Written questions by Mitchell.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of non-staffing costs on the sustainability of schools in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

Awaiting answer.

Is she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the absence of Pupil Premium equivalent funding to support the attainment of disadvantaged students during their last two years of compulsory participation in education and training on those pupils.

The Pupil Premium is not payable for students in post-16 education but there is funding to help institutions support disadvantaged students available in 16-19 funding. The department has made significant increases to the average funding per student since the 2024 /25 academic year to the 2026/27 academic year, an expected per student increase of 10.5%. We expect the average per student funding in 2026/27 will stand at £6,874, compared to £6,219 in the 2024/25 academic year. This includes increases to disadvantaged funding which allows institutions to provide extra support to students who need it. However, it does not include the extra funding from the new Inclusive Mainstream Fund, announced on 25 March as part of our special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms. This will make available over £500 million per financial year, for the duration of the three-year spending period, and is split between early years, schools, and post-16. £83 million per year is additional funding for mainstream settings delivering 16 to 19 provision. This will help to boost capacity in mainstream settings to meet a greater proportion of SEND needs.

What steps her Department is taking to support schools to recruit qualified physics teachers in the West Midlands.

The department’s Plan for Change commits us to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools and our colleges over the course of this Parliament.In 2023/24, just 17% of the postgraduate initial teacher training target for physics trainees was met. In 2025/26, this increased to 78%, with 1,095 new entrants, reaching the highest number for physics since comparable statistics began in 2014/2015.Additionally, full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded schools in the West Midlands increased by 353 to 52,658 per the latest census, and across the country the workforce has grown by 2,346 FTE in secondary and special schools, which are the schools where they are needed most.We are continuing to support physics teacher recruitment with bursaries worth £29,000 and tax free scholarships worth £31,000. We are also supporting retention alongside increased recruitment, with a targeted retention incentive, worth up to £6,000 after tax, for teachers in years 1-5 of their career who choose to work in the most disadvantaged schools.

What steps her Department is taking to support schools to recruit qualified modern languages teachers in the West Midlands.

High quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s outcomes. This is why the government’s Plan for Change is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and our colleges, over the course of this Parliament.The department is offering £20,000 tax-free bursaries for modern foreign language (MFL) trainees, including international as well as domestic trainees. In addition, we are continuing to offer a prestigious scholarship worth £22,000 tax-free for French, German and Spanish trainees.Our future school teacher pipeline is growing. Although this government inherited a system with critical shortages of MFL teachers, with the department achieving only 32% of its postgraduate initial teacher training target in 2023/24, this year we have achieved 94% of the target with 1,378 new trainees beginning their postgraduate training in MFL.

If she will take steps to provide further (a) financial and (b) other support to the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership in the West Midlands.

The department continues to work closely with The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership to ensure rapid and sustained improvement across its schools. This includes weekly meetings focused on stabilising learning and supporting both staff and pupils across the trust. Leadership and governance at the trust have been significantly strengthened, with changes to both its executive team and board, helping to ensure the capability and capacity to drive the necessary improvements. The department will continue to monitor progress closely and provide support to secure financial sustainability and high‑quality education for all pupils within the trust. The government is delivering on its manifesto commitment by legislating to introduce Ofsted inspection of academy trusts, and related intervention powers for the department. Trust inspection will help drive better outcomes for children and provide greater confidence for parents.

What steps her Department is taking to help support the retention of (a) primary and (b) secondary school teachers in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

This government is committed to re-establishing teaching as an attractive profession, which is why the department announced a 4% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September 2025, on top of a 5.5% pay award for 2024/25, resulting in a near 10% pay award since this government came to power.The department also announced targeted retention payments worth up to £6,000, with eligible teachers of chemistry, computing, mathematics and physics in The Royal Sutton School in Sutton Coldfield constituency qualifying for these.To further boost retention, the department worked with the sector to develop the ‘Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff’ service, which contains a range of supportive resources for schools to review and reduce workload, and improve staff wellbeing.The education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out commitments from government, schools and colleges to improve staff wellbeing and workload, has over 4,200 signatories, including two schools in Sutton Coldfield.

Whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of nursery availability on parents' ability to return to work in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

It is our ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which is an additional £2 billion compared to 2024/25, saving eligible families who use their full entitlement £7,500 a year on average.The government will provide an additional £1.6 billion per year by 2028/29, compared to 2025/26, to continue the expansion of government-funded childcare for working parents.We have announced over £400 million of funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries to help ensure more children can access the quality early education where it is needed and get the best start in life. The first phase of the programme is creating up to 6,000 new nursery places, with schools reporting over 5,000 have been made available in September 2025.The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action they are taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

What assessment she has made of the number of pupils that miss education due to long term illness at (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools in the West Midlands.

The department collects data on children missing education from local authorities. The latest data, including breakdowns by geography, characteristic and length of time missing education, has been available since 12 December 2024 and can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education/2024-25-autumn-term.The department does not yet publish data on physical health or mental health as a primary reason for children missing education. However, these fields have been added to the aggregate termly local authority data collection for the first time, beginning autumn 2025 and will be included in the next official statistics release.Data on pupil absence is collected via the school census, and the latest publication is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2024-25-autumn-term. Reasons for absence are included in the publication, including the illness rate.

What steps she is taking to reduce educational inequalities for secondary school pupils in the West Midlands.

All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter where they are from. However, the government knows educational inequalities exist at every phase of education across the country. This is not acceptable in the West Midlands, or nationally.Through our Plan for Change, we are tackling these inequalities and have set a milestone of a 75% of 5 year-olds reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028. The department will invest close to £1.5 billion over the next three years to raise quality, close gaps, and break down barriers to opportunity for every child.We are also rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school, expanding free school meals to all children on Universal Credit from September 2026 and have delivered record increases to the early years pupil premium.This is alongside our work to drive high and rising standards in every school, including new regional improvement in standards and excellence teams, the Curriculum and Assessment Review and our commitment to recruit an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools and in our colleges.

What steps her Department is taking to support schools to recruit qualified Maths teachers in the West Midlands.

High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor for improving children’s outcomes, which is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in our maintained schools and colleges, over the course of this Parliament.The department’s measures to encourage talented trainees into mathematics teaching include bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free. Retaining these teachers is also key and for 2024/25 and 2025/26, we are offering retention payments worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics teachers working in disadvantaged schools in the first five years of their careers.This investment is starting to deliver. In the West Midlands specifically, there has been a 20% increase in candidates accepting offers to teach mathematics compared to last year (4 percentage points higher than the total national mathematics increase) and an increase of 340 teachers (headcount) in secondary schools between 2023/24 and 2024/25.

How many Best Start Family Hubs are planned for the West Midlands.

Ensuring every child has the best start in life and the chance to achieve and to thrive are the foundation stones of the government’s Opportunity Mission.The department will spend close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education to begin the hard work needed to deliver these changes.We will fund Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority to ensure that children and families who need support the most, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with additional vulnerabilities, can access it. These hubs will be open to all families but will be located in disadvantaged communities where support is most needed.Local authorities will identify family hub sites and the numbers of hubs and services delivered will vary depending on local needs.The department will be providing guidance to local authorities in time to support service delivery from April 2026.

How many and what proportion of parents with (a) three and (a) four year old children used their entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare in Sutton Coldfield constituency in 2024.

The government wants all children, regardless of background, to have access to high quality early education and childcare. The Best Start in Life strategy sets out our plan to work with local authorities to increase take-up of the 15 hours of early education and childcare offer for two, three and four year-olds, ensuring low-income families, children with special educational needs and disabilities and children in care receive the early education they are entitled to. We will engage directly with local authorities where take-up is lowest, supporting families through Best Start Family Hubs to take up their funded hours, addressing local variation in performance and tracking data through the new Local Government Outcomes Framework.Information on the number and proportion of eligible children registered for 15 hours of free childcare is available and published annually in the accredited official statistics release ‘Funded early education and childcare’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/funded-early-education-and-childcare/2025. This has been available since 17 July 2025. Information on the local authority of the child is collected and published, but this information is not available at a constituency level.

