Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional support will he provide schools to ensure that they can safely open in January.
Answered by Robin Walker
The government is clear on the critical importance of avoiding disruption to children and young people’s education. Therefore, the priority is to keep all schools open. We have set out clear plans for schools opening in January.
The department has also reintroduced face coverings for all adults in schools and for pupils and students in year 7 and above in communal areas, and from 4 January, in classrooms. This is a temporary measure.
Schools must continue to comply with health and safety law and put in place proportionate control measures in line with our guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak. This includes ensuring good hygiene, cleaning, keeping occupied spaces well ventilated and following the latest public health advice on testing, self-isolation and managing confirmed cases of COVID-19.
From Tuesday 14 December, young people and fully vaccinated adults who are identified as a close contact of someone with COVID-19 can take an NHS rapid lateral flow test every day for seven days and continue to attend their school or college as normal unless they have a positive test result.
Every child aged 12 and over is eligible to receive the vaccine. Healthy 12 to 15-year-olds can have a second dose 12 weeks after their first dose. My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, announced the acceleration of our COVID-19 booster programme to offer every adult in England a booster jab by the end of 2021 to protect people from the Omicron variant.
Testing remains important in reducing the risk of transmission of COVID-19 within schools and colleges. All secondary schools have been asked to test their pupils once on-site, using lateral flow tests, on return in January. Tests, personal protective equipment, and funding to support the school workforce will be provided.
Secondary schools have had the option to stagger the return to school for the first week to accommodate on-site testing.
The department has also supported schools, colleges, and nurseries to improve ventilation. The department has also provided CO2 monitors to state-funded schools, colleges and nurseries backed by £25 million in government funding. Over 99% of eligible maintained schools, further education colleges, and the majority of nurseries have now received a carbon dioxide monitor with over 300,000 now delivered. The government is also making available at least 7,000 funded air cleaning units for poorly ventilated teaching spaces where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible.
Additionally, the department has put in place support to help schools facing workforce shortages. This includes calling on former teachers with the time and skills to return to the classroom and re-introducing the COVID-19 workforce fund to provide financial support to eligible schools and colleges for absence costs incurred from 22 November until the spring half term.
Finally, to ease some of the burden there will also be a short temporary break from Ofsted inspections during the first week of term. Ofsted will also encourage providers that have been hit badly by COVID-19 related staff absence to ask for a deferral in planned inspections, and have confirmed that they will not ask school leaders to participate in the delivery of inspections for the spring term.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing targeted financial assistance to schools in response to the omicron covid-19 variant to support the (a) implementation of additional covid-19 safety measures on their premises and (b) purchase of air filtration devices where natural ventilation is limited due to design and capacity of buildings.
Answered by Robin Walker
The measures in place day-to-day in schools, colleges and nurseries to tackle COVID-19 are based on the latest scientific advice and strike a balance between managing transmission risk and reducing disruption to children and young people’s education.
The priority is for schools, colleges and nurseries to deliver face-to-face, high-quality education to all children, pupils and students. The evidence is clear that being out of education causes significant harm to educational attainment, life chances, and mental and physical health. To manage COVID-19 transmission, education providers continue to ensure good hygiene for everyone, maintain appropriate cleaning regimes, keep occupied spaces well ventilated and follow public health advice on testing, self-isolation, face coverings and managing confirmed cases of COVID-19.
To support schools with these measures, the department provided carbon dioxide monitors to all state-funded education providers, including nurseries, schools and further education colleges, backed by £25 million in government funding. We have now delivered on our public commitment with over 353,000 monitors delivered in the autumn term. Feedback following this roll out shows that in most schools, colleges and nurseries existing ventilation measures are sufficient.
For the very few cases where maintaining good ventilation is not possible, the department is supplying up to 7,000 air purifiers cleaning units. This is on top of the 1,000 funded units for special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision providers that we announced in November. We have also made over £100 million of funding available to secondary schools, colleges, and specialist providers to support them with the workforce costs associated with delivering on-site testing, and continue to do so, in line with departmental testing policy.
This should also be seen in the wider context of funding for schools. Overall, core schools funding will increase by £4 billion in financial year 2022/23 compared to 2021/22, a 5% real terms per pupil boost. This includes an additional £1.2 billion for schools in the new school supplementary grant for financial year 2022/23. This funding boost will rapidly give schools the resources they need to rise to the challenges of COVID-19 response and recovery, increase teacher pay, and meet the cost of the Health and Social Care Levy, while continuing their work to raise attainment and educational outcomes for all children and young people.
