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78895

	registered interest
	date	18/07/2014
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Adoption and Foster Care
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps she has taken to improve the support provided to adopters and foster parents; and if she will make a statement.
	tabling member constituency	Brighton, Kemptown
	tabling member printed	Simon Kirby
	uin	206612
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/07/2014 answer text <p> </p><p>The Government is committed to improving support for adoptive families and foster carers. To improve adoption support, the Department for Education has committed £19.3 million to establish an Adoption Support Fund to make therapeutic support more accessible. This is currently being tested in 10 local authorities. We are piloting personal budgets for adoption support in these local authorities to give parents more choice and control over the support they receive. We have commissioned the British Association of Adoption and Fostering to develop a new tool for assessing families’ support needs. We are supporting local authorities to pilot AdOpt, a therapeutic parenting programme for adopters.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We have extended the Pupil Premium, priority school admissions and funded early education for 2-year-olds to children adopted from care. In addition, we have published the Adoption Passport, setting out information about entitlements to support, including adopters’ rights to improved adoption pay and leave from 2015.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We are continuing to fund the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM). The IRM provides access to an independent body where services have decided not to approve an adopter or foster carer; are proposing changes to or have terminated a foster carer’s approval.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>To improve support for foster carers, the department has taken the decision to continue to fund Fosterline which provides confidential, free advice to foster carers. We are funding the development of a new programme for foster carers of babies and very young children and an adaptation of Multisystemic Therapy, an existing evidence based intervention, which will focus on supporting children to return home or find stability in long term care.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We continue to support the roll-out of evidence based interventions such as KEEP (Keeping Foster and Kinship Carers Safe and Supported) and MTFC (Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care) to help foster carers gain the confidence and skills to care for those with complex needs.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The department has recently become the government’s first foster-family-friendly employer, giving staff that foster extra support to balance their work and care responsibilities. Other government departments and some local authorities are now actively considering implementing similar policies.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We have developed training materials for professionals working in fostering and adoption and delivered regional train-the-trainer events to launch them. Some fostering services plan to offer this training to their foster carers too.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Crewe and Nantwich answering member printed Mr Edward Timpson question first answered 22/07/2014 14:57:51 answering member 1605 label Biography information for Edward Timpson
	tabling member	3929 label Biography information for Simon Kirby

78900

	registered interest
	date	18/07/2014
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Sports
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress she has made on improving PE and sports provision in primary schools; and if she will make a statement.
	tabling member constituency	Brighton, Kemptown
	tabling member printed	Simon Kirby
	uin	206609
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/07/2014 answer text <p> </p><p>The Government is providing more than £450 million of ring-fenced funding for primary PE and sport through the primary PE and sport premium in the three academic years to 2015/16. We are working across government and with PE and sport organisations to support schools to spend the funding effectively and sustainably. We have received positive reports about how schools have been spending the funding in its first year. Schools have provided professional development for teachers, deployed specialist coaches to support new activities, promoted physical activity amongst less active children, and increased the amount of competitive sport played.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Department for Education has also created a programme to train primary PE specialists. The first cohort of 120 teachers is due to start working in schools from this September. They will provide expert teaching in their school, and take a lead in promoting PE in their local area. The programme has been extended for another year, increasing the number of PE primary specialists to 240 by September 2015. It is hoped that from September 2015 many more teaching schools in the country will be able to offer this specialist course.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Further work across government is also improving PE and sport in primary schools. Over 17,000 primary and secondary schools across the country are taking part in the Sainsbury’s School Games. Under Primary Spaces, a National Lottery-funded programme, more than 600 schools have been awarded up to £30,000 to improve outdoor spaces for PE and sporting activities. New facilities will be installed in the first 100 schools this summer.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>PE remains a compulsory subject at all four key stages in the new national curriculum, which comes into force from September 2014. There is a greater focus on competitive sport in PE lessons and swimming, and water safety remains compulsory at primary levels.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Crewe and Nantwich answering member printed Mr Edward Timpson question first answered 22/07/2014 15:02:11 answering member 1605 label Biography information for Edward Timpson
	tabling member	3929 label Biography information for Simon Kirby