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16 Jan 2008 : Column 1288W—continued
Specialist Schools and Academies Trust National Conference
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 10 December 2007, Official Report, column 270W, on Specialist Schools and Academies Trust National Conference, what parliamentary business he participated in on 28 November 2007. [177167]
Ed Balls: As recorded in Hansard, Official Report, I voted in several divisions on 28 November 2007.
Sports: Hendon
Mr. Dismore: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what steps he is taking to promote sport in Hendon schools; what funding is being provided to school sport partnerships for schools in Hendon for 2008-09; what percentage of students in Hendon are participating in sport for two hours or more per week; how many hours of sport each week for pupils he expects to achieve in Hendon schools; and if he will make a statement. [177491]
Kevin Brennan: The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are jointly implementing the national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy, which involves every maintained school in England. The strategy is driving up the quality and quantity of PE and school sport.
All schools in Hendon are now in a school sport partnership. Some are part of the Barnet South Partnership, which will receive £504,027 in 2008-09. The proportion of pupils in the partnership who are participating in at least two hours of high quality PE and school sport a week is 86 per cent.
The other schools are in the St. James' Partnership, which will receive £414,579 in 2008-09. The proportion of pupils in the partnership who are participating in at least two hours high quality PE and school sport a week is 67 per cent.
Our target is for every partnership to have at least 85 per cent. of pupils participating in at least two hours of high quality PE and school sport a week by 2008. Both partnerships will also benefit from extra funding for competition managers, coaches and top up swimming lessons.
With our delivery partners, we are providing enhanced support for those partnerships that need help to improve their provision.
St. Joseph's College Stoke on Trent
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will make a statement on the future of (a) St. Joseph’s College in Stoke-on-Trent and (b) St. George’s School in Salford. [177302]
Jim Knight: It is for the local authority to consider any questions about the future of any maintained school, working with the local diocese or trustees in the case of voluntary aided schools.
I understand that Stoke-on-Trent council have been carrying out a consultation on the possible closure of St. Joseph’s, and Salford council have consulted on the possible closure of St. George’s, in the context of their Building Schools for the Future projects. In the case of St. Joseph’s the consultation included plans to replace the school with a new Roman Catholic (RC) High School on the site of the closing school. The local authorities are now considering the views expressed. If they publish statutory proposals to close the schools, they would be the decision maker following a six week period for comments and objections, but there would be a right of appeal to the schools adjudicator by the local diocesan authorities, the Learning and Skills Council and the governing bodies and trustees of each school.
Proposals for the new RC school to replace St. Joseph’s in Stoke-on-Trent could only be proposed by the trustees, or local RC diocese, and they would have to seek the Secretary of State’s consent before publishing proposals for the new school without running a school competition.
Teachers: Discrimination
Mr. Gibb: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment he has made of the age discrimination implications of the new qualification requirements for early years foundation stage teachers which will come into force in September 2008. [177799]
Beverley Hughes: In developing the early years foundation stage (EYFS), which will come into effect this September, the Government have carefully examined all existing legislation (including the age discrimination regulations). The Government are satisfied that the EYFS is lawful while ensuring that we have provided a robust framework for high quality learning, development and care provision for children between birth to five.
Teaching Methods
Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what guidance his Department has provided to secondary schools on the teaching of low ability readers by the method of synthetic phonics; [177032]
(2) what funding is available for schools to purchase (a) course materials and (b) teacher training in synthetic phonics; [177033]
(3) whether it is his policy that every trainee primary teacher should be trained in synthetic phonics; [177034]
(4) what proportion of teacher training establishments are training primary school teachers in the use of synthetic phonics; [177035]
(5) what guidance his Department has provided to primary schools in England on the teaching of reading by synthetic phonics; [177036]
(6) what proportion of primary schools in England are teaching reading using synthetic phonics. [177037]
Jim Knight: Improving standards of literacy at all key stages is one of the Government’s top priorities. Following Sir Jim Rose’s review of the teaching of early reading, we have provided a wealth of guidance on the systematic teaching of phonics. We have done this through the renewal of the primary framework for literacy which puts phonics at the heart of teaching literacy; through the provision of training to all primary schools as part of the Communication Language and Literacy Development (CLLD) programme; and through the publication of Letters and Sounds, a high quality phonics teaching document sent free to all primary schools and local authorities last year.
