Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department has issued to schools to ensure that the individual circumstances of pupils can be taken into consideration and discretion exercised in awarding GCSE grades.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Students should have confidence in their grades this year. Awarding organisations have provided assessment materials, guidance, and training to support centres to make fair, consistent, and evidence based decisions which are without bias. Ofqual has also published information for centres about making objective judgements this year.
For the 2021 summer series, reasonable adjustments for disabled students and access arrangements should have been in place when evidence was generated. Where they were not, centres should take that into account when coming to their judgement. Teachers have had the flexibility to substitute or discount evidence where reasonable adjustments were not applied. For all assessments completed in the summer term, centres should have ensured students had access to reasonable adjustments. Special circumstances that may lead a teacher to disregard a piece of evidence or to replace it with another piece of evidence would cover instances where students were not provided with their approved access arrangements or reasonable adjustments when completing their work. This also applies where temporary illness or injury, bereavement, or some other event outside of the student’s control might have temporarily affected their performance.
This year, teachers have assessed their students based on what they were taught, not what they missed. Regarding the use of set texts, the Department expects students to have been assessed on the specific texts taught by their schools. Schools should follow their own processes for ensuring students have access to set texts, as they would in any other year.
Centres should follow the schools operational guidance on equipment when using classroom based resources, available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-coronavirus-covid-19-operational-guidance#system-of-controls.
Where schools have taught remotely, they should follow the guidance on remote education, which refers to the provision of resources, available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-coronavirus-covid-19-operational-guidance#system-of-controls.
Where only some of the text has been taught, teachers had the flexibility to focus their assessments on the proportion taught.
Deadline for centres to submit their teacher assessed grades was 18 June so centres have therefore completed their assessments for the 2021 series.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether (a) schools and (b) teachers in England will receive additional financial support to carry out the work associated with providing pupils with teacher assessment grades.
Answered by Nick Gibb
This year, due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, students are being awarded grades determined by their teachers and based on a range of evidence. Assessing students and determining their standard of performance is an important part of teachers’ roles in a typical year. Nevertheless, many elements of the approach to awarding qualifications in 2021 have been designed with workload in mind. The Department is regularly engaging with teacher unions and other sector representatives to ensure the processes developed, and the guidance that supports them, reflects their feedback. The Joint Council for Qualifications and the exam boards have published extensive guidance and materials for schools and colleges to support teachers with their assessment, marking and making their judgements of students’ performance in these challenging circumstances.
Exceptionally for 2021, the Department is providing additional funding to centres for teachers to process priority appeals following results day. This will be £75 per each priority appeal. In addition, we are providing funding to awarding organisations so that state-funded schools will not need to pay a fee for formal appeals this year. Last year, we announced the biggest pay rise the teaching profession has seen since 2005, with above-inflation rises to the teacher pay scales. We are also committed to introducing a £30,000 starting salary.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what research his Department has carried out or commissioned on the effect of hunger and poverty on children's ability to learn effectively.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The government supports the provision of nutritious food in schools, which ensures that pupils are well nourished, develop healthy eating habits and can concentrate and learn. Under the benefits-related criteria, there are currently 1.6 million pupils eligible for and claiming a free school meal, and a further 1.4 million infant-aged children who benefit from our Universal Infant Free School Meals policy.
The government also funds breakfast clubs in over 2,450 schools to support more than a quarter of a million children in the most disadvantaged areas of the country. Up to £24 million will be available to extend our support for school breakfast clubs until 2023, to make sure that thousands of children in disadvantaged areas have a healthy start to the day. We know that breakfast clubs can bring a wide range of benefits for children. An evaluation by the Education Endowment Foundation found that supporting schools to run a free-of-charge, universal breakfast club before school delivered an average of 2 months’ additional progress for pupils in key stage 1 with moderate to low security. Breakfast club schools also saw an improvement in pupil behaviour and attendance.
