We are extremely grateful for the work schools, childcare providers and local authorities have been doing since our announcement on the closure of schools and other educational and childcare settings. We are committed to ensuring that school staff are issued with the right guidance and support to keep them safe. We are in regular contact with the teacher and head teacher unions.

Currently the NHS is rightly prioritising COVID-19 tests for those caring for hospital patients with pneumonia or acute respiratory illness while continuing to investigate outbreaks. Most adults in good health who develop symptoms will fully recover and the Chief Medical Officer has advised that it is not necessary for them to be tested. However, school staff with symptoms of COVID-19 should, just as anyone displaying symptoms, self-isolate for at least seven days to reduce the spread in the community. The Government’s latest stay at home guidance can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection.

On 18 March, the Government made an announcement with regard to increasing the number of people tested for COVID-19 to 25,000 hospital patients a day, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/testing-for-coronavirus-covid-19-will-increase-to-25-000-a-day.

On 27 March, the Government launched a new drive on coronavirus tests for frontline NHS staff and more information is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-new-drive-on-coronavirus-tests-for-frontline-nhs-staff.

Our health service and care staff are key in our fight against the virus. Frontline NHS staff who have symptoms of coronavirus or who have a family member with symptoms will be the first tested for coronavirus as the testing programme is developed. More on this developing programme can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-new-drive-on-coronavirus-tests-for-frontline-nhs-staff.

We are working closely with other Government departments to secure tests for other critical workers, including in our education system.

To help ensure that the risk of COVID-19 spread for both staff and children is as low as possible, we have asked schools to ensure class sizes reflect the numbers of teaching staff available and are kept as small as possible.

We understand that this is a very difficult time for teachers – we are asking a lot of them and all school staff to help the country fight this virus.

Once schools have assessed their demand and capacity, they should liaise with their local authority to establish whether any staff need to be moved to an alternative setting. We have set out in guidance (published 22 March 2020) that local authorities will need to work closely with educational settings to ensure sufficient provision is available across the local area. Local authorities and educational settings may need to redeploy staff, such as teachers, support staff or other critical workers. They may need to do this across the usual boundaries of maintained, academy, college or other status to ensure the right staff are in the right settings.

Parliament has passed the Coronavirus Act 2020, which includes powers to direct schools and other educational settings, including academies and independent schools, to close, open, re-open or remain open. The Act allows my right hon. Friend, Secretary of State for Education, to delegate these powers to local authorities. The Act also supports schools to stay open by granting powers to the Secretary of State to relax certain elements of education law which would be impossible to fulfil in the current circumstances.

Local authorities are also responsible for coordinating the response to these new arrangements and we expect them to work with schools, nurseries, childminders and others to ensure that different settings are supported to stay open wherever possible, taking into account their circumstances and cohort to ensure there is adequate provision.

The Department is committed to tackling entrenched underperformance in schools wherever it exists.

Last September, following confirmation of the biggest funding boost for schools in a decade, totaling an additional £14 billion over three years, the Department announced that we will provide more support for persistently underperforming schools from high-performing, experienced school leaders. These mechanisms are now being put in place.

We also confirmed that we would work with Ofsted so that it can provide more detailed analysis on areas of improvement for these schools. We have been doing so and will be confirming details in due course. This announcement can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-drive-to-continue-boosting-standards-in-schools.

On 10 January, the Department also launched a public consultation on removing the exemption from routine inspection for schools previously rated outstanding by Ofsted. The aim is to lift the exemption from September 2020, subject to the consultation outcome and parliamentary approval. Ending the exemption will mean all parents have up to date information about every school and can be confident that their children’s schools are continuing to deliver the best education. The Department will provide additional funding for these inspections for 2020-21, and funding for subsequent years will be determined through the forthcoming Spending Review.

The press release can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/raising-expectations-of-children-and-parents-high-standards-for-teachers-and-tackling-bad-behaviour-how-schools-in-left-behind-areas-can-improve.

​The Department does not hold information on the number of schools with gardens. Responsible bodies such as local authorities, academy trusts and diocesan bodies are best placed to answer questions on the numbers of their schools with gardens.

Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that there is a school place available for every child. The Department provides basic need funding for every place that is needed, based on local authorities’ own data on pupil forecasts. Local authorities can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools, and can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.

Basic need allocations to local authorities to provide new school places from 2011-2021 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-need-allocations. Data for allocations prior to 2011-12 is not readily available.

The Department has also invested a total of £365 million through the Special Provision Capital Fund from 2018-19 to 2020-21. This funding will help local authorities to create new places and improve facilities for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.

Special Provision Capital Fund allocations to local authorities can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-provision-capital-funding-for-pupils-with-ehc-plans.

In addition, the Department has funded thousands of good new school places and opened schools across the country through the free schools programme. The Department’s total capital costs of establishing free schools are listed below. These annual costs include all aspects of site acquisition, design, and construction expended in that year.

There are also some much smaller additional capital programmes which have also created places, however this is not their primary objective. In total, the Department is on track to create one million places this decade (2010 to 2020), the largest increase in school capacity in at least two generations. This follows a decrease of 100,000 places between 2004 and 2010.

[1] This figure will be available once the Department lays its annual accounts before Parliament in 2020.

The Department for Education has allocated over £13 billion in condition funding from 2011-12 to 2019-20, an average of £1.4 billion a year. On top of that, the £4.4 billion Priority School Building Programme is rebuilding or refurbishing school buildings in the worst condition across England, covering over 500 schools. Data on capital funding allocated prior to 2011-12 is not readily available.

