Andrew Murrison
Main Page: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Murrison's debates with the Department for Education
(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Justine Greening
The pupil premium was introduced by the previous coalition Government and it is continuing to be supported throughout this Parliament precisely to make sure that funding gets to those children who need it most. Last week, I announced the national funding formula, which also prioritises resources going towards disadvantaged children.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know how traumatic it is for students and teachers to get children through GCSE maths and English resits, which can often blight their post-GCSE studies. Can we have a curriculum that is vocationally based for numeracy and literacy, which would give people the skills they need for work—without having to go through this traumatic and often wasteful experience?
Justine Greening
It is important that all children leave our education system with something to show for their names, particularly in maths and English—ideally at a level congruent with their potential. We brought in the GCSE resit policy, because we think that students who achieved a D grade and were therefore pretty close to the better standard should have another go at doing so. However, the functional skills qualifications have been well received by employers and we want to look at how they can also play a role in enabling all our young people to show their accomplishments.