Backed by an investment of up to £220 million, the Holiday Activities and Food programme ran nationwide throughout the Easter holiday period and will run during the summer and Christmas holidays in 2021, supporting disadvantaged pupils with enriching activities, providing them with healthy food, helping them to learn new things and improving socialisation. This programme builds on pilots of the scheme since 2018, including last summer’s programme, which supported around 50,000 children across 17 local authorities. We have developed this programme, as we know that disadvantaged children are more likely to experience unhealthy holidays (in terms of nutrition and physical exercise), are less likely to take part in enriching activities and can experience isolation during the holidays.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether a student who receives a positive result on a school-based lateral flow test may return to school and stop self-isolating, if they receive a negative result on a PCR test.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In January, confirmatory PCR testing for pupils and students taking lateral flow tests in an assisted setting at school or college was paused. This was the same across all other sectors and NHS Test and Trace set out at the time that this was expected to be a temporary measure until prevalence was reduced. NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England have kept the changing clinical circumstances under review and have now advised that, due to the ability for PCR to now detect and track new variants and the lower prevalence of COVID-19, confirmatory PCR testing should now be reintroduced.
If you conduct a lateral flow test at home or receive a supervised school/college-based lateral flow test (LFT) as part of the rapid asymptomatic testing programme and it is positive then you, your close contacts, and other members of your household should self-isolate immediately in line with NHS Test and Trace guidance. All positive results from rapid tests, whether conducted at home or at a school or college, will then need to be confirmed with a PCR test within two days of the positive LFT. This should be booked immediately either online or by calling 119. Whilst awaiting the PCR result, you and your close contacts should continue to self-isolate. If the PCR test is negative, provided it was taken within two days of the positive LFT, it overrides the LFT and you can return to school or college and you, your close contacts, and other members of your household can stop self-isolating.
NHS Test and Trace guidance is available to view here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what specific support his Department will provide to help enable current in Year 10 pupil to be adequately prepared for GCSEs at the end of next academic year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government recognises that extended school and college restrictions have had a substantial impact on children and young people’s education and are committed to helping pupils make up lost education due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
We know that it is important that pupils in this cohort are able to obtain a grade safely and fairly and we will continue to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on all pupils to ensure that those due to take exams in 2022 are supported to move on to the next stage of their lives fairly.
The Department has appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner to oversee the long-term plan to help schools support pupils make up their education over the course of this Parliament. Sir Kevan will engage with parents, pupils, and teachers in the development of this broader approach and review how evidence-based interventions can be used to address the impact the COVID-19 outbreak has had on education. We will share further details in due course.
As an immediate step, on 24 February 2021, the Department committed an additional £700 million to support summer schools, tutoring, early language interventions and additional support to schools to help pupils make up their education. This builds on the £1 billion catch-up package announced in June 2020, which included a Catch-up Premium, shared across state primary and secondary schools to support schools to make up for lost teaching time over this academic year. It also includes the National Tutoring Programme which provides schools with access to high-quality, subsidised tuition in this academic year and next.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of offering the same provision of catch-up support available to state maintained schools to schools run by Community Interest Companies for pupils with state maintained places.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In June 2020, the Government announced a £1 billion catch up package that included a £650 million catch up premium. Independent schools with pupils who have an education, health and care plan or special educational needs and disability support funded by the local authority attract catch up premium funding at a rate of £240 per pupil. Mainstream schools attract funding of £80 per pupil. We have applied additional weighting to specialist schools, recognising the significantly higher per pupil costs they face.
In February 2021, the Government announced a further £700 million Education Recovery plan. As well as a range of measures to support all pupils to recover lost education, the plan includes significant funding aimed at addressing the needs of disadvantaged pupils. This includes a one-off £302 million recovery premium for the next academic year that will be allocated to schools on the same methodology as the pupil premium. This will provide each mainstream school with £145 for each eligible pupil and special (including special units within a mainstream school), alternative provision and hospital schools with £290 per pupil across the 2021-22 academic year.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that teacher assessed grades for the 2020-21 academic year are equitable in the (a) state and (b) private sector; and if he will publish guidance on that matter.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Pupils are working hard in preparation for their GCSEs, AS and A levels this year and teachers have made tremendous efforts to provide high quality education both in the classroom and remotely. Given the ongoing disruption to education caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, we announced in January that GCSE, AS and A level exams will not go ahead as planned this summer. Fairness to young people is fundamental to the Department and Ofqual’s decision making. We want to ensure all young people have the confidence that, despite exams not going ahead, they will receive a grade that reflects their ability and enables them to progress.
