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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the fact that the average United Kingdom graduate starting salary ranges from £18,000 to £24,000, what assessment they have made of the impact of policy that allows international students to stay in the United Kingdom upon the condition that they find a graduate-level job paying £24,000 a year.

Lord Bates

The Government recognises that there should be opportunities for the brightest and best international students to undertake skilled work in the UK after their studies. International students who graduate in the UK may switch into skilled work providing they have an offer of graduate-level job from a sponsoring employer, paying at least £20,500 per year or the appropriate salary for the particular occupation, whichever is higher.

The Government closed the previous Tier 1 (Post-Study Work) route in April 2012. This route granted free access to the UK labour market for two years after graduation in the UK. Too many individuals in the route were unemployed or competing with resident workers for low-skilled jobs, and too many were using the student route merely as a means to work in the UK, without any real intention of study. We also saw a large number of fraudulent applications. This undermined our work routes and damaged the reputation of our education system.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what future plans they have to increase the provisions for free training linked to the Employer Skills Fund to eligible small and medium-sized businesses.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Employer Skills Fund is a project run in the Liverpool City Region under a consortium led by Wirral Metropolitan College co-funded by the Skills Funding Agency and the European Social Fund. Support will come to an end on 31 July 2015 when the current European Structural and Innovation Funds programme expires.

The new European Structural and Innovation Funds programme which will run to 2020 is currently being finalised. The Skills Funding Agency is working with Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership to determine whether any programmes similar to the Employer Skills Fund will be established depending on local priorities.

More generally, we are reforming the skills system so that it is increasingly responsive to local communities and businesses. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), through initiatives such as City Deals and Local Growth Deals, have increasing influence over the delivery of skills that support the priorities described in their Strategic Economic Plans. This includes LEPs taking the lead role in determining the use of European Social Fund allocations in the next round (2014-2020).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Ariel Trust’s recent pilot scheme to teach every primary school pupil how to tackle cyberbullying within Liverpool, what plans they have to tackle cyberbullying in schools across England.

Lord Nash

The Government believes that schools, internet providers and parents all have a role to play in keeping children and young people safe online.

All schools must have a behaviour policy with measures to tackle bullying, including cyberbullying, and they are held closely to account by Ofsted. The Department for Education has issued advice to schools on preventing and tackling bullying and on supporting bullied children which includes cyberbullying. We have also recently issued advice aimed at parents on how to keep children safe online, spot the signs that a child may be being cyberbullied and what to do if it happens.

In addition, e-safety is being taught at all four key stages of the curriculum and covers responsible, respectful and secure use of technology. Pupils are also taught age-appropriate ways of reporting any concerns they may have about what they see or encounter online.

The Department is also providing around £4 million in funding to various anti-bullying organisations, such as the Diana Award, Kidscape and the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), who work in schools to combat bullying, including cyberbullying. The NCB has produced a guide for schools on preventing and tackling cyberbullying of children with a special educational need or disability who are especially vulnerable to this form of bullying.

Furthermore, we are currently considering bids through a £25 million voluntary and community sector grant programme to extend the work being done by anti-bullying charities in schools. A £2 million grant is being offered in conjunction with the Government Equalities Office to support projects which tackle specifically homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools.

More widely, the Government continues to work to protect children online through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) which brings together representatives from government, industry, law enforcement, academia, charities and parenting groups.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage the teaching of computer coding in schools.

Lord Nash

The new national curriculum in computing is now being taught in maintained schools. It is a compulsory subject in all key stages and the programmes of study include coding from key stage 1. Primary school pupils will be taught about algorithms and how to design and write programs, while at secondary school pupils will be taught to use at least two programming languages. The Government has made £3.5 million available to provide training and support to existing teachers to ensure they are fully prepared to teach computing and have the skills to engage and enthuse their pupils.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans the Department for Education have to increase funding for summer schools.

Lord Nash

Since 2012, the Department for Education has provided funding to enable secondary schools to run a summer school for their new pupils who are classed as disadvantaged. These events provide an excellent opportunity for secondary schools to help disadvantaged pupils understand what and how they will be studying in key stage 3, and also to help those who are behind in key areas such as literacy and numeracy to catch up with their peers.

The 2015 summer schools programme opened for registrations on Monday 19 January 2015. As in previous years, schools will receive £250 (if running a one-week summer school) or £500 (if running a two-week summer school) for every eligible pupil who confirms they want to attend the summer school.

Any decision on the future of the summer schools programme would be made as part of the next Spending Review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the attention paid to vocabulary building within literacy syllabuses in the national curriculum from pre-school onwards.

Lord Nash

The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets out that literacy development during the early years involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Both the reading and writing literacy goals in the Statutory Framework set out the skills that most children should meet by the end of the foundation stage. Children must also be given access to a wide range of reading materials to ignite their interest.

The importance of vocabulary development is emphasised and integrated throughout the National Curriculum framework. This covers both general vocabulary development and the subject-specific language that pupils need to be able to use to progress in, for example, mathematics and science. Both the reading and writing domains of the English programmes of study emphasise the importance of building pupils’ vocabulary, so they understand and can use a wide range of words.

The approach to developing vocabulary is first through securing word reading and comprehension and secondly through pupils developing an understanding of how words and meaning can be created using prefixes and suffixes. Morphology and etymology are emphasised at key stage 2 to further develop pupils’ capacity for understanding and developing vocabulary. This is brought together in the appendix to the English programmes of study covering vocabulary, grammar and punctuation, which also sets out the terminology that pupils should be taught to use to discuss their writing.