Curriculum and Assessment Review

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether the Curriculum and Assessment Review led by Professor Becky Francis will seek to prioritise digital literacy, artificial intelligence literacy, media literacy and financial literacy, alongside reading, writing and mathematics.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare my technology and financial services interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the curriculum and assessment review is independent. The review will make recommendations to the Government based on evidence and widespread sector engagement. The ambition in the review’s terms of reference is for

“a curriculum that ensures … young people leave compulsory education ready for life and ready for work”,

with digital skills. This may include the other areas that the noble Lord mentions, but it will be for the review to consider that in the context of its overall recommendations.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that we need not only to significantly increase the levels and quantity of digital, AI, media and financial education but to ensure that it is personalised, flexible, relevant and responsive? One reason alone is that low levels of financial literacy currently cost the country £20 billion and individuals at the sharp end almost £500 a year. Does she agree that if we enable the levels of literacy we need, this will deliver immeasurable benefits to individual flourishing, levels of innovation and economic, social and psychological growth, for the benefit of us all?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about the breadth that we need in the teaching that goes on in our schools and in the skills, attributes and knowledge that young people have when they leave school to enter into life and into work, as I said. That is why this Government set up the curriculum and assessment review: to use the evidence being gained from the wider engagement to make recommendations about how we can improve on providing skills in all those areas, and particularly ensure that the curriculum supports students with special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to close some of the gaps in pupils’ learning.