This year, teachers will not be asked to judge the grade a pupil might have achieved if the COVID-19 outbreak had not occurred. They will be asked to make an evidence-based judgement of the grade each pupil is performing at. Guidance will be provided to teachers by the end of March 2021, to support them in making assessments fairly and consistently.
Schools and colleges will have a range of supporting materials available to help them in marking and awarding grades. There will also be a process for both internal and external quality assurance to support teachers to do what is needed and ensure as much consistency as possible. Head teachers will have to confirm to the exam boards that the requirements for quality assurance have been met at the time of submitting the grades for their centre. Exam boards quality assurance will check the evidence to support grades submitted at a sample of centres, to ensure consistency in approach between centres. The sample of centres subject to these checks will be drawn to ensure representation of all types of centres, including state and private schools and colleges.
As part of their quality assurance process, schools and colleges will be given guidance on the use of previous performance data for their centre to help benchmark their results. The use of previous performance data is intended for guidance only and will not limit grades awarded for a student if supported by evidence.
We understand that whilst some independent schools choose to take qualifications regulated by Ofqual, many also choose international GCSEs, which are not regulated by Ofqual and are not part of the arrangements for summer 2021 that apply to GCSEs, A/AS levels and VTQs. We have worked closely with the exam boards who have confirmed that exams in England for their international GCSEs will not go ahead and pupils will be awarded grades using teacher assessment.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of an educational recovery plan to support all pupils that have had their education disrupted as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to helping all children and young people make up learning lost as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
In January 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, committed to work with parents, teachers and pupils to develop a long-term plan to help pupils make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. As an immediate step to support early years settings, schools and colleges, on 24 February, we committed an additional £700 million to support summer schools, tutoring, early language interventions and additional support to schools to help pupils make up their learning. This builds on the £1 billion from last year and brings the total available to £1.7 billion.
We have also appointed Sir Kevan Collins as the Education Recovery Commissioner to advise on this broader plan. The objectives of the Education Recovery Commissioner as outlined in the terms of reference are to advise on the design and implementation of potential interventions that will help students catch up learning lost due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The terms of reference for the Education Recovery Commissioner is published here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/960070/Terms_of_reference.pdf#:~:text=Education%20Recovery%20Commissioner%3A%20role%20specification%20and%20terms%20of,approach%20for%20education%20recovery%2C%20with%20a%20particular%20focus.
The Department will continue to assess the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on pupils and their catch-up needs to help target support across the system effectively.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2021 to Question 96101 on Coronavirus: Children, what steps his Department is taking to monitor common covid-19 symptoms in children; and how the data on the most common covid-19 symptoms in children is taken into account when setting covid-19 testing criteria for children.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Monitoring of COVID-19 symptoms and criteria for Test and Trace are clinical issues, and therefore fall within the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Care. As part of the return to face-to-face education from 8 March, all secondary school and further education college students will be offered regular asymptomatic testing for COVID-19, receiving four tests on their return with three of these on site. Thereafter, students will receive twice-weekly home tests.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to monitor schools' ability to include education on gender stereotyping as required by the statutory guidance on Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The new subjects of Relationships Education (for primary aged pupils), Relationships and Sex Education (for secondary aged pupils) and Health Education (for all pupils in state-funded schools) became mandatory from September 2020. The statutory guidance sets out the content to be covered for each subject, which includes teaching about treating everyone with respect regardless of their background and characteristics, and how stereotypes can cause damage or might encourage prejudice.
As with other aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver the content of the new subjects so they can develop an integrated approach that is sensitive to the needs of all of its pupils. In light of challenges faced by schools because of the impact of COVID-19 and school closure, schools may choose to focus this year’s RSHE teaching on the immediate needs of their pupils, with particular attention to the importance of positive relationships, as well as mental and physical health, introducing a more comprehensive RSHE programme in September 2021.
All schools must follow the principles of the Equality Act 2010 – the need to eliminate discrimination, to promote equality of opportunity and to foster good relations between different groups in society.
In September 2020, the Department published a support package to help all schools increase their confidence and the quality of their RSHE teaching practice. This includes teacher training modules, non-statutory implementation guidance, and training for teachers led by Teaching Schools.
Ofsted’s routine graded school inspections are currently suspended. When those inspections resume, inspectors will take account of the relationships education taught in each school as part of its evaluation of pupils’ personal development.