Category: Press Releases

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 28 February 2011.

Former members of the armed forces will become mentors to young people in schools across England following a £1.5 million grant to the charity SkillForce, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced today.

Through three pilot programmes, ex-service personnel will be fast-tracked into schools, using the skills and experience gained on the frontline to help young people achieve. SkillForce will be funded to set up the three programmes from September 2011:

• Military to Mentors: 100 ex-service personnel will be trained to work as mentors for young people in and out of schools across England. SkillForce will work alongside two other organisations – Endeavour and the Knowsley Skills Academy on this programme.
• Zero Exclusion Pilot: SkillForce will provide intensive support to 100 young people at risk of exclusion from school. This will take place in five regions across England (areas to be confirmed), over a 12 month period.
• Expand SkillForce Core Programme: investing in the existing SkillForce programme that uses teams of instructors from military backgrounds to work with disadvantaged young people, helping them gain qualifications. Over a year, the charity will support 340 additional young people from parts of the country with high unemployment and deprivation. Part of this will include elements of the Zero Exclusion pilot.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, said:

There is a huge opportunity for those people who have served their country in uniform to serve their country in our schools. They have many of the virtues that parents across the country feel have disappeared from our schools and need to be restored: self-discipline, a sense of purpose and a belief in the importance of working as a team.

That is why I want to offer people leaving our Armed Forces an opportunity to enter the classroom, and I am delighted to support SkillForce in doing so. Ex-Service personnel will act as inspiring role models for the next generation. They will help to instil in young people, often from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds, discipline, self-respect and a sense of purpose.

Peter Cross, Chief Executive of SkillForce, said:

SkillForce is delighted to be asked to expand its work with disadvantaged young people. Our programmes effect positive and permanent change in their lives as evidenced by 60 per cent on Free School Meals going into Further Education compared with nine per cent nationally. The use of former military mentors enables them to serve their communities following a first career of service to their country.

Dr Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence said:

The men and women who have served in Britain’s Armed Forces have a great deal to offer their local communities. The SkillForce programme is a great example of Big Society in action and will allow former Service personnel to make a real difference to young peoples’ lives. At the core of our Armed Forces are the values central to a successful society such as loyalty, self discipline and motivation. I am certain that the nation’s children will thrive under the mentorship of these courageous individuals.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 25 February 2011.

Education Secretary Michael Gove today confirmed that children in England will continue to receive free books at key stages of their childhood to instill a love of stories and reading.

The free bookgifting scheme will be delivered by the successful Booktrust charity with Government investment valuing £13.5 million over two years – half the cost of the previous scheme.

The new bookgifting programme will remain a universal offer, but will be enhanced by new elements offering targeted support for disadvantaged children and families. The programme will give all children up to the age of 11 access to books from an early age and will help contribute towards their literacy and learning skills.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said:

A lifetime love of books, stories and rhymes starts in the earliest days of a child’s life, and intensifies throughout their childhood and beyond. This scheme will help all children to develop a love for books and will crucially provide extra support to address the needs of children who live with disadvantage.

I am extremely confident that Booktrust, with whom we’ve worked closely to secure an excellent funding package over the next two years, will use their wealth of experience and expertise to deliver a bookgifting scheme that makes a real difference to children and families, and is sustainable in the longer term.

Chief Executive of Booktrust Viv Bird said:

We are pleased that the Department for Education is to continue its strong partnership with Booktrust and publishers in funding the bookgifting programme. This announcement reflects our shared aspiration to inspire a love of reading, and to offer more choice and support to the most disadvantaged children and families.

Working closely with our partners Booktrust will ensure the continued delivery of a universal offer in a cost effective way and also create new offers targeted to those most in need. This will mean that as well as receiving free books for children to read for pleasure, schools with a high proportion of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds will be invited to join the programme.

We are tremendously grateful for the support we have received from publishers, authors, local authorities, libraries, health officials, schools and children’s centres and look forward to consulting closely with all of our partners about the shape and details of the programme.