Although this guidance is targeted specifically at early years settings and primary schools, secondary schools are able to access freely all the guidance we provide. For secondary schools, the Secondary National Strategy has produced a specific teaching unit on phonics as part of the literacy progress units
designed to help secondary schools in helping pupils struggling with reading to catch up. However, we have concentrated the main thrust of our guidance on early years settings and primary schools where it is of prime importance that firm foundations in the teaching of early reading are laid.
We do not gather information on the proportion of primary schools in England which use phonics to teach reading. Phonic knowledge is a part of the KS1 national curriculum, so all schools are required to teach it.
It is this Department’s intention that every trainee teacher should be trained in the use of high quality, systematic phonics teaching. We have asked the Training and Development Agency to ensure that all teacher training establishments give sufficient attention to phonics teaching and we will continue to work with the national strategies to ensure that teachers and support staff receive the appropriate continuing professional development.
We do not provide funding specifically targeted at the teaching of phonics. We believe that schools are best placed to target their funding to suit local needs. All training and materials produced through the national strategies are provided free-of-charge to schools.
Teenage Pregnancy Unit
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (1) what budget has been allocated to the Teenage Pregnancy Unit for the next three financial years; [179407]
(2) what projects are being undertaken by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit; [179408]
(3) how many civil servants are working for the Teenage Pregnancy Unit; and what their job descriptions are. [179409]
Beverley Hughes: The funding available to support implementation of local teenage pregnancy strategies is £27.5 million for each of the next three years (2008/09 to 2010/11). A further £5.8 million is retained by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit to fund work that is managed centrally. The ‘running costs’ for the Teenage Pregnancy Unit itself in 2007/08 are £280,000. Decisions on funding for TPU for future years have not yet been agreed.
The main tasks of the Teenage Pregnancy Unit include:
supporting the delivery of local strategies through: performance management and sharing best practice;
policy development; and
mainstreaming teenage pregnancy work within wider Government strategies.
There are 3.5 civil servants working in the Teenage Pregnancy Unit, covering the following responsibilities:
National programme manager
National policy manager
National support manager
Administrative support (0.5)
Home Department
Arrests: Alcoholic Drinks
Mr. Ruffley:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) arrests and (b) prosecutions for (i) being drunk and disorderly, (ii) being found drunk on a highway, public place or on
licensed premises and (iii) being drunk in or when entering a designated sports event there have been in each police force area in England and Wales in each year since 1997. [176110]
Mr. Coaker: Information on the number of defendants proceeded against for the offences requested are provided in tables 1 to 3.
In addition to court proceedings, the offences of being found drunk and disorderly and being drunk in a
highway, public place or on licensed premises can attract a penalty notice for disorder from 2004. Data on the number of these are provided in table 4.
The arrests collection undertaken by the Ministry of Justice provides data on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences), by age group, gender, ethnicity, and main offence group, ie violence against the person, sexual offences, robbery, burglary etc.
From the aggregated data collected centrally on arrest, we are unable to identify specific offences.
| Table 1: Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates courts for selected alcohol offences, by police force area. England and Wales, 1997-2006( 1,2) | ||||||||||
| Offence: Being found drunk in a highway or other Public place whether a building or not, or a licensed premises | ||||||||||
| Statute: Criminal Justice Act 1967 S.91 | ||||||||||
| Police force area | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
| (1) These data are on the principal offence basis. (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. (3) Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for defendants proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. | ||||||||||
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