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1360380

	registered interest
	date	15/10/2021
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Education: Boys
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2021 to Question 10325 on Education: Gender, what additional steps his Department is planning to take to help improve the average outcomes for boys to match those of girls given that the gender learning gap remains high at KS2 and KS4 levels.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	56968
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/10/2021 answer text <p>The department does not design education policy that exclusively targets certain groups of pupils with characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act 2010, including policy based on gender. We are committed to providing high quality education and training for everyone, whatever their background or personal characteristics.</p><p>Since 2010, the government has pursued a reform agenda to drive up academic standards for all and level up for the most disadvantaged pupils. When it comes to raising standards, evidence shows that teachers are the most important in-school factor affecting pupils’ education. In June 2021, the department announced an investment of over £250 million in the National Professional Qualifications and Early Career Framework programmes which are based on the best available evidence and have been developed in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation. In addition, in October the department announced a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 tax-free for maths, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in years 1 to 5 of their careers. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most. Through this, the department is committed to helping tackle the education gap for all pupils.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 26/10/2021 16:37:27 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1366950

	registered interest
	date	08/11/2021
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Primary Education: Teachers
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) steps his Department is taking and (b) incentives his Department is offering to help increase the proportion of male teachers in primary education.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	71313
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/11/2021 answer text <p>Schools should reflect society and the communities they serve, and it is important to attract and retain high-skilled, talented men into teaching.</p><p>The department does this through effective pay structures and by ensuring teaching remains a financially rewarding career. We remain committed to increasing teacher starting salaries to £30,000 to make teaching an attractive graduate option. While the pay restraint in academic year 2021/22 means we are now delivering this commitment to a revised timescale, the 5.5% uplift to starting pay in September 2020 has already made a substantial difference to the competitiveness of the early career pay offer.</p><p>The department’s ‘Teaching – Every Lesson Shapes A Life’ recruitment campaign is targeted at audiences of students, recent graduates and potential career changers regardless of gender, and we take every effort to ensure that our advertising is fully reflective of this across the full range of marketing materials we use.</p><p>In October, Apply for Teacher Training (Apply), our new application service for initial teacher training (ITT) in England, was rolled out nationally. Apply has been designed to be user-friendly and has been extensively tested with a diverse range of potential applicants, including men, to ensure it helps remove barriers to great teachers applying for ITT courses. Apply will also allow us to collect more data, giving us greater insight into candidate behaviour and the behaviour of providers of teacher training so that the department can identify barriers and work closely with ITT providers to explore, design and test new interventions to recruit more candidates from under-represented backgrounds into the sector.</p><p>Alongside a focus on recruitment, it is important we retain male teachers. This will be supported by our work to ensure that all new entrants to teacher training have the best possible start to the early stage of their career, regardless of gender.</p><p>World-class programmes developed by the Department for Education to support the school workforce, including our Early Career Framework (ECF) reforms for those at the beginning of careers and National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) to develop our best teaching and leadership talent, is the best training for everyone whatever their background. The ECF reforms provide a funded entitlement for all early career teachers in England to access high quality professional development at the start of their careers. NPQs are now freely available to all teachers in state-funded schools, as well as state-funded 16-19 organisations.</p> answering member constituency Worcester answering member printed Mr Robin Walker question first answered 17/11/2021 13:42:36 answering member 4091 label Biography information for Mr Robin Walker
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1675737

	registered interest
	date	05/12/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to screen pupils for special educational needs and disabilities in primary schools.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	900565
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/12/2023 answer text <p>Early identification of needs is critical to improving outcomes for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and the department understands that early intervention can reduce the impact that a Special Educational Need (SEN) or disability may have in the long term.</p><p>The SEND Code of Practice is clear that meeting the needs of a child with SEN does not require a diagnostic label or test. Instead, the department expects teachers to monitor the progress of all children and young people and provide support where it is needed, including arranging diagnostic tests where appropriate.</p><p>To support all teachers in meeting these expectations, the department is implementing teacher training reforms. These reforms are designed to ensure that teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND. Since 2020, the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework (CCF) has included content on adapting teaching to the strengths and needs of all pupils. The department is conducting a review of the CCF and Early Career Framework, which will consider further opportunities to improve how the frameworks support new teachers to meet the needs of pupils with SEND.</p><p>The department’s Universal Services (US) contract brings together SEND-specific continuous professional development and support for the teaching workforce to improve outcomes for children and young people. This includes autism awareness training and resources. Over 100,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training since the US programme launched.</p><p>The department has also committed to funding training for up to 7,000 early years staff to gain an accredited Level 3 early years SENCO qualification.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 11/12/2023 17:35:03 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1682994

