Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the level of teaching staff available in York during the current phase of the covid-19 outbreak.

Our priority is to do everything in our power to protect education. This means making sure that schools and colleges have the teaching staff they need to safely deliver face-to-face education. Schools are adapting and using the right measures for their individual provider.

School leaders are best placed to determine the workforce required to meet the needs of their pupils. The regional schools commissioner’s team, covering East Midlands and the Humber, speaks to City of York Council weekly to discuss their COVID-19 response and routinely discuss topics such as pupil attendance, COVID-19 rates and workforce pressures.

The team will continue to liaise with local councils and schools to ensure that key messages, such as workforce challenges, are being fed into the department and that further support is provided, where possible.