The vast majority of schools are operating with a cumulative surplus, with only a small percentage having a deficit. The latest published figures show that the percentage of both academy trusts and local authority maintained schools in surplus or breaking even increased compared to the previous reporting year. At the end of financial year 2020/21, 92% of local authority maintained schools were in cumulative surplus or breaking even, compared to 88% the previous year. At the end of the 2019/20 academic year, 96% of academy trusts were in surplus or breaking even, compared to 94% the previous year.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the spread of the omicron variant of covid-19, what assessment has he made of the adequacy of the current (a) resourcing of and (b) support provided to special schools for (a) improving ventilation in schools and (b) implement other covid-19 mitigation measures.
Answered by Robin Walker
Following our rollout of around 300,000 CO2 monitors to schools during the autumn term – with over 350,000 monitors delivered to over 99% of eligible maintained schools, further education colleges, and the majority of nurseries – schools are finding the monitors helpful to manage ventilation and, in the majority of education providers, existing ventilation measures are sufficient. Feedback suggests that the monitors are acting as a helpful tool to manage ventilation, sitting alongside the other protective measures in place to manage transmission, such as regular testing, vaccinations and increased hygiene.
In November, the department announced that it was providing additional funding for 1,000 air cleaning units for poorly ventilated spaces in special educational needs and disability (SEND) and alternative provision providers. This includes SEND units in mainstream schools, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible. These schools were prioritised given the higher-than-average number of vulnerable pupils in attendance. These units are being delivered from January 2022.
In addition, the department also announced on 2 January that it would make up to an additional 7,000 air cleaning units available for poorly ventilated teaching spaces in state-funded education providers, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible. All state funded schools (primary and secondary), further education colleges and nurseries can apply. Special and alternative provision providers that were not successful or did not apply in the first round are also eligible to apply in this round. The deadline for applications is 9am on 17 January and the additional units will be delivered from February 2022.
Any that are not eligible for a department funded unit have access to an online ‘marketplace’, which provides a route to purchasing air cleaning units of a suitable specification and competitive price.
All nurseries, out-of-school settings, schools and colleges, including all special schools, are continuing to put in place a combination of measures to help minimise the risk of spreading COVID-19. These include handwashing, enhancing cleaning, ventilation and managing confirmed cases. Further information on this can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.
Settings should continue to conduct risk assessments for their particular circumstances and take appropriate action in line with our guidance, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus. There is also our guidance for special schools and other specialist settings which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings.
This provides additional information specifically targeted at special schools and other specialist settings to support the implementation of other COVID-19 mitigation measures.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education,with reference to the spread of the omicron variant of covid-19, whether he has issued updated guidance to (a) nurseries and (b) early years providers on mitigating measures to prevent the spread of covid-19.
Answered by Will Quince
We continue to publish comprehensive guidance to help the early years sector provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
This guidance explains the control measures that settings should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes maintaining good hygiene and appropriate cleaning regimes, keeping spaces well-ventilated, and following public health advice on testing, self-isolation, wearing face coverings and managing confirmed cases.
These UK Health Security Agency-endorsed control measures create an environment for children and staff where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures. This has been updated in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, although the ways to help control COVID-19 remain the same.
To help keep spaces well ventilated, all nurseries, and childminders operating on domestic premises in groups of 4 or more, receiving state-funding, were included in the carbon dioxide monitor roll out which took place last term. The new monitors will enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping rooms warm. We are also providing an additional 7,000 air cleaning units for early years settings, schools and colleges. This will improve ventilation in settings and help to minimise disruption to face-to-face education and care.
We continue to monitor the early years sector for staffing issues, including through engagement with local authorities. We have provided significant support to protect education and childcare providers from the impact of COVID-19. We remain committed to doing everything possible to protect face-to-face education and care, and keeping early years settings open for all children.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education,with reference to the spread of the omicron variant of covid-19, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of (a) resourcing and (b) support provided to (i) nurseries and (ii) early years childcare providers on the provision of (A) improved ventilation and (B) other covid-19 mitigation measures in those settings.
Answered by Will Quince
We continue to publish comprehensive guidance to help the early years sector provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
This guidance explains the control measures that settings should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes maintaining good hygiene and appropriate cleaning regimes, keeping spaces well-ventilated, and following public health advice on testing, self-isolation, wearing face coverings and managing confirmed cases.
