Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) guidance and (b) support his Department offers to schools and teachers in (i) identifying and (ii) supporting pupils with dyspraxia.
Answered by Will Quince
The Children and Families Act 2014 placed duties on early years providers, schools, further education colleges (FE), and some post-16 providers to ensure that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the support they need to succeed in their education. Our SEND Code of Practice sets out clear guidance that they should apply a 'graduated approach’, which means identifying a child or young persons’ needs, implementing appropriate support, reviewing it regularly and taking their views into account. The Code of Practice is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25.
The department is committed to supporting the development of teachers' and educational professionals' skills, as well as evidence based and effective practice within nurseries schools and colleges. The department has funded the whole school SEND consortium, through our contract with the National Association for Special Educational Needs, to deliver a programme which supports school staff in identifying and meeting the needs of pupils with SEND, including dyspraxia. In the 2021-22 financial year, the government has provided a further £2 million to this work, bringing the total funding for this contract to over £8 million since 2018.
In the 2021-22 financial year, the government has provided a grant of almost £1.2 million to the Education and Training Foundation. This grant will support the FE workforce in identifying and meeting the needs of learners with SEND, including those with dyspraxia. The department also announced recently that it will offer training bursaries, worth £15,000 each (tax free), for a further academic year (2022/23), to those specialising in SEND teaching in the FE sector.
The department does not differentiate between different types of SEND in the way funding is allocated to schools, colleges and local authorities for the responsibilities they have for supporting children and young people with SEND. Over the last 10 years there have been substantial increases in core schools funding, which includes funding for mainstream schools and high needs funding for children and young people with more complex needs. In financial year 2022/23 alone, core schools funding will increase by £4 billion compared to 2021/22: an increase of 5% in real terms per pupil.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much financial support her Department has provided to job seekers with dyspraxia in each year of the last ten years.
Answered by Chloe Smith
There is no data held or collected that could highlight specific financial support provided to job seekers with dyspraxia.
The Government is wholly committed to support those on low income and will continue to do so through such measures as increasing the living wage, and by spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22. With a record £59bn being spent on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions.
A range of DWP initiatives are supporting disabled people to prepare for, to start, stay and succeed in work. These include the Work and Health Programme, the Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme, Access to Work, Disability Confident and support in partnership with the health system, including Employment Advice in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) children and (b) adults who have dyspraxia but who have not been (i) diagnosed and (ii) able to access treatment in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) children and (b) adults have been diagnosed with dyspraxia in each region of England in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated to dyspraxia (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment in each region of the UK for each of the last ten years.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people in West Yorkshire were referred by their GP for a dyspraxia assessment in each of the last ten years; how many and what proportion of those assessments resulted in a diagnosis of dyspraxia; and what the average length of time was between GP referral and diagnosis in that period.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to carry out exploratory assessments into whether those children classed as vulnerable who did not physically attend schools during the COVID-19 lockdown had a recognised category of special educational needs and particularly those of the neuro-diverse types including (1) dyslexia, (2) autism, (3) dyspraxia, and (4) Attention Deficit Disorder.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
There are no plans to assess the special educational needs categorisation of children classed as vulnerable who have not attended school during partial closures.
The department will continue to ask schools to report on attendance overall, as well as attendance by vulnerable pupils, including those with education, health and care plans and social workers, beyond 1 June, when schools began welcoming back more children.
The department carries out analysis on the regional attendance trends which is used to support decision-making and to inform conversations with special educational needs and disabilities leads in local authorities.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of (a) testing and (b) support for children at school with symptoms for (i) dyslexia and (ii) dyspraxia.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Schools are required under the Children and Families Act 2014 to identify and address the special educational needs (SEN) of the pupils or students they support, and guidance is set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Code of Practice. This includes arranging for appropriate tests where the school’s own assessments indicate that this is necessary. Schools receive funding through the notional SEN budget and would normally be expected to pay for tests such as an assessment for dyslexia or dyspraxia from this allocation.
We have invested heavily in practical and financial support for SEND including funding projects with the British Dyslexia Association to address issues around early identification and effective provision; and the Dyslexia SpLD Trust to provide expert advice, information and training to schools and parents.
We provide extensive support to schools to help them support pupils’ needs, for example through the Whole School SEND consortium, which has been funded £3.4 million for 2 years (2018-2020) to deliver a programme of work to embed SEND within approaches to school improvement. As part of this contract, the University College London have engaged with the education sector to explore the supply, demand and drivers for SEND continuing professional development, including looking at dyslexia. This will provide an analysis of where gaps exist to inform our strategy going forward. This work is due to report shortly.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the support provided to teachers with Dyspraxia.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Equality Act (2010) provides a single, consolidated source of anti-discrimination law, covering all the types of discrimination that are unlawful. In England and Wales, the Act applies to all maintained and independent schools, including academies, and non-maintained special schools. To support schools in ensuring they comply with the provisions of the Act, we published ‘The Equality Act (2010): advice for schools’ in February 2013.
Teach First is committed to ensuring that all candidates and participants are treated fairly - irrespective of disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, race, religion or any other factor.
Teach First looks for teaching potential in all candidates. Identifying information of candidates is removed from the screening process and recruiters are trained to avoid unconscious bias. Teach First encourages applications from candidates with disabilities and provides any additional support needed during training alongside their placement school and university partners.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential effect on the (a) time taken to receive and (b) quality of assessments for dyspraxia of CCGs opting not to fund dyspraxia assessments with Dyspraxia UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We have made no such assessment. Commissioning decisions are made locally by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). CCGs are best placed to do this as they are clinically led organisations that have both the local knowledge and local accountability to make commissioning decisions in the best interests of their populations.