How much funding she has allocated to expand (a) vocational and (b) technical training routes in the West Midlands.

This government is making a substantial investment in skills, with £3 billion of additional funding across the Spending Review period, including an additional £1.2 billion a year by 2028/29.This includes continuing to invest in apprenticeships and the growth and skills offer to meet priority skills gaps identified by Skills England and the needs of business.This builds on previous rounds of 16-19 funding agreed for 2025/26 of over £400 million extra funding and making available additional funding of over £190 million in the 2025/26 financial year for the 2025/26 academic year.The department will spend over £1.4 billion through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF) in the 2025/26 academic year. West Midlands Combined Authority’s devolved ASF budget for the 2024/25 academic year was £133.7 million.We have also made £155 million available to support schools, colleges and local authorities with increased National Insurance contributions.The recent Infrastructure Strategy confirmed almost £3 billion per year by 2034/35, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025/26, to improve the condition of the school and college estate.This increased funding and investment for skills in England will help to boost the provision of vocational and technical education and training in all areas of the country, including the West Midlands.

How many (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in Sutton Coldfield constituency have access to mental health support teams.

The government will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school by expanding mental health support teams (MHSTs) by the end of 2029/30, so every child and young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. ​As well as providing targeted, low intensity support directly to young people and their parents or carers, MHSTs work in schools and colleges to reduce barriers to accessing mental health services and support a holistic approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing.In April 2025, around five million pupils and learners were covered by an MHST. We estimate an additional 900,000 pupils in schools and learners in further education in England will be covered by April 2026, which is around six million in total, or 60% of all pupils and learners.In Sutton Coldfield, all but one of the seven secondary schools were reported to be receiving support from an MHST in April 2025, with cover representing 39% of all pupils and learners in schools and colleges in the constituency. No primary schools are yet covered by an MHST. Further expansion is underway in the Birmingham and Solihull integrated care system this financial year.

What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the provision of SEND services in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

The constituency of Sutton Coldfield falls under Birmingham City Council.A recent inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of the Birmingham Local Area Partnership’s arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) took place from 23 June 2025 to 27 June 2025. The report is not yet published.The Ofsted and CQC inspection in June 2018 identified 13 areas of weakness. A revisit in May 2021 deemed that sufficient progress had been made in one area of weakness. The department issued a statutory direction in October 2021, requiring the local authority to take specific actions to improve their SEND provision and appointed a SEND commissioner to work with the local area. A SEND advisor has also been deployed to drive improvement.Departmental officials continue to work closely with Birmingham City Council, and the commissioner reports that progress is evident and measurable.

What steps her Department is taking to support the work of foster carers in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

Birmingham local authority, which includes Sutton Coldfield constituency, receives support from Fosterlink. This government-funded service provides diagnostic support to councils’ fostering recruitment and assessment services. Fosterlink’s work with Birmingham identified strengths and areas for development, making recommendations for improvements. Foster carers in Sutton Coldfield can also access ‘Fosterline’, a free helpline for current and prospective foster carers.More broadly, as part of children’s social care reform, we are providing £15 million of funding in 2025/26 to recruit and retain more foster carers. We will provide an additional £25 million for fostering covering the 2026/27 and 2027/28 financial years. As part of this model, we are supporting foster carers and children by expanding ‘The Mockingbird Family Model’. Evaluation shows that Mockingbird improves carer retention, meaning that local authorities have a greater number of suitable fostering places available.

What steps her Department plans to take to improve learning outcomes for boys at Secondary School level.

