ dedicated schools grant allocations for 2017-18.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that local authorities fulfil their duty to provide short breaks for disabled children.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department’s Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Advisory Team is continuing to offer support and challenge to local authorities to help make sure they meet all of their statutory requirements on SEND, and that quality continues to improve. There are also opportunities through the new Ofsted/Care Quality Commission SEND inspections framework for local areas to consider how well they are providing for the education, health and care needs of those with SEND, including their need for short breaks services. Eight local area inspections have taken place since May 2016.
Between April 2015 and March 2016, we awarded £250,555 to the Short Breaks Partnership (a consortium made up of Contact a Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Action for Children, and KIDS) to provide information and advice to those involved in designing, commissioning, providing, and taking up short breaks for disabled children. The Department for Education has allocated £200 million funding over the next four years to support innovation and improvement to children’s social work practice. We are currently considering how we can use some of this funding to support local innovative approaches to short breaks for disabled children and their families and for making services more accessible.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the planned early years workforce strategy will increase recruitment and improve retention of early years teachers.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The government recognises the importance of the early years workforce in improving quality and delivering better outcomes for children. That is why we are committed to publishing an early years workforce strategy. The strategy will set out how government will help to remove barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff. As part of the strategy government will look at the barriers to growing the body of graduates in the workforce.
The government wants to see more trained graduates in the workforce, and we are supporting this by providing funding for course fees and bursaries to eligible trainees, and also funding for employers to support trainees. Information about training routes is available on the Get into Teaching website at: https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Government has to meet demand for school places in Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
As announced at the Spending Review, the Government is investing £23 billion in school buildings to create 600,000 new school places, opening 500 new free schools and addressing essential maintenance needs. This commitment reflects our bold ambitions for education and provides a firm basis from which to deliver our goal of securing educational excellence in every corner of the country.
Local authorities are responsible for planning and securing sufficient school places in their area, and supporting them to do so is one of this Government’s top priorities. We allocate basic need funding to local authorities to help create new school places where they are needed. Leeds has been allocated £73 million of basic need funding for the period 2015-18. Leeds also received £99 million between 2011 and 2015, helping to create 8,800 new school places between 2010 and 2014.