These UK Health Security Agency-endorsed control measures create an environment for children and staff where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures. This has been updated in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, although the ways to help control COVID-19 remain the same.
To help keep spaces well ventilated, all nurseries, and childminders operating on domestic premises in groups of 4 or more, receiving state-funding, were included in the carbon dioxide monitor roll out which took place last term. The new monitors will enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping rooms warm. We are also providing an additional 7,000 air cleaning units for early years settings, schools and colleges. This will improve ventilation in settings and help to minimise disruption to face-to-face education and care.
We continue to monitor the early years sector for staffing issues, including through engagement with local authorities. We have provided significant support to protect education and childcare providers from the impact of COVID-19. We remain committed to doing everything possible to protect face-to-face education and care, and keeping early years settings open for all children.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, in the context of the spread of the Omicron variant of covid-19, what assessment he has made of levels of staff sickness in the nurseries and early years childcare sector; and what steps he is taking to support providers to keep services open.
Answered by Will Quince
We continue to publish comprehensive guidance to help the early years sector provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
This guidance explains the control measures that settings should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes maintaining good hygiene and appropriate cleaning regimes, keeping spaces well-ventilated, and following public health advice on testing, self-isolation, wearing face coverings and managing confirmed cases.
These UK Health Security Agency-endorsed control measures create an environment for children and staff where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures. This has been updated in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, although the ways to help control COVID-19 remain the same.
To help keep spaces well ventilated, all nurseries, and childminders operating on domestic premises in groups of 4 or more, receiving state-funding, were included in the carbon dioxide monitor roll out which took place last term. The new monitors will enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping rooms warm. We are also providing an additional 7,000 air cleaning units for early years settings, schools and colleges. This will improve ventilation in settings and help to minimise disruption to face-to-face education and care.
We continue to monitor the early years sector for staffing issues, including through engagement with local authorities. We have provided significant support to protect education and childcare providers from the impact of COVID-19. We remain committed to doing everything possible to protect face-to-face education and care, and keeping early years settings open for all children.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, in the context of the spread of the Omicron variant of covid-19, what assessment has he made of the adequacy of the (a) resourcing of and (b) support provided to (i) nurseries and (ii) early years childcare providers for improving ventilation and taking other mitigating steps against the spread of covid-19.
Answered by Will Quince
We continue to publish comprehensive guidance to help the early years sector provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
This guidance explains the control measures that settings should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes maintaining good hygiene and appropriate cleaning regimes, keeping spaces well-ventilated, and following public health advice on testing, self-isolation, wearing face coverings and managing confirmed cases.
These UK Health Security Agency-endorsed control measures create an environment for children and staff where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures. This has been updated in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, although the ways to help control COVID-19 remain the same.
To help keep spaces well ventilated, all nurseries, and childminders operating on domestic premises in groups of 4 or more, receiving state-funding, were included in the carbon dioxide monitor roll out which took place last term. The new monitors will enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping rooms warm. We are also providing an additional 7,000 air cleaning units for early years settings, schools and colleges. This will improve ventilation in settings and help to minimise disruption to face-to-face education and care.
We continue to monitor the early years sector for staffing issues, including through engagement with local authorities. We have provided significant support to protect education and childcare providers from the impact of COVID-19. We remain committed to doing everything possible to protect face-to-face education and care, and keeping early years settings open for all children.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance his Department has issued to (a) nurseries and (b) early years childcare providers on implementing measures to prevent the transmission of covid-19 in the context of the spread of the Omicron variant.
Answered by Will Quince
We continue to publish comprehensive guidance to help the early years sector provide a safe and secure environment for children and staff.
This guidance explains the control measures that settings should take to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This includes maintaining good hygiene and appropriate cleaning regimes, keeping spaces well-ventilated, and following public health advice on testing, self-isolation, wearing face coverings and managing confirmed cases.
These UK Health Security Agency-endorsed control measures create an environment for children and staff where the risk of transmission of infection is substantially reduced. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures. This has been updated in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, although the ways to help control COVID-19 remain the same.
To help keep spaces well ventilated, all nurseries, and childminders operating on domestic premises in groups of 4 or more, receiving state-funding, were included in the carbon dioxide monitor roll out which took place last term. The new monitors will enable staff to identify areas where ventilation needs to be improved and provide reassurance that existing ventilation measures are working, helping balance the need for good ventilation with keeping rooms warm. We are also providing an additional 7,000 air cleaning units for early years settings, schools and colleges. This will improve ventilation in settings and help to minimise disruption to face-to-face education and care.
