Understanding the impact of the COVID-19 disruption on the attainment and progress of all students is a key research priority for the Government, and we have commissioned an independent research and assessment agency to provide a baseline assessment of catch-up needs for pupils in schools in England and monitor progress over the course of the year. This research is based on assessments that schools are already using over this academic year. Initial findings from the research were recently published on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupils-progress-in-the-2020-to-2021-academic-year-interim-report. The next stages of the research will enable us to break down impacts on different subgroups of pupils, including analysis of how boys’ and girls’ attainment may have been differentially affected by time out of school due to COVID-19.

The Government recognises that extended school and college restrictions have had a substantial impact on children and young people’s education and are committed to helping pupils make up learning lost as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. In January 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister committed to work with parents, teachers and pupils to develop a long-term plan to help pupils make up their learning over the course of this Parliament.

In February 2021, the Department appointed Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner to advise on the approach for education recovery and the development of a long-term plan to help pupils make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. As an immediate step, we have made available a further £700 million to support education recovery measures. This builds on the £1 billion from last year and brings total available in education recovery to £1.7 billion. Funding will support pupils across nurseries, schools and colleges and provides an additional one-off ‘Recovery Premium’ for schools, expansion of tutoring in schools and colleges, summer schools in 2021 and early language support.

The government is committed to transforming the lives of young people, so they can go as far as their hard work and talent will take them, regardless of their background or where they live. It is more crucial than ever before that we tap into the brilliant talent that our country has to offer, and make sure that university places are available to all who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.

All higher education (HE) providers wanting to charge higher level fees must also have an Access and Participation Plan agreed by the Office for Students (OfS), in which they set out the measures they intend to take to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups to access and succeed in HE.

Through our recent guidance letter to the OfS, we have asked that their work to improve access and participation in HE should include a focus on white working-class boys who are currently the least likely group to progress to HE.

Departmental officials are working closely with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) to explore how we can support HE providers to improve and enhance access to data collected by the Department, including free school meals (FSM) data. We recently gave approval to UCAS to incorporate FSM data into their multiple equality measure for the 2021 HE admissions cycle, which UCAS will make available to HE providers as part of their modernised contextual data service. My officials are continuing to work with UCAS to consider the changes required to their processes to enable the lawful sharing of FSM data directly with HE providers.

We are working with NHS Digital, mental health providers and partner organisations to improve the collection of data in the mental health services data set on people referred to secondary mental health services for anxiety and those who self-harm whilst an inpatient. We also fund the Multicentre for Self-Harm to provide representative and reliable data on self-harm in England.

Data on suicide registrations by coroners is collected by the Office for National Statistics and there is a time lag due to the length of time it can take to hold an inquest. Public Health England is piloting a national real-time surveillance system to monitor suspected suicide, by collecting early real time data which can be used to identify patterns of risk and causal factors, to inform national and local responses. HM Treasury has announced £1.2million funding to help support the development of the national system.

NHS Digital separately collects data though hospital episode statistics on the number of accident and emergency (A&E) attendances due to intentional self-harm and the number of finished admission episodes with a secondary diagnosis of intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old.

Between 23 March 2020 and 30 November 2020 there were 4,011 A&E attendances due to intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old and 2,022 finished admission episodes with a secondary diagnosis of intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old. This information only represents activity serious enough to require hospital treatment.

Between 23 March 2019 and 22 March 2020, there were 34,754 boys reported in the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) under 18 years old who were referred to secondary mental health services with a primary reason for referral of anxiety. For the period 23 March 2020 to 30 November 2020, 20,842 boys were referred.

The MHSDS shows that between 23 March 2019 and 22 March 2020 there were 122 incidents of self-harm reported by boys under the age of 18 years old, and between 23 March 2020 and 30 November 2020, there were 82 incidents of self-harm. These numbers are based on the data submitted by the secondary care mental health services to MHSDS and include only incidents of self-harm in the mental health hospitals. The numbers include November provisional data and are likely to be an undercount of the true activity. This is the latest data available to NHS Digital.

For suicide, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that there were 123 suicide registrations relating to boys aged 10-19 years old in 2019 (92 registrations between January and September 2019). Provisional information for January to September 2020 shows that there were 80 suicide registrations relating to boys aged 10-19 years old. All deaths caused by suicide in England are investigated by coroners. Given the length of time it takes to hold an inquest, most deaths are registered around five to six months after they occurred. The number of suicides registered in 2020 should be interpreted with caution due to the pandemic causing further delays on the coroner’s service resulting in further delays to inquests.

