Former deputy chief whip Kelly Tolhurst has been handed a newly created brief: the minister for schools and childhood.
The Department for Education has confirmed that the MP for Rochester and Strood will cover “strategy for schools, including standards and selection”.
She will also oversee special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), qualifications, and elements of the curriculum including relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) and personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE).
These are all briefs that were previously overseen by the minister for schools standards.
Jonathan Gullis, now serving in that position, has also seen a portfolio shake-up, with behaviour, attendance and exclusion added to his purview as well as school sport and the edtech sector.
Ms Tolhurst’s other areas are:
- Admissions and school transport
- Early years and childcare
- Children’s social care
- Children in care, children in need, child protection, adoption and care leavers
- Disadvantaged and vulnerable children
- Families, including family hubs and early childhood support
- Alternative provision
- School food, including free school meals
- Children and young people’s mental health, online safety and preventing bullying in schools
- Policy to protect against serious violence
Former school system minister Baroness Barran is now minister for the school and college system, retaining oversight of academies.
Andrea Jenkyns is minister for skills, with responsibility for higher-education quality.
The appointment confirmations come nearly two weeks after school standards minister Jonathan Gullis announced his own appointment via his LinkedIn page.
Ms Tolhurst previously held junior ministerial positions in the Department for Transport and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
She was announced as part of Liz Truss’ education team on 7 September.
Ms Tolhurst grew up in Kent and attended a non-selective state school in the county.
She has previously shown support for grammar schools, a hot topic with the new prime minister’s administration, saying in 2018: “Grammars in Kent have worked and have done wonders for the education of many of our young people, and I am proud that family backgrounds have not been a restriction to learning.”