The schemes are:

• Bookstart Baby (0 to12 months) – universal offer
• Bookstart Corner (12 to 30 months) – targeted through Children’s Centres
• Bookstart Treasure Bag (3 to 4 years) – universal offer
• Booktime (4 to 5 years, Reception year) – universal and enhanced by a targeted Primary Programme for Reception age and Year 1 children
• Booked Up (11 to 12 years, Year 7) – universal and enhanced by a targeted Secondary Programme for children in years 7 and 8

There are also titles for children with additional special needs, as part of the Bookstart, Booktime and Booked Up arrangements.

Working closely with Booktrust, the new offer builds on the previous scheme with additional targeted provision for the most disadvantaged children and families. This will include working with a number of schools serving the most disadvantaged children to provide additional support from Booktrust which will focus on three main areas:

• maintaining the universal offer for all families with babies 0 to 12 months and at three years old encouraging all families to nurture their child’s love of books and reading – we know a good home-learning environment is shown to be important for children’s development and linked to unlocking social mobility
• a strong new offer for families with toddlers aged 12 to 30 months (Bookstart Corner) accessed only through Sure Start children’s centres to help us do more to ensure that the families in greatest need benefit.
• building on universal bookgifts for children in reception and Year 7, a new targeted offer will provide extra resources for particularly disadvantaged schools, to help raise standards of literacy among those pupils who are often at risk of under-attaining, supporting those who may be growing up without access to books to achieve their potential.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 22 February 2011.

Sir

I am sorry that Fiona Millar constantly seeks to diminish the efforts of dedicated parents, teachers and charities who simply want to improve education for children in their area (Fiona Millar ‘Why free schools will cost our children and society dear’, Yorkshire Post 11 February 2011). Contrary to what she claims, free schools will not allow ‘covert selection’, cause a threat to community cohesion or receive preferential funding. They will follow the same legal admissions procedures as other schools, and will be monitored by Ofsted and the government.

They will simply be state-funded schools established where there is local demand from parents for a good and new type of school for their children.

The truth is that top-down solutions of the sort favoured by Fiona Millar have not worked, despite the best efforts of teachers and heads. By freeing up the system we are giving local groups of parents and teachers the opportunity to increase choice and raise standards. The fact that we have had such a strong response – over 250 proposals already shows that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea of free schools. I am glad to be on the side of parents, charities and committed teachers who are trying to make things better and am sorry that the forces of conservatism represented by Fiona Millar want to snuff that diversity out.

Lord Hill

Schools Minister

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 18 February 2011.

Responding to a letter from the National Secular Society to the Secretary of State, shared with the media, about the protection of non-religious staff in faith schools, a Department for Education spokeswoman said:

We are disappointed with the misleading claims from the National Secular Society (NSS). The clause highlighted by the NSS is in fact there to ensure that the statutory rights of staff are protected when a school converts to Academy status.

The Education Bill does not reduce protections for teachers within faith schools that convert into Academies and we are confident that the Bill does not breach any domestic or European law.

Additional background:

A combination of provisions within the Bill, the Academies Act Commencement Order, Funding Agreements and the Equalities legislation provide protection for teachers when schools convert to academy status.

If, as can only happen with the agreement of the Secretary of State, an academy later changes from a model similar to voluntary-controlled to voluntary-aided teachers will be protected through a transitional provision. There have been six such conversions in the since 2007.

We consider that three main points are raised and our responses to these are as follows:

Where a voluntary controlled or foundation school with religious character converts to Academy status, clause 58 of the Education Bill continues the protection of non-reserved teachers that existed before the conversion. The protection is afforded to such schools in the meantime by way of transitional provisions in the Academies Act 2010 (Commencement and Transitional Provisions) Order 2010. Therefore it is not right to say that teachers in such schools are not currently protected if their schools convert to Academy status. The position of future staff is also protected in the funding agreement.

After conversion, it is possible for such an Academy to change its governance arrangements so that they reflect the maintained school voluntary aided model, in the same way that it is possible for a voluntary controlled or foundation school in the maintained sector to become a voluntary aided school. In practice this is rare – there have been 75 incidences of conversion from VC to VA model over the last 10 years.

Just as that process requires consultation in the maintained sector, we would expect any Academy wishing to make such a change to set out their business case fully and ensure a wide and thorough consultation was carried out. The Secretary of State would only approve an amendment to the Funding Agreement or the Memorandum and Articles if he was satisfied that sufficient consultation had taken place in the case of such a change and that the responses to the consultation showed that such a change was supported. If the Secretary of State agreed to change the governance arrangements of an Academy a deed of variation would be needed to make these amendments.

