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 22 January 2021 to Question 137960 on pupil premium allocation, how many pupils in (a) mainstream and (b) special educational needs schools (i) were eligible for the Pupil Premium as of 1 October 2020 and (ii) became eligible for Free School Meals between 2 October 2020 and 21 January 2021.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The January 2021 census will be used to determine pupil premium eligibility for alternative provision and pupil referral units for the financial year 2021-22. Pupil premium eligibility for mainstream and special schools will be based on the October 2020 census. The Department will confirm pupil premium allocations for the financial year 2021-22 in June 2021.
Data on the number of pupils who have become eligible for free school meals since 2 October 2020 is currently being collected in the spring school census and is not yet available.
The Department publishes information on pupil premium allocations and the number of pupils eligible annually. The most recent publicly available figures can be found via this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2020-to-2021.
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 financial support available to playscheme and breakfast club providers during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We appreciate that the wraparound childcare sector, like many sectors, is facing unprecedented financial pressures as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is for this reason that the government has made a range of financial packages of support available for businesses to access throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes tax relief, business loans or cash grants through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, as well as a £594 million discretionary fund for councils and the devolved administrations to support local businesses that may not be eligible for other support, during the current national lockdown. More information on this can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus/business-support.
Additionally, we have encouraged all local authorities to consider which local grants could be used to bolster this part of the childcare sector in their areas, to safeguard sufficient childcare provision for children of critical workers and vulnerable children. This includes funding streams such as the holiday activities and food programme. The expanded programme, which comprises a £220 million fund to be delivered through grants to local authorities, will be expanded to reach all local authority areas over the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays in 2021.
The National School Breakfast Programme continues to be funded, and our suppliers Family Action along with Magic Breakfast are working closely with participating schools to make sure that children can still receive healthy breakfasts during this period, including for children staying at home.
Family Action have reported that more than 1,000 schools in disadvantaged areas are registered to receive breakfast deliveries from this programme during the COVID-19 outbreak.
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 21 January 2021 to Question 137964 on Further Education: Computers, by which date further education providers will have (a) received invitations to order devices for students as part of the Government’s Get Help with Technology Programme and (b) received those devices.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
As of 1 February 2021, this includes over 927,000 laptops and tablets that were delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities.
Education settings for 16 to 19 year olds, including schools with sixth forms, further education (FE) and sixth form colleges, and other FE institutions will be able to order laptops and tablets to further support disadvantaged students to access remote education. The vast majority of settings with eligible pupils have already been invited to do so. Orders are currently being fulfilled within 5 working days.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will support further education colleges to provide safe in-person practical exams where necessary.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Following the recent announcement by the government that it is no longer viable for some exams and assessments to go ahead this academic year, exams and assessments for vocational and technical qualifications that require a student to demonstrate professional or occupational competence can continue to proceed in February and March 2021, with protective measures in place in line with Public Health England’s measures. The position on exams and assessments scheduled for April 2021 onwards is being considered in our joint consultation with Ofqual.
Where exams and assessments can continue, public health guidance has been produced for all exam centres on the arrangements they should have in place to deliver exams and assessments, including those of a practical nature: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/responsibility-for-autumn-gcse-as-and-a-level-exam-series/public-health-arrangements-for-autumn-exams.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to mass asymptomatic testing in schools and colleges, what support his Department has provided for school staff to carry out track and trace for students and staff who test positive for covid-19.
Answered by Nick Gibb
In collaboration with the Department of Heath and Social Care and NHS Test and Trace, the Department has provided help and support to all schools and colleges in scope. This support can vary, depending on the settings, but at a minimum all schools and colleges have had access to the following:
Additionally, state funded secondary schools, further education colleges and special schools have been able to access further support to help with setting testing sites up, which includes:
The Department is also liaising with the Community Testing Programme to ensure that those educational settings that are not within scope can access this programme.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, by what date all laptops are planned to be delivered to schools in Bristol West constituency that have not yet received their allocation.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, by securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. As of Monday 25 January 2021, over 870,000 laptops and tablets had been delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities across England, who are responsible for distributing them onward to disadvantaged children and families.
Regional figures for delivery of devices are currently not available for the period requested and figures by Parliamentary constituency are also not available.
All schools, academy trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order devices. Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, academy trusts or local authorities to lend to the children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.
