PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Schools: Enfield (7 December 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) support schools in Enfield North constituency and (b) tackle regional inequality in school outcomes in the London Borough of Enfield.

Asked by:
Feryal Clark (Labour)

The department is pursuing an ambitious programme of work to provide continued support to all schools across the country as well as tackling inequality in outcomes.

The department wants to ensure that children and young people, including in Enfield, leave education better educated, better skilled, and equipped for successful and productive careers. The COVID-19 outbreak has been disruptive, but the department is helping pupils to recover, and support is especially focused on helping the most disadvantaged, vulnerable or those with least time left in education, wherever they live. Almost £5 billion in direct investment has been announced for education recovery. This includes an additional £1.8 billion of funding announced in the recent Spending Review to support young people to catch up on missed education. This is in addition to a strong core funding settlement, which will see core schools funding rise by £4.7 billion by the 2024-25 financial year compared to existing plans. The department’s overall £5 billion direct investment in education recovery includes:

• funding for up to 100 million tutoring hours for 5-19 year olds
• multi-year direct funding, so schools can deliver evidence-based interventions based on pupil needs
• summer schools in 2021
• extra time in 16-19 education
• 500,000 training opportunities for school teachers and early years practitioners

We are investing in teachers, tutors and direct funding to schools and colleges, so they can determine how best to support the pupils that most need support, all of which benefits students in Enfield.

This is in addition to the core school funding through the National Funding Formula (NFF) which targets 17% of its funding towards pupils with additional needs, including deprived pupils. This financial year, 2021-22, schools in Enfield North are attracting £5,730 per pupil through the schools NFF. In 2022-23, this NFF funding will increase to £5,879 per pupil. These figures are based on notional school-level NFF allocations. The department does not update constituency figures on actual school-level allocations. The distribution of the additional £1.6 billion for schools and high needs in 2022-23 secured in the Spending Review will be confirmed in due course.

Answered by:
Mr Robin Walker (Conservative)
13 December 2021