The Bill enables the Secretary of State to make an Order to disapply new section 124AA of the 1998 Act in the case of such a change, which would mean that section 124A of the 1998 Act would apply so that the school could lawfully discriminate in respect of up to 100% of its teachers on religious grounds. However, any Order made would include transitional provisions to continue the protection of existing non-reserved teachers. In the case of any change of category from voluntary controlled to voluntary aided in the maintained sector, it is secondary legislation that provides for the protection of non-reserved teachers, not primary legislation (The School Organisation (Prescribed Alterations) Regulations 2007, paragraph 55 of Schedule 3). Therefore, we do not see any need to put this on the face of primary legislation.

The protections afforded to staff at community and secular voluntary and foundation maintained schools against discrimination on grounds of religious opinions etc. in current legislation are not applied to independent schools. Academies have existed since 2000 and we are not aware that this issue has been a problem in practice in this time. We are content to rely on the general Equality legislation in respect of such teachers.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 16 February 2011.

The Department for Education has confirmed today that Capita Business Services Ltd has been selected as the preferred supplier to administer the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) from October 2011.

The TPS is the second largest pension scheme in the country with 1.6 million members and has been administered by Capita since 1996. The new contract, worth £80 million, is for a period of seven years, with an option to extend by up to three further years.

The contract was awarded after a fair and open competition, using the competitive dialogue procurement route, with other strong contenders involved throughout.

Companies interested in administering the scheme had to demonstrate their ability to deliver a high quality, flexible, innovative and value for money administration service. The service requirement also supports the Coalition Government’s commitment to encourage saving for retirement and the implementation of changes to the TPS that might result from recommendations by Lord Hutton’s Independent Public Sector Pension Commission.

Capita has offered a solution which will see the effective delivery of the services, with continuous improvement and innovation throughout the life of the contract to reflect the challenges associated with the pension environment. The Department will work with Capita to build on their achievements to date in delivering the requirements of this new contract.

Further information

1. The first administration outsourcing contract for seven years was awarded to Capita 1996 following a competitive procurement. In 2003 Capita Hartshead were re-appointed following another procurement competition. This contract was for seven years, with the option to extend by up to three year. In 2008, following the undertaking of an options exercise, the Department extended the contract by one year, to 30 September 2011.
2. The Department placed a notice in the European Journal on 18 September 2009 inviting expressions of interest in the contract to administer the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.
3. The appointment of Capita has been approved by a Project Board and the Department for Education’s Permanent Secretary, with Ministers being informed.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 February 2011.

Responding the Royal Society’s report on science and maths education, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

“We echo the concerns of the Royal Society about the need to improve the teaching and take-up of science and mathematics in our schools. As other countries make vast improvements in science and maths education, the UK continues to fall down international league tables and we now languish at 27th in the world for maths, and 16th for science – falling 19 and 14 places respectively in under 10 years.

The Schools White Paper reflects the importance this Government attaches to these subjects by exploring ways in which to attract the best graduates in science and maths into the teaching profession as well as improving continued professional development for teachers of all subjects.

We are also seeking the advice of universities and learned societies about how the Government can strengthen science and maths in the National Curriculum and restore rigour in GCSE and A Level exams. The English Baccalaureate includes mathematics and science which will drive up participation rates and attainment in these subjects pre and post-16. We are already committed to looking at new ways to encourage the take up of science qualifications, in particular physics, at all levels.”

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 11 February 2011.

The government has today published the findings from the review of the Vetting and Barring Scheme.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton said:

“Protecting children and keeping them safe remains our top priority, but it’s also important that well-meaning adults are not put off working or volunteering with children.

The new system will be less bureaucratic and less intimidating. It will empower organisations to ask the right questions and make all the appropriate pre-employment checks, and encourage everyone to be vigilant.

This is a commonsense and proportionate approach which will ensure that children are properly protected without driving a wedge between them and adults.”

The Vetting and Barring Scheme remodelling review: report and recommendations is available from the Home Office.

A parallel Review of the criminal records regime led by Mrs Sunita Mason, the Government’s independent adviser on criminality information management, has also completed its first phase and the findings of that review are available online.