In addition to this, the Department provides Basic Need funding to local authorities for new school places and, as of 1 October 2019, the Department has opened 507 free schools which when full will educate 280,000 pupils.

Published data on annual capital allocations is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-capital-funding.

It is the Department’s intention to move to a ‘hard’ national funding formula (NFF) as soon as possible. This is where schools’ actual budgets are set and allocated on the basis of a single, national formula.

The Department recognises that this will represent a significant change and the Department will work closely with local authorities, schools and others to make this transition as smooth as possible.

In 2020-21, local authorities will continue to have some flexibility on how school funding is distributed locally and in consultation with schools. This will allow for a smooth transition toward the NFF.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The meeting on 29 August 2019 between my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and unions representing teachers and school leaders was an opportunity to discuss issues particularly relevant to those members of the school workforce, including how we can recruit and retain the best and most experienced teachers. The Department for Education regularly engages with unions representing school support staff and that engagement will continue.

Teaching Vacancies is a free job listing service for schools to list teacher vacancies. A phased roll out commenced in September 2018 with the official national launch in April 2019. To date, 60% of schools have signed up to use the service.

The Teaching Vacancies website is available here: https://teaching-vacancies.service.gov.uk/.

The Department is on track to create one million places this decade, the largest increase in school capacity for at least two generations.

The Department collects pupil forecasts, existing school capacities, and plans to deliver additional school places from each local authority via the annual school capacity survey. Around 920,000 new school places have been created since 2010.

Of those new school places that were created in existing schools between 2016 and 2017, 91%[1] were in schools rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted and 9% of the new places were created in schools rated as requiring improvement or inadequate.

[1] This figure will expire on the 27 June 2019 on publication of the latest local authority school places Scorecards 2018.

There is no known correlation at area level between rates of exclusion and levels of funding.

This Government has prioritised funds for the most disadvantaged pupils, including through the Pupil Premium and Pupil Premium Plus, which supports looked after children. For children and young people with more complex needs, the Department has also confirmed an additional £250 million in high needs funding over 2018-19 and 2019-20, included in the £6.3 billion total for high needs funding this year.

As noted in the Government response to Edward Timpson’s review of school exclusion, the Government will make schools accountable for the outcomes of permanently excluded children. Over the summer, the Department will work with education leaders to design a consultation, to be launched in the autumn, on how to deliver these reforms in practice. Among other things, the Department will seek views on how to mitigate the potential unintended consequences Edward Timpson has identified in his review, including how to tackle the practice of ‘off-rolling’.

Ofsted already considers records of children taken off roll and has recently consulted on proposals that will see a strengthened focus on this issue, and has proposed that where inspectors find off-rolling, this will always be addressed in the inspection report, and where appropriate will lead to a school’s leadership being judged inadequate. Ofsted will publish the outcome of its consultation soon.

As in the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) regulations 2006 as amended, state schools must notify the local authority when a pupil’s name is to be deleted from the admission register as soon as the ground for deletion under regulation 8 in relation to that pupil is established. The Department will provide guidance on the use of ‘managed moves’, as recommended by Edward Timpson.

The Government will also establish a practice programme that embeds effective partnership working between local authorities, schools, alternative provision and other partners to better equip schools to intervene early for children at risk of exclusion and to ensure that the most effective provision is put in place for those who are excluded. As a large proportion of schools are academies, the programme will support partnership working between local authorities and academies.

The admissions system works well and the vast majority of parents will be allocated a place at one of their preference schools. In 2018, 91.0% were offered their first choice primary school and 97.7% received offers from one of their top 3, while 82.1% were offered their first choice secondary school and 93.8% received offers from one of their top 3.

We are not complacent and want to continue to ensure fair access to a good school place for every pupil. That is why we routinely keep the admissions system under review and seek feedback from stakeholders on the health of the system.

As announced in the Home Office Domestic Abuse White Paper, we are currently considering whether changes to the School Admissions Code would be helpful in supporting the admission of the most vulnerable pupils.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Home Office publishes data relating to fires in buildings other than dwellings, which includes categories for educational establishments. The most recent published figures cover the 2010-11 to 2017-18 years inclusive. This information has been published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables#incident-level-datasets.

The data can be found in the file ‘Other building fires dataset’ and the accompanying guidance document.

Of the 673 new schools built by the Department by February 2019, 289 were built under the Priority Schools Building Programme, and 384 free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools were opened under the free schools programme in their permanent school buildings.

As per the ‘Central Government Supply Estimates 2018-19: Supplementary Estimates’, resource funding for programmes by Estimate Line is disclosed in the attached table. This information is supplemented by additional information contained in the ‘Supplementary Estimate Memorandum’ published by the Education Select Committee.

For programmes covered by capital funding in the '2018-19 Supplementary Estimate', the Department is investing £23 billion in the school estate in the current Spending Review period (2016-17 to 2020-21) to deliver new school places, rebuild or refurbish buildings in the worst condition and deliver thousands of condition projects across the school estate. Details on 2018-19 school’s capital budgets is available at Annex D of the ‘Supplementary Estimate Memorandum 2018-19’.

In addition to the Department’s investment in school’s capital, the Department also funds capital projects in other sectors, including higher education, further education, and children’s social care.