Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans are in place to ensure that deaf children and young people can catch-up on missed schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, the department published guidance on online education resources for home learning, including support for those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which are available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-online-education-resources.

To support the hard work of schools in delivering remote education, in April, the Oak National Academy was launched. 40 teachers from leading schools across England formed this brand-new enterprise which provides 180 video lessons each week, across a broad range of subjects from maths to art to languages, for every year group from Reception through to year 10. Oak also launched a specialist curriculum for children and young people with SEND on 4 May, available here:
https://classroom.thenational.academy/specialist#subjects.

The government has announced £1 billion of funding to support children and young people to catch up on missed schooling. This is made up of £650 million to be shared across all state-funded mainstream schools, special schools, and alternative provision over the 2020-21 academic year, and a National Tutoring Programme, worth £350 million to provide additional, targeted support for disadvantaged children and young people.

The universal £650 million catch-up premium funding recognises that all pupils, irrespective of their background or location, have lost time in education. Whilst school leaders will decide how it is used, the intention is that this money will be spent on the most effective interventions.

On Monday 20 July, we announced more details about how the funding will be distributed to schools. This confirmed that a primary school of 200 pupils will receive £16,000 while a secondary school of 1,000 pupils will receive £80,000. Special schools, alternative provision and hospital schools will be funded at 3 times the rate of mainstream schools for the 2020-21 academic year.

All schools should use their catch-up premium funding as a single total from which to prioritise support for all pupils, including children with SEND or children who have education, health and care plans, according to their need.

This year, we are also providing £780 million of additional high needs funding across England for children with the most complex SEND. We are providing a further £730 million in 2021-22, which will bring the total high needs budget to over £8 billion. This is in addition to the catch-up premium funding.