Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to ensure that schools remain responsible for pupils who leave their school roll until they have found a new permanent place.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Pupils leave school rolls for many reasons, including permanent exclusion or changes of circumstances (as when a pupil moves to a new area). All schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register.
It is the responsibility of the local authority (with the exception of fixed period exclusions) to put in place alternative provision for pupils who for any reason would not otherwise receive a suitable education.
All local authorities are also required to operate a Fair Access Protocol to ensure that outside the normal admissions round unplaced children are offered a school place as soon as possible.
Edward Timpson is leading a review of exclusions, which will consider how schools use exclusion and in particular why some groups of children are more likely to be excluded from school. The review is due to report in due course.
Asked by: Rebecca Pow (Conservative - Taunton Deane)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to ensure that children who are (a) excluded from school and (b) at risk of being excluded from school are assessed by a speech and language therapist to determine if they have a speech, language and communication need.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government recognises the importance of early assessment and identification of pupil needs. The 2015 special educational needs and disability (SEND) code of practice sets out high expectations of schools and colleges about how they identify and meet the needs of pupils with SEND, including those with speech, language and communication needs. Schools should work closely with their local authority, and other providers, to commission specialist services directly, such as speech and language therapists.
The Department’s statutory guidance on exclusions is clear that schools should take appropriate steps to address the underlying causes of poor behaviour, which could include pupils’ SEND. This should include an assessment of whether appropriate provision is in place to support any SEND that a pupil may have to avoid exclusion, and that schools should consider the use of a multi-agency assessment. The full guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusion.
For children who have been permanently excluded, the Department’s statutory guidance on alternative provision (AP) sets out that commissioners of AP should recognise any issues or barriers experienced by these pupils and carry out a thorough assessment of their needs. The full guidance can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alternative-provision.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms introduced by the Children and Families Act (2014) were the biggest in a generation. Since then, we have given £391 million to local areas to support implementation of the new duties under the act and a great deal of progress has been made with 98% of statements transferred to education, health and care (EHC) plans, where appropriate, by April 2018.
We want to ensure that families are able to participate meaningfully in developing local services and have a contract worth £20 million with the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) and Contact, to improve local information, advice and support and provide a national helpline; and a contract worth £3.8 million with Contact, in partnership with KIDS and the CDC, to promote and develop strategic participation by young people and parent carers.
We have in place a new contract with the Whole School SEND Consortium to embed SEND within approaches to school improvement in order to equip the workforce to deliver high quality teaching across all types of special educational needs. The programme of work includes building a community of practice with the involvement of 10,000 schools by 2020 and 15,000 schools by 2022, across the eight regional schools commissioners’ regions.
We are establishing a SEND Commissioning Board for children and young people with high needs to help support local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups to improve planning and commissioning of SEND provision.
We have published a roadmap for reforming alternative provision that will see us focus on sharing best practice across the sector and launched a £4 million innovation fund. We have also announced an externally led review of school exclusions, carried out by former children’s minister Edward Timpson CBE, looking into why certain groups of pupils – including those with SEND – are more likely to be excluded than others, and launched a review into the outcomes of and support for children in need.
Finally, we have asked Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to design a programme of further local area SEND inspections to follow the current round and to develop an approach for further inspection or monitoring of those areas required to produce a written statement of action. The inspections consider how effectively local areas identify, meet the needs of and improve the outcomes of children and young people with SEND. They have proved a catalyst for supporting local areas to improve their services and deliver better outcomes for children and young people.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they intend to take following the recent Ofsted survey which showed that one-fifth of teachers have witnessed off-rolling in their schools where pupils are informally excluded.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
A pupil can only be deleted lawfully from the admission register of a school on the grounds prescribed in regulation 8 of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, as amended. The department has recently written to all secondary schools, reminding them of the rules surrounding exclusion.
Schools can exclude pupils, either permanently or for a fixed period, for disciplinary reasons. The department supports schools in using exclusion where this is warranted. Permanent exclusion should be used only as a last resort, in response to a serious breach or persistent breaches of the school's behaviour policy and where allowing the pupil to remain in school would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others in the school.
The attached statutory guidance on exclusions is clear that ‘informal’ or ‘unofficial’ exclusions, such as sending a pupil home ‘to cool off’, are unlawful, regardless of whether they occur with the agreement of parents or carers. Any exclusion of a pupil, even for short periods of time, must be formally recorded.
In March, the government launched an externally led review of exclusions practice, led by Edward Timpson CBE. The review will explore how head teachers use exclusion, and why pupils with particular characteristics are more likely to be excluded from school. It will also consider the practice in schools in relation to directing pupils to alternative provision without excluding. The review aims to report by the end of the year. The full terms of reference document is attached.
Asked by: Paul Girvan (Democratic Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what evaluations of individual PRU referrals are made upon transfer request; and how many such referrals have been denied in the last two years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Statutory guidance in place for Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) referrals is set out in Alternative Provision (AP) Statutory guidance for local authorities.
This states: “Schools and local authorities, working in consultation with PRU management committees and the governing bodies of alternative provision Academies and AP Free Schools, should set an overall policy for referrals or admission to alternative provision. There should be clear criteria for referring and admitting pupils, including those who are dual registered. Pupils should be dual registered from the beginning of the first day of which the school has commissioned the alternative provision”.