	registered interest
	date	17/01/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Aviation: Training
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she will consider designating pilot flight training as a higher educational course for the purpose of student loans.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	10090
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/01/2024 answer text <p>The courses designated for Higher Education student finance are set out in secondary legislation.To attract funding, students studying in England must generally be undertaking a course leading to a designated qualification at a provider registered with the Office for Students (OfS).</p><p> </p><p>Registration with the OfS is a requirement in place to provide assurance to the Secretary of State for Education that students are receiving a high-quality academic experience and value for money.</p><p> </p><p>Flying schools are welcome to apply to be on the OfS register. The funding available for designated programmes, which include pilot training, does not normally extend to costs associated with the commercial pilot’s licence and flying experience.</p> answering member constituency Harlow answering member printed Robert Halfon question first answered 24/01/2024 17:03:12 answering member 3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1365659

	registered interest
	date	02/11/2021
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of the £1.8 billion in education recovery funding, announced at the Spending Review on 27 October 2021, will be used to fund catch-up health and care services for (a) disabled and (b) other young people.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	68208
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/11/2021 answer text <p>Health services are accessed through the NHS and not funded by the Department for Education. Local authorities are responsible for providing respite care and short breaks for disabled children, these services are funded through the main local government settlement.</p><p>Helping children and young people to catch up on education missed due to the COVID-19 outbreak remains a top priority of this government. Our £1.8 billion investment announced as part of the Spending Review is targeted at those who most need help catching up. It includes over £800 million to provide a universal uplift with an additional 40 hours of education for students aged 16-19 who have the least time left to recover; and an additional £1 billion of catch up funding directly to schools so they can best decide how to support education recovery for the pupils that need it, focused on evidence-based approaches.</p><p>The department has consistently prioritised children with SEND in our recovery programmes, for example by providing additional uplifts for those who attend specialist education providers (including SEND units in mainstream schools) in both the catch-up premium in the 2020/21 academic year and the recovery premium for the 2021/22 academic year, and providing additional funding to special and alternative provision schools to provide one to one tutoring for their pupils, with greater flexibility to schools to make it easier for them to take on local tutors or use existing staff to supplement those employed through the existing National Tutoring Programme. The 16-19 tuition fund continues to support students with SEND as at present through small group tuition.</p><p>The department is providing over £42 million in the 2021-22 financial year to continue funding projects to support children with SEND. This investment will ensure that specialist organisations around the country can continue to help strengthen local area performance, support families and provide practical support to schools and colleges. It will strengthen participation of parents and young people in the SEND system, ensuring they have a voice in designing policies and services and have access to high quality information and support.</p><p>Alongside recovery funding, the department is investing £2.6 billion between the financial years 2022 and 2025 to deliver new places and improve existing provision for pupils with SEND or who require alternative provision. This funding represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision and will help deliver tens of thousands of new places.</p><p>More widely, the department has continued to provide local authorities with their full high needs revenue funding allocations throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, including more than £1.5 billion of high needs funding over financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22, bringing the total high needs funding allocated this year to more than £8 billion. The department announced in summer 2021 that high needs funding will increase by a further £780 million, or 9.6%, in the next financial year, compared to this year. Through the Spending Review the department secured for schools and children and young people with high needs an increase of £4.7 billion by financial year 2024-25, compared to our original 2022-23 plans. This includes £1.6 billion in additional funding for 2022-23 budgets, on top of the year-on-year increase of £2.4 billion already confirmed at the 2019 Spending Review, and which is intended to help the sector respond to the pressures the department knows they are seeing: in overall costs, in national insurance, on high needs, in managing COVID-19 and in supporting children and young people to recover from the COVID-19 outbreak. The department will confirm in due course how this funding will be allocated in 2022-23 for schools and high needs.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 09/11/2021 16:30:59 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1439845

	registered interest
	date	10/03/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Schools: Defibrillators
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to require every school to have a defibrillator.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	138019
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/03/2022 answer text <p>I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Crawley, to the answer I gave on 2 December 2021 to Question <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-11-22/79483" target="_blank">79483</a><strong>.</strong></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 18/03/2022 13:09:18 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1458742

