Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure more children from disadvantaged and care backgrounds have access to private school scholarships to support their charitable status.

In May 2018, the Department for Education and the Independent Schools Council (ISC) agreed a joint understanding designed to expand the participation of independent schools in various initiatives across the system. In particular, it encourages independent schools to offer a greater number of full bursary places, targeted at children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We continue to work constructively with the ISC on this.

The Department is working to increase the involvement of independent schools alongside boarding schools to open up more educational opportunities for children in need. We recently appointed the Royal National Children’s Springboard Foundation to deliver a project that will establish hubs in which independent schools, local authorities, social workers and Virtual School Heads, will work in partnership to promote school placements for children in need.

The Department continues to encourage and support new partnerships between independent and state funded schools. This programme aims to harness the resources and expertise found across sectors through the development of partnership activities, many of which are specifically tailored for pupils from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds. In line with the Department’s joint understanding with the ISC, we want to see more schools forming impactful and mutually beneficial collaborations across the areas of curriculum development, teaching quality, governance and leadership, and other targeted forms of school improvement to maximise the social benefits that can be generated for their communities.