Figures on the number of devices delivered, broken down by Local Authority and Academy Trust are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-4.
Where schools need additional devices above their allocations, they should contact the Department for Education’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data for the academic year to help disadvantaged children get online. We are grateful to EE, O2, Smarty, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone for their collaboration.
We have also delivered 54,000 4G wireless routers for pupil and care leavers without connection at home.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support he plans to provide to schools in Bristol West constituency that need more laptops provided than their current allocation in order to ensure that all students can access online learning during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, by securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people. As of Monday 25 January 2021, over 870,000 laptops and tablets had been delivered to schools, academy trusts and local authorities across England, who are responsible for distributing them onward to disadvantaged children and families.
Regional figures for delivery of devices are currently not available for the period requested and figures by Parliamentary constituency are also not available.
All schools, academy trusts and local authorities have now been given the opportunity to order devices. Laptops and tablets are owned by schools, academy trusts or local authorities to lend to the children and young people who need them most during the current COVID-19 restrictions.
Figures on the number of devices delivered, broken down by Local Authority and Academy Trust are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/laptops-and-tablets-data/2021-week-4.
Where schools need additional devices above their allocations, they should contact the Department for Education’s service team at covid.technology@education.gov.uk. They should include the number of disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 who require support and an explanation of how they have gathered this evidence.
We have also partnered with the UK’s leading mobile operators to provide free data for the academic year to help disadvantaged children get online. We are grateful to EE, O2, Smarty, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Three, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone for their collaboration.
We have also delivered 54,000 4G wireless routers for pupil and care leavers without connection at home.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the mass asymptomatic testing in schools and colleges, what support his Department is providing to schools to carry out serial testing to all close contacts after finding a positive case of covid-19.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has currently paused daily contact testing, previously known as serial testing, in all but a small number of secondary schools and colleges, where it will continue alongside detailed evaluation. This is following updated advice from NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England which concluded that, in light of the higher prevalence and rates of transmission of the new variant of the virus, further evaluation work is required to make sure that daily contact testing is achieving its aim of breaking chains of transmission.
We will be working closely with the small number of secondary schools and colleges that will be continuing daily contact testing as part of the evaluation.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason his Department's policy is that from April 2021 pupil premium allocations will be calculated based on the number of eligible pupils recorded by schools in their census in October 2020 and not the January 2021 census.
Answered by Nick Gibb
On 17 December 2020 we confirmed that the pupil premium will continue in 2021-22 with the same per pupil funding rates as in 2020-21. This is expected to increase pupil premium funding to more than £2.5 billion in 2021-22 as more children have become eligible for free school meals.
For mainstream and special educational needs schools, we will base eligibility for the 2021-22 pupil premium funding on the October 2020 census. In previous years, we have used the January census to determine pupil premium eligibility. Moving to the October census brings the administration of the pupil premium in line with the rest of schools’ core budgets (most notably the national funding formula, and local school funding formulae), which calculate schools’ budgets for the coming year on the basis of the October census. The move to the October census simplifies the school funding system, and provide both schools and the Department with greater certainty around future funding levels earlier in the year.
Alternative Provision and Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) will continue to be funded based on the January census, since there is no census for alternative provision in October, and the October census is not representative of the number of pupils in PRUs across a full academic year.
Asked by: Thangam Debbonaire (Labour - Bristol West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when further education institutions will receive further information on the (a) Government provision of laptops for students and (b) date by which those institutions should expect to receive the laptops which have been allocated to them.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
For those learners aged 16-19 in both schools and further education (FE) settings, we had existing means of supporting disadvantaged learners through the 16-19 bursary fund. We, therefore, asked schools and FE providers to use this to meet the tech needs of their most disadvantaged students.
During the summer, we enabled schools and FE providers’ to boost their bursary funds to meet any extra costs for student technology needs.
Many FE providers have reported challenges in procuring devices due to the current global shortage caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. Procurement and distribution of devices by Government provides a reliable supply of devices.
We have now extended the Get Help with Technology programme to provide disadvantaged 16 to 19 year olds with technological support. This is part of the £400 million investment to help children and young people continue their education at home and to get any online social care services they need. We expect to be able to invite most eligible FE providers, including colleges, sixth form colleges and school sixth forms, to order devices before the end of January. Other FE providers, such as independent training providers and special post-16 institutions will also be in scope if they have learners receiving free meals.