Previous Section Index Home Page

23 July 2007 : Column 867W—continued

Health Education: Sex

Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what assessment he has made of the teaching of sex and relationships education in schools; and what plans he has to standardise teaching according to age and content; [148570]

(2) if he will make sex and relationships education a mandatory part of personal, social and health education; [148571]

(3) whether he plans to employ more specially-trained staff to deliver sex and relationship education; [148472]


23 July 2007 : Column 868W

(4) whether he plans to incorporate information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships into sex and relationship education. [148473]

Jim Knight: The Department has not undertaken or commissioned any recent assessment of sex and relationship education (SRE) in schools. Ofsted is responsible for assessing the quality of schools’ provision in the area of personal, social and health education (PSHE), including SRE, through its inspection framework and subject reports, and last reported on SRE in “Sex and Relationships Education in Schools” in 2002.

The Department's “Sex and Relationship Education Guidance” for schools outlines their responsibilities in this area and provides information on the issues to be covered at each of the four key stages, taking account of the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the young people. The guidance is clear that schools need to make sure that SRE meets, and is sensitive to, the needs of all pupils whatever their developing sexuality. Pupils should be helped to understand difference and respect themselves and others in order to prevent and remove prejudice.

Certain aspects of SRE must be delivered as part of the statutory curriculum for science, and legislation requires that head teachers and school governing bodies must have regard to the Department's guidance when delivering a broader range of SRE within the framework for PSHE. All schools are expected to meet the statutory requirements and have an up-to-date policy on SRE. Beyond this, there are no plans to regulate SRE further, as this would be contrary to curriculum reforms designed to give schools greater flexibilities.

It is for schools to determine whom they employ to deliver any area of the curriculum. We are however committed to helping schools improve their planning and delivery of this important area, and there is a Government-funded continuing professional development programme for PSHE, which all teachers of SRE are encouraged to undertake. The programme, which is also open to community nurses, supports standards in the delivery of PSHE teaching, including SRE. To date, over 6,000 teachers and nurses have benefited from the programme.

Other measures to support high quality SRE provision include:

Local Education Authorities: Inspections

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will make a statement on his plans for the inspection of local education authorities. [150701]


23 July 2007 : Column 869W

Jim Knight: The Secretary of State has no plans to request separate inspections of local authority education functions. These functions are within the scope of Ofsted’s annual performance assessments of children’s services, and of joint area reviews of children’s services by Ofsted and other inspectorates. The Secretary of State has approved a timetable for a programme of joint area reviews, to cover every local authority in England between 2005 and 2008.


23 July 2007 : Column 870W

Playing Fields

Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools sold their playing fields in each of the last 10 years, broken down by local authority. [151334]

Kevin Brennan: In the last 10 years the Secretary of State has approved 187 applications that involve the sale of an area of land capable of forming a sports pitch of at least 0.2 hectares at schools in England. The analysis is shown in the following table.


23 July 2007 : Column 871W

23 July 2007 : Column 872W
Local authority Total 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Barnet

1

1

Bath and NE Somerset

2

1

1

Bedfordshire

2

1

1

Bexley

1

1

Bolton

1

1

Bracknell Forest

1

1

Bristol

4

1

1

1

1

Buckinghamshire

4

1

3

Bury

1

1

Calderdale

1

1

Cambridge

1

1

Camden

2

1

1

Cheshire

6

1

2

2

1

Coventry

3

1

1

1

Croydon

1

1

Cumbria

1

1

Derby

3

3

Derbyshire

3

2

1

Devon

2

1

1

Dorset

1

1

Dudley

1

1

Durham

3

1

1

1

Ealing

1

1

East Riding of Yorkshire

1

1

Enfield

1

1

Essex

5

1

1

2

1

Gloucestershire

3

1

1

1

Greenwich

1

1

Halton

1

1

Hammersmith and Fulham

2

1

1

Hampshire

2

1

1

Havering

2

1

1

Hertfordshire

6

2

1

1

2

Kent

5

1

2

1

1

Lancashire

4

2

1

1

Leeds

3

1

2

Leicester

1

1

Leicestershire

1

1

Lewisham

1

1

Lincolnshire

2

2

Liverpool

2

1

1

Manchester

7

6

1

Medway

1

1

Merton

1

1

Milton Keynes

3

2

1

Newcastle

2

2

Norfolk

3

2

1

North Somerset

1

1

North Tyneside

2

1

1

North Yorkshire

1

1

Northants

3

1

2

Northumberland

3

1

1

1

Nottingham

1

1

Nottinghamshire

4

1

1

2

Oxfordshire

6

1

1

1

2

1

Peterborough

2

1

1

Reading

1

1

Redcar and Cleveland

1

1

Rochdale

2

1

1

Salford

1

1

Sheffield

1

1

Shropshire

1

1

Slough

1

1

South Gloucestershire

1

1

Staffordshire

2

1

1

Stockton

1

1

Surrey

10

4

4

1

1

Swindon

1

1

Tameside

1

1

Trafford

2

1

1

Wakefield

3

3

Walsall

2

1

1

Warwickshire

5

1

1

1

2

West Sussex

4

2

2

Wigan

4

3

1

Wiltshire

7

1

1

1

4

Wirral

1

1

Wokingham

3

1

2

Wolverhampton

1

1

Worcestershire

2

1

1

Total

187

7

42

31

21

24

16

13

11

8

14


Next Section Index Home Page