	registered interest
	date	20/04/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how (a) local authorities and (b) other commissioners and service provides will be held to account if they fail to meet their legal duties in respect of support to children with SEND and their families.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	156423
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/04/2022 answer text <p>It firmly remains a priority for my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, that local authorities and other providers fulfil their statutory duties in providing the right support at the right time for children and young people with SEND and their families. The Secretary of State is committed to holding them to account where these statutory obligations are not met.</p><p>From May 2016, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) began inspecting local areas (including local authorities and other commissioners and service providers) on their effectiveness in fulfilling their duties for children and young people who have SEND.</p><p>Under the current framework, Area SEND inspections consider how effectively the local area identifies and meets the needs of different groups of children and young people who have special educational needs or a disability, as defined in the Children and Families Act 2014 and set out in the SEND Code of Practice. The inspections also consider how effectively the local area improves the outcomes of these children and young people. They may also provide evidence for local areas to receive appropriate external support and intervention.</p><p>The department has commissioned CQC and Ofsted, with the support of the Department of Health and Social Care, to develop a new area SEND inspection framework to launch after the existing inspection cycle has finished. Taking account of learning from the first cycle, this framework will include a greater focus on the experience of children and young people with SEND and their families and give more prominence to the quality integration and commissioning of education, health, and care services.</p><p>The SEND and AP Green Paper proposes to strengthen accountability measures, including through Ofsted and CQC inspections and strengthened oversight via the department's new Regions Group.</p><p><strong><br> </strong></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 27/04/2022 11:24:54 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1462787

	registered interest
	date	13/05/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Answer of 27 April 2022 to Question 156423 on special educational needs, if his Department will take steps to (a) intervene when service providers do not meet their legal duties to families with disabled children and (b) provide redress in those cases to affected families.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	1500
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/05/2022 answer text <p>Children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are a priority and where a local area is deemed to be underperforming, either by way of inspection or concerns raised, the department will not hesitate to intervene in cases of systemic and/or persistent failure. For example, we may issue a formal improvement notice or use powers under Section 497A of the Education Act 1996 to issue a statutory direction directing the council to take any further actions we deem necessary, which may include requiring the responsible local authority to work with a SEND commissioner.</p><p>Where families wish to seek redress or otherwise resolve disagreements about Education, Health and Care needs assessments or plans, they have the option to do so via disagreement resolution, mediation, or by registering an appeal with the first-tier tribunal (SEND). The department is currently consulting on proposals to strengthen this system in the SEND and AP Green Paper.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 23/05/2022 10:05:07 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1467366

	registered interest
	date	01/06/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Visual Impairment
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the use of specialist professions for children with sight loss as part of the SEND review.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	11643
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/06/2022 answer text <p>In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, the department announced it would establish a single, national SEND and AP system. This will set clear standards for provision, processes and systems, clear roles and responsibilities, and set strengthened accountabilities at every level to drive up outcomes and improve consistency for children and young people with SEND.</p><p>The proposals aim to drive national consistency in how needs are assessed, identified, and met across education, health, and care through the introduction of national standards. These are intended to provide clarity and consistency in the types of support that should be available for children and young people with SEND or those who require AP, including access to specialist professionals.</p><p>The department knows the value that mainstream schools place on high-quality, accessible specialist advice. This includes advice from educational psychologists and qualified teachers of visually impaired children and young people. The SEND and AP Green Paper sets out the department’s vision for an inclusive education system to ensure that all children and young people, including those with sight loss, have timely access to specialist services and support.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 11644 question first answered 16/06/2022 17:12:29 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith

1467367

	registered interest
	date	01/06/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Special Educational Needs: Standards
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to include a right to access specialist professionals, such as habilitation workers, in the planned SEND national standards.
	tabling member constituency	Crawley
	tabling member printed	Henry Smith
	uin	11644
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/06/2022 answer text <p>In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, the department announced it would establish a single, national SEND and AP system. This will set clear standards for provision, processes and systems, clear roles and responsibilities, and set strengthened accountabilities at every level to drive up outcomes and improve consistency for children and young people with SEND.</p><p>The proposals aim to drive national consistency in how needs are assessed, identified, and met across education, health, and care through the introduction of national standards. These are intended to provide clarity and consistency in the types of support that should be available for children and young people with SEND or those who require AP, including access to specialist professionals.</p><p>The department knows the value that mainstream schools place on high-quality, accessible specialist advice. This includes advice from educational psychologists and qualified teachers of visually impaired children and young people. The SEND and AP Green Paper sets out the department’s vision for an inclusive education system to ensure that all children and young people, including those with sight loss, have timely access to specialist services and support.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 11643 question first answered 16/06/2022 17:12:29 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	3960 label Biography information for Henry Smith