We continue to monitor the early years sector for staffing issues, including through engagement with local authorities. We have provided significant support to protect education and childcare providers from the impact of COVID-19. We remain committed to doing everything possible to protect face-to-face education and care, and keeping early years settings open for all children.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure school classrooms are properly ventilated; and what plans they have, if any, to introduce a requirement to keep CO2 in classrooms below 800 parts per million.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has provided CO2 monitors to state-funded nurseries, schools and further education colleges, backed by £25 million in government funding. Over 99% of eligible maintained schools, further education colleges, and the majority of nurseries have now received a CO2 monitor with over 300,000 now delivered. Final deliveries will be made before the end of term. Feedback suggests that the monitors are acting as a helpful tool to manage ventilation, sitting alongside the other protective measures in place to manage transmission, such as regular testing, vaccinations and increased hygiene.
While CO2 measurements are a useful proxy for ventilation, they do not give direct information about infection risk. For these reasons, the values given in guidance should not be seen as absolute safe versus unsafe thresholds, but as a broad guide to the quality of ventilation in a space. This approach is recommended by both the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in their guidance. As stated in our guidance, it is the responsibility of schools, colleges and nurseries to decide on the use of poorly ventilated rooms in accordance with their own risk assessment procedures and obligations under health and safety law. 1,500 parts per million (ppm) is well below the workplace exposure limit set by HSE, set at 5,000ppm (averaged over the course of 8 hours).
If used properly, air cleaning units can help reduce airborne contaminants in a poorly ventilated space while remedial work is undertaken to permanently improve ventilation. It is important to note that air cleaning units cannot improve ventilation, and they should never be used as a reason to reduce ventilation or not to remediate poor ventilation in a space.
The department is providing additional, exceptional funding for air cleaning units for poorly ventilated spaces in special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) providers, including SEND units in mainstream schools, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible. These institutions are being prioritised given the higher-than-average number of vulnerable pupils in attendance. The purchase of 1,000 air cleaning units reflects our assessment of need in the sector based on recent feedback from SEND and AP providers.
Institutions which are not eligible for a department funded unit have access to an online ‘marketplace’, which provides a route to purchasing air cleaning units of a suitable specification and competitive price. We expect that in most classrooms existing ventilation will be sufficient.
Maintaining adequate ventilation ultimately remains the responsibility of individual schools, colleges and nurseries. It is for institutions to decide on the use of affected rooms in accordance with their risk assessment procedures and obligations under health and safety law.
The case for additional support for institutions to maintain good ventilation will be kept under review as the programme continues and schools, colleges and nurseries use the monitors to further assess their ventilation needs.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has provided additional funding to schools to help implement covid-19-safe environments.
Answered by Robin Walker
The measures in place in education settings to tackle COVID-19 are based on the latest scientific advice and strike a balance between managing transmission risk and reducing disruption to children and young people’s education.
The priority is for education and childcare settings to deliver face-to-face, high-quality education to all pupils and students. The evidence is clear that being out of education causes significant harm to educational attainment, life chances, and mental and physical health. To manage COVID-19 transmission, nurseries, schools and colleges should continue to ensure good hygiene for everyone, maintain appropriate cleaning regimes, keep occupied spaces well ventilated and follow public health advice on testing, self-isolation, face coverings and managing confirmed cases of COVID-19.
In order to support schools with these measures, CO2 monitors have been provided to all state-funded schools starting from September, so staff can quickly identify where ventilation needs to be improved. The department has also made over £100 million of funding available to secondary schools, colleges and specialist settings to support them with the workforce costs associated with delivering on-site testing, and continue to do so, in line with departmental testing policy.
More generally, throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has ensured that all schools continued to receive their core funding as normal, regardless of any periods of reduced attendance. This year, mainstream school funding is increasing by 3.5% overall, and all schools are receiving at least a 2% increase to pupil-led per pupil funding.
As a result of the recent Spending Review, the department will be investing a further £4.7 billion by financial year 2024-25 for the core schools budget in England, over and above the Spending Review 2019 settlement for schools in 2022-23.
This investment includes a further £1.6 billion in financial year 2022-23, on top of year on year increases already announced. This additional funding will help the school sector respond to the pressures we know they are facing. The department will make announcements on the distribution of this additional funding shortly.
School leaders have the flexibility to make their own decisions on how to prioritise their spending to invest in a range of resources that will best support their staff and pupils.