Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will issue guidance to local authorities on how they can partly or wholly fund independent school places for student refugees who have arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme using the same per capita funding that would be spent if they were to be educated in the state sector.

The department is currently working at pace to develop the methodology and mechanism for the allocation of funding for the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme. This education funding for children and young people will be distributed to local authorities. If the funding is used for a school place, it will be for state-funded schools only.

In general, there’s nothing that would stop a local authority from providing funding to an independent school, but this would be a decision for the individual local authority to make.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities issued guidance in March this year advising families how to apply for a school place in England. The Department for Education shared this via The Education Hub blog in April.

The Boarding Schools Association and the Independent Schools Council speak regularly to the Department for Education and the Home Office on matters relating to Ukraine and Russia.

We are grateful to those independent schools that have come forward to offer places and encourage independent schools to contact local authorities that are seeking to place children.

As school places are co-ordinated locally, schools should inform their local authorities that they are willing to offer places to Ukrainian students. It is for independent schools to determine their own criteria for creating scholarship schemes and putting local arrangements for administration in place.