Every child and young person should be able to achieve and thrive in education, regardless of background. As in previous years, girls continue to do better than boys across all headline measures, and although the gap has narrowed compared to 2018/19, there is more to do. The department is committed to addressing this challenge.High standards across education are the key to unlocking stronger outcomes and a better future for all children and young people, including boys. We aim to deliver these improvements and reduce gaps in outcomes through excellent teaching and leadership, a high quality curriculum and a system which removes the barriers to learning.Teaching quality is the single most important in-school factor in improving outcomes, which is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 expert teachers. We have established an independent, expert-led Curriculum and Assessment Review, which is looking closely at the key challenges and barriers to attainment for young people. Alongside this, we are strengthening our tools for faster and more effective school improvement by launching the new regional improvement for standards and excellence teams.As part of a £2 million investment to drive standards in reading and writing, teachers in secondary schools are being offered new training and resources this year to help them support readers at all levels. Next year, the department will commission further training focusing specifically on struggling readers in secondary school who are at risk of falling behind.

What plans she has to encourage more girls into STEM subjects in (a) further and (b) higher education.

High and rising school standards are central to the government’s mission to break down barriers and provide every child with the best start in life. As part of this, the department supports various initiatives to encourage more girls into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.The ‘I Belong’ programme, part of the National Centre for Computing Education, helps schools understand barriers to girls’ engagement with computing and aims to increase computer science qualification uptake in primary and secondary schools.To build a strong mathematics foundation for all children, the Maths Hubs programme improves teaching in publicly funded schools. Supported by the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics, the programme addresses attainment gaps linked to disadvantage, gender or other factors.The STEM Ambassadors programme features over 28,000 volunteers from more than 7,500 employers, inspiring over 3 million young people annually by sharing personal experiences in STEM careers. 48% of the volunteers are women.To provide careers information and guidance, the Careers and Enterprise Company, supported by £30 million of government funding, coordinates a careers hub network covering 95% of secondary schools and colleges, involving 400 employers and 4,000 business volunteers, many in STEM roles.

Whether her Department plans to provide funding to help improve the mental health of (a) primary school pupils, (b) secondary school pupils and (c) 18-25 year olds in (i) further or (ii) higher education.

This government is committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people. This is critical to high and rising standards in schools and breaking down barriers to opportunity, helping pupils to achieve and thrive in education. That is why the government has committed to expand Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs), so every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. ​ NHS-funded MHSTs are expected to cover at least 50% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England by the end of March 2025. The department will also recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults and open new Young Futures hubs with access to mental health support workers. In addition, to support education staff, the department provides a range of guidance and practical resources on promoting and supporting pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. For example, a resources hub for mental health leads, and a toolkit to help choose evidence-based early support for pupils. The department continues to work closely with the further education sector to promote and support providers to develop and implement a whole college approach to mental health and wellbeing. This includes supporting the Association of Colleges (AoC) in their goal for all colleges to sign up to the AoC Mental Health Charter and to align it with the University Mental Health Charter in higher education (HE). AoC’s framework aims to integrate mental health and well-being into every aspect of college life. Departmental officials also continue to work closely with students, parents, mental health experts and the HE sector to drive meaningful change in mental health practice through the HE Mental Health Implementation Taskforce, which recently published its second stage report. To raise standards in the sector, the Office for Students has also provided £400,000 of funding to the student mental health charity, Student Minds. This has enabled significant expansion of the University Mental Health Charter Programme, with 113 universities now signed up. The programme helps universities to adopt a whole-institution approach to mental health, bringing universities together to drive forward continuous improvement in mental health support for students.

What discussions her Department has had with Birmingham City Council on increasing the number of secondary school places in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools. The funding is not ringfenced, subject to the conditions set out in the published Grant Determination Letter, nor is it time bound, meaning local authorities are free to use this funding to best meet their local priorities. Birmingham City Council has been allocated just below £26.2 million to support new school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026. The department’s Pupil Place Planning Advisers engage with local authorities regularly, to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, they offer support and advice. Recent engagement with Birmingham City Council has confirmed both existing and anticipated secondary sufficiency pressure in Sutton Coldfield. The local authority is investing in expansions within existing schools to address short term localised sufficiency pressure and exploring further expansions to meet medium term demand. The department is aware of planned housing development in the local area in the longer term which may ultimately require additional school places to meet community needs.