Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether organisations with places on the Regions Group will be on that board for a fixed term.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Through the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme, the department will establish up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships (REP) to test and refine our reforms. Each REP will be led by a local authority, selected using objective criteria based on published SEND performance data. An additional two to three local authorities will be included in each REP, based predominantly on their geographical proximity to the lead local authority, so we can test in a wide range of local areas with differing performance, capacity and capability. Wherever possible, each REP will be located within a single Integrated Care Board, to ensure close collaboration with health partners.
REPs will be required to engage with their local partners, including health, social care, Multi-Academy Trusts, mainstream, specialist and alternative provision schools, and parents, children and young people, to involve them in testing and refining the reforms.
Real-time learning from the REPs will be fed back to the department on a regular basis, and will inform discussions at the national SEND and AP Implementation Board.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which organisations will have places on the Regions Group and how they will be be chosen.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Through the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme, the department will establish up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships (REP) to test and refine our reforms. Each REP will be led by a local authority, selected using objective criteria based on published SEND performance data. An additional two to three local authorities will be included in each REP, based predominantly on their geographical proximity to the lead local authority, so we can test in a wide range of local areas with differing performance, capacity and capability. Wherever possible, each REP will be located within a single Integrated Care Board, to ensure close collaboration with health partners.
REPs will be required to engage with their local partners, including health, social care, Multi-Academy Trusts, mainstream, specialist and alternative provision schools, and parents, children and young people, to involve them in testing and refining the reforms.
Real-time learning from the REPs will be fed back to the department on a regular basis, and will inform discussions at the national SEND and AP Implementation Board.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which organisations will have places on the Regional Expert Partnerships, and how they will be be chosen.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Through the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme, the department will establish up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships (REP) to test and refine our reforms. Each REP will be led by a local authority, selected using objective criteria based on published SEND performance data. An additional two to three local authorities will be included in each REP, based predominantly on their geographical proximity to the lead local authority, so we can test in a wide range of local areas with differing performance, capacity and capability. Wherever possible, each REP will be located within a single Integrated Care Board, to ensure close collaboration with health partners.
REPs will be required to engage with their local partners, including health, social care, Multi-Academy Trusts, mainstream, specialist and alternative provision schools, and parents, children and young people, to involve them in testing and refining the reforms.
Real-time learning from the REPs will be fed back to the department on a regular basis, and will inform discussions at the national SEND and AP Implementation Board.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether organisations with places on the Regional Expert Partnerships will be on the board for fixed terms.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Through the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Change Programme, the department will establish up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships (REP) to test and refine our reforms. Each REP will be led by a local authority, selected using objective criteria based on published SEND performance data. An additional two to three local authorities will be included in each REP, based predominantly on their geographical proximity to the lead local authority, so we can test in a wide range of local areas with differing performance, capacity and capability. Wherever possible, each REP will be located within a single Integrated Care Board, to ensure close collaboration with health partners.
REPs will be required to engage with their local partners, including health, social care, Multi-Academy Trusts, mainstream, specialist and alternative provision schools, and parents, children and young people, to involve them in testing and refining the reforms.
Real-time learning from the REPs will be fed back to the department on a regular basis, and will inform discussions at the national SEND and AP Implementation Board.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that a child may be placed for adoption in a family with a different racial and cultural background to his or her own if that is conducive to the child's overall welfare.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Many adopters provide brilliant love and care for children, including those with whom they do not share the same ethnicity. The department’s National Adoption Strategy, published in July 2021, sets out a specific commitment to ensuring adopters get the support they need if they adopt children of a different ethnicity to their own. Further details are available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1006232/_Adoption_strategy_.pdf.
Regional Adoption Agency leaders are looking to develop specific transracial resources for social workers and adopters, as part of their work in supporting children with their identity.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of assessing children with special educational needs and disabilities when they enter primary school as part of their baseline assessment; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
All early years and childcare providers currently have a responsibility to identify children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and make sure they put in place support as early as possible to help these children learn and progress. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework sets the standards and requirements that all early years providers must follow to ensure that every child has the best start in life and is prepared for school.
The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with SEND, and practitioners must consider whether a child may have a SEND which requires specialist support.
The EYFS framework includes two specific points where assessments or progress checks must be undertaken - when a child is aged between two and three, and when they turn five. These are used to review a child’s development, and identify where progress is not as expected so that appropriate support can be put in place.
During the reception year, pupils also take the reception baseline assessment (RBA). The RBA acts as the starting point to enable the department to measure the progress primary schools are making with their pupils. The assessment has been designed so that almost all children, including children with SEND, will be able to access the assessment.
The department has always been clear that the RBA is not a diagnostic assessment and should not be used to track or group individual children. Data gathered from the assessment is only used to create a baseline for school-level progress measures and is not shared with schools, teachers, or parents.
Schools are expected to have arrangements for identifying the SEND of their pupils and for providing appropriate support to allow them to learn and progress.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children who are eligible for free school meals have been diagnosed with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department publishes figures on the proportion of pupils in England with special educational needs (SEN) who are eligible for free school meals (FSM). The most recent figures, from the January 2022 school census, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england/2021-22.
A table showing counts of FSM eligibility by SEN status for all pupils in England as of January 2022 can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/dd7aa9b8-0366-4317-9409-08db08498a11.
The table shows that 27% of pupils who were eligible for FSM had SEN. The school census does not collect information on pupils with disabilities.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to ensure that contributions to education resources commissioned by Oak National Academy are done so on the basis of fair terms and remuneration.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy’s first procurement to commission new curriculum packages closed in December 2023 and Oak will be confirming successful bidders in the coming weeks. Up to £8 million was available to curriculum partners through this procurement, with more funding in future rounds.
As part of the bidding process, bidders were required to set out their full costings for intellectual property and time to develop resources. Successful bidders will be remunerated accordingly.
The procurement complies with the Public Contracts Regulations (2015).
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how Oak National Academy intends to license materials for use in Oak resources; and whether the Oak National Academy has approached (a) the Copyright Licensing Agency and (b) other organisations that are responsible for licensing the use of materials within education resources.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy is currently reviewing the best approach to licensing materials. Oak has conducted the recent procurement for the development of its first tranche of curriculum materials, on terms up to and including an Open Government Licence. The exact licence under which Oak’s new curriculum and resources will be shared will be confirmed before their publication.
As part of its review, Oak is engaging with the Copyright Licensing Agency and a range of organisations and publishers responsible for licensing content.
Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to incorporate quality assurance principles into its plans for the Oak National Academy.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Oak National Academy will embed quality assurance principles into every stage of developing new curriculum resources. Curriculum partners secured through the open procurement process will need to demonstrate high standards of quality in their approach to curriculum design, and all resources will be reviewed by teachers and subject experts before being finalised.
The Department is confident that Oak will be operating robust quality assurance processes and ensuring that resources are continuously improved through both active testing and responding to user feedback. Oak will be subject to a review after its first two years of operation, as part of the wider Public Bodies Review Programme.