National Curriculum

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a typically acute point. The two things reinforce each other: an appreciation of financial education and mathematics and mental arithmetic all go together.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

In Darlington, we have done a good job over the years to improve the performance of the worst-performing schools. One of the ways we have done that is through tracking students on an individual basis and challenging where need be. I am deeply concerned about the proposals to remove assessment levels, because tracking is so important in governors and parents, and young people themselves, challenging teachers and schools. How will tracking be done when the Secretary of State removes assessment levels?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes two important points. First, by removing the current national curriculum levels we create space for more sophisticated methods of tracking. One of the problems with current level descriptors is that they are opaque and confusing, and sometimes different schools register different levels of achievement at different levels. The new method we propose will mean that there is far greater rigour in how assessment is carried out. Secondly, Darlington is a model local education authority, because it has encouraged more and more schools to take on academy freedoms. I hope that more Labour local authorities follow where Darlington has led.