The Social Mobility Commission is an Arm’s Length Body, whose statutory responsibility is to monitor social mobility in the United Kingdom and promote social mobility in England. They carry out this responsibility by appraising action on social mobility via their annual monitoring report laid in Parliament, making recommendations to the government and conducting other evidence-based research reports they publish throughout the year. The Social Mobility Commission also carry out important work with frontline delivery partners to help drive change, and put evidence on best practice into action alongside employers, local regional leaders, social mobility charities, and reaching out to young people through digital channels.

The Social Mobility Commission’s work has a key focus on understanding the drivers of poor outcomes for individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, as part of an overarching strategy to understand the drivers of poor social mobility through high-quality research.

The Social Mobility Commission also recently contributed to the Education Select Committee inquiry on ‘Left Behind White Pupils from Disadvantaged Backgrounds’. Their written evidence can be found here: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/12557/default.

Educational achievement is at the heart of our commitment to ensure no young person is left behind because of the place or circumstances of their birth. Most pupils now attend Good or Outstanding schools. As of March 2020, 86% of schools are Good or Outstanding compared to just 68% in 2010.

We are aware that pupils of all backgrounds have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and we are providing schools with the resources and tools to address lost education so that all pupils can catch up. Our £1 billion COVID-19 catch-up package is providing additional funding so that schools can support pupils who have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of this, the £650 million universal Catch-Up Premium is enabling all schools to identify and prioritise support for pupils to address their needs. This complements the National Tutoring Programme which is targeting £350 million to accelerate the academic progress of disadvantaged pupils by making high quality tutors available to schools in all regions at a greatly reduced rate.

Recognising that disadvantaged children may not have access to the resources they need to learn remotely, we have invested more than £195 million to support access to remote education and online social care. As part of this, we are making more than 340,000 laptops and tablets available this term to support disadvantaged children in Years 3 to 11 whose face-to-face education may be disrupted. This supplements more than 220,000 laptops and tablets and 50,000 4G wireless routers which were delivered during the summer term.

English schools continue to receive the pupil premium, worth £2.4 billion again this financial year, to enable them to arrange extra personalised support for disadvantaged pupils of all abilities. This year, schools in St Helens are sharing £9.7 million provided through this grant, with schools in the five local authorities in Merseyside sharing £82.4 million.

We founded the Education Endowment Foundation in 2011 to research and disseminate the most effective ways to improve disadvantaged pupil progress. So far, it has conducted 190 trials in 13,000 English schools leading to the publication of a comprehensive range of internationally recognised effective practice. The research shows schools effectively implementing the best evidence-based approaches can make a difference to every pupil’s future.

The Government is committed to continuing to raise literacy standards, ensuring all children can read fluently and with understanding.

In 2014, the Department introduced a new, more rigorous national curriculum. The programme of study for English states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. There is a focus on reading and a requirement that pupils study a range of books, poems and plays to encourage the development of a life-long love of literature. The programme of study also puts significant emphasis on the importance of early reading and teaching systematic synthetic phonics in Key Stages 1 and 2.

In 2016, England ranked joint 8th of 50 in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Our average score was the highest of the four PIRLS studies to date and statistically higher than our average performance in 2011 and 2006. The 2016 study also indicates that, while girls in England scored significantly higher than boys, the overall improvement in England's average score is largely attributable to increases in the average performance of boys and lower-performing pupils. Further to this, while girls continue to outperform boys in England, there were no countries participating in PIRLS in which boys outperformed girls.

Building on this success, in 2018, the Department launched the English Hubs Programme, establishing 34 hubs in primary schools across England, initially with a £26.3 million funding and with a further £17.1 million awarded in 2020. The programme supports nearly 3,000 schools to improve their teaching of reading through systematic synthetic phonics, early language development, and reading for pleasure. While early stages focused on systematic synthetic phonics, hubs have now started introducing medium-level support in priority areas, including developing a love of reading. Recognising the importance of reading during the disruption to education caused by COVID-19 this year, the Department also published a Reading Together Day to celebrate the benefits of reading.

Laying the groundwork for reading standards starts in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) with children aged 0-5. Over 3,000 early adopter schools are implementing the reforms to the EYFS statutory framework this September, a year in advance of statutory roll out of the reforms in September 2021. One of the key aims of these reforms is to improve outcomes for all children at age 5, particularly in the areas of early language and literacy which are key predictors of later success.