The guidance can be viewed here:
The Department does not hold information on individual referrals to alternative provision, including via PRUs, or cases where referrals have been denied. However, a qualitative and quantitative research programme has been launched into AP practices across England, including referrals to AP. The final reports will be published in autumn 2018 and the findings will be used to inform future work strands on AP reform.
One of the routes to AP is through exclusions. The Government has launched an externally led review of exclusions practice, led by Edward Timpson CBE. The review will consider how schools use exclusion and how this impacts on all pupils, but particularly why some groups of children are more likely to be excluded from school. The review will aim to report by the end of the year.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to improve the educational outcomes of vulnerable 16 and 17-year-olds.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On 16 March 2018, the government announced a programme of work to better understand how to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of children and young people with additional needs and challenges, so they are able to overcome barriers and realise their potential. This includes those who are 16 and 17 years old.
These children and young people perform less well at school on average, are at greater risk of being excluded and are overrepresented in alternative provision. This is an overlapping cohort whose needs are often complex – many have special educational needs and disabilities (where support extends beyond 18, up to age 25), or are children in need of help and protection and so are supported through the social care system.
The programme consists of:
As part of the review for children in need of help and protection, we have published new data and analysis, which offers initial insights into support provided in school for children in need who also claim free school meals, receive the pupil premium, and to meet special educational needs. This constituted new analysis, however, and the data did not include a breakdown by age.
To enable us to understand what support works in practice, we have announced a call for evidence of effective practice to improve educational outcomes for children in need. This will start to bring together and build the evidence of what support is currently being delivered both in and out of school, how its effectiveness is being measured and evaluated, and its influence on educational outcomes.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the quality of educational support provided to 16 and 17-year-olds in need of help or protection.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On 16 March 2018, the government announced a programme of work to better understand how to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of children and young people with additional needs and challenges, so they are able to overcome barriers and realise their potential. This includes those who are 16 and 17 years old.
These children and young people perform less well at school on average, are at greater risk of being excluded and are overrepresented in alternative provision. This is an overlapping cohort whose needs are often complex – many have special educational needs and disabilities (where support extends beyond 18, up to age 25), or are children in need of help and protection and so are supported through the social care system.
The programme consists of:
As part of the review for children in need of help and protection, we have published new data and analysis, which offers initial insights into support provided in school for children in need who also claim free school meals, receive the pupil premium, and to meet special educational needs. This constituted new analysis, however, and the data did not include a breakdown by age.
To enable us to understand what support works in practice, we have announced a call for evidence of effective practice to improve educational outcomes for children in need. This will start to bring together and build the evidence of what support is currently being delivered both in and out of school, how its effectiveness is being measured and evaluated, and its influence on educational outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children have a statement of special educational needs or an education health and care plan primarily because of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department publishes the number and proportion of pupils with special educational needs, including the type of need and type of school in the annual ‘Special educational needs in England’ statistical release, which are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.
The type of need ‘Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulties’ was removed in 2015 and ‘Social Emotional and Mental Health’ was added as a new type of need. Under the new categorisation, 13,493 children were in Special Schools as of the department’s last statistical release, in 2017. This new category is not expected to be treated as a direct replacement, therefore direct comparison is not advised.
We have launched a review of exclusions practice, led by Edward Timpson CBE. The review will consider how schools use exclusion and how this impacts on all pupils, but in particular why some groups of children (including those with special education needs) are more likely to be excluded from school. Views and evidence can be submitted via the call for evidence which is open until 6 May.
We have also set out our vision for transforming the education provided to those who would not otherwise receive it, including because they have been excluded from school. ‘Creating opportunity for all: our vision for alternative provision’, which is attached, sets out our plans to ensure that children in alternative provision receive consistently high-quality education so that they can achieve their potential, and is available at:
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children are in special schools primarily because of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department publishes the number and proportion of pupils with special educational needs, including the type of need and type of school in the annual ‘Special educational needs in England’ statistical release, which are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.
The type of need ‘Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulties’ was removed in 2015 and ‘Social Emotional and Mental Health’ was added as a new type of need. Under the new categorisation, 13,493 children were in Special Schools as of the department’s last statistical release, in 2017. This new category is not expected to be treated as a direct replacement, therefore direct comparison is not advised.
We have launched a review of exclusions practice, led by Edward Timpson CBE. The review will consider how schools use exclusion and how this impacts on all pupils, but in particular why some groups of children (including those with special education needs) are more likely to be excluded from school. Views and evidence can be submitted via the call for evidence which is open until 6 May.
We have also set out our vision for transforming the education provided to those who would not otherwise receive it, including because they have been excluded from school. ‘Creating opportunity for all: our vision for alternative provision’, which is attached, sets out our plans to ensure that children in alternative provision receive consistently high-quality education so that they can achieve their potential, and is available at:
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children (1) temporarily, and (2) permanently, excluded from school in England, have been provided with alternative education in each of the last three years; and what was the average proportion of those excluded who were provided with alternative education.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information regarding exclusions can be found in the National Statistics release ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England 2015 to 2016’. The information can be found in Table 1 of the national tables, attached.
The department does not hold statistics showing the alternative provision that pupils moved to when excluded. There are legal duties on schools and local authorities to provide suitable full time education from the sixth day of a fixed-period or permanent exclusion.
The duties on schools and local authorities to provide alternative provision, and the standards that this should meet, are also set out in statutory guidance attached.