Exam Reform

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for arguing that we should take a less belligerent tone, but I could not help feeling that those remarks would have been better addressed to his Front Benchers rather than ours. It is in that spirit that we will work with others to identify best practice internationally. [Interruption.] I think we have had another outbreak of belligerence from some of the more rumbustious elements on the Opposition Front Bench. Of course we are happy to work with the profession, hence the period of consultation on which we are now embarking, but we want to make sure that it is informed by evidence, and the evidence is that the highest-performing jurisdictions ensure that there is an academic core that students follow to the age of 16. There is growing concern in other countries that premature specialisation at the age of 14 actually condemns some students to a lower place in a two-tier system that perpetuates the social division that I know the hon. Gentleman and I want to end.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I know from my time in the classroom that there is no doubt that the exam system has been undermined, with young people forced on to courses for the benefit of the school. However, I say to my right hon. Friend that there is a place for coursework in examinations, particularly in history and geography, the subjects I used to teach. In addition, some pupils simply do not test well because they are not supported at home in the same way that more privileged children may be. What will my right hon. Friend do to support those young people, generally from poorer backgrounds, who struggle with exams?

[Michael Gove]

I was talking this morning to the head teacher of Burlington Danes academy, Sally Coates—[Interruption.] She is embracing these reforms, as most enlightened head teachers are, and I suggest that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) have a word with her before it is too late and his position leaves him even more exposed in the educational world. The point she made to me is that, contrary to my hon. Friend’s suggestion, coursework and controlled assessment often work to the benefit of middle-class students, whose parents can better support them, and actually the form of examinations we are putting forward is better designed to support students from poorer backgrounds to show what they can do, rather than simply to show what their parents have achieved.