Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Nick Timothy

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I assure the Education Secretary that we are very positive about schooling in this country. I am sure that she will want to thank all school leaders for their work to help English schools to soar up the rankings for the programme for international student assessment and programme for international student assessment rankings—PISA and TIMMS—but will she join me in sending personal congratulations to Katharine Birbalsingh, whose approach to discipline, the curriculum and teacher-led instruction makes her school Michaela the best in the country?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I will always celebrate the fantastic work of our school leaders and teachers, because they are how we will drive high and rising standards across our school system. The hon. Gentleman and I probably have more in common than he realises. He might recognise these words:

“The greatest injustice in Britain today is that your life is still largely determined not by your efforts and talents but by where you come from, who your parents are and what schools you attend. This is wrong.”

They are taken from the 2017 Conservative manifesto, which he was involved in writing. This Government will right those wrongs and break the link between background—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Nick Timothy

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

19. What progress the independent curriculum and assessment review has made.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)]

Our independent curriculum and assessment review was launched in July. It will support our ambition for high and rising standards for all, and for a broader curriculum with an excellent foundation in the core subjects. The review has launched its call for evidence, and there is still time to participate. The review will publish its interim report in early 2025, with final recommendations in autumn 2025.

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting this important area, which has been raised by many Members in the past. I am sure the review will carefully consider what financial education young people need to meet that aim, and it will, of course, consider what support we need to provide to enable teachers to teach the reformed curriculum successfully.

[Nick Timothy]

I think parents will be quite alarmed by the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Patrick Spencer), as it had very little focus on academic attainment. The Education Secretary appointed Becky Francis, who attacked the Blair Government for their obsession with academic achievement. The National Education Union denies that school accountability should be at the heart of our assessment system, which is wrong, so will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to rule out scrapping SATs in year 6?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I rather fear that the hon. Gentleman and his party have learned nothing from the massive defeat inflicted upon them by voters in July. I can assure this House that the review will be evidence-based and will not seek to fix things that are not broken. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that his record is a SEND system in crisis, one in five children persistently absent from school—they cannot learn if they are not there—falling standards, a persistent disadvantage gap, and over half of disadvantaged pupils in state primary schools not leaving with the required standards in English and maths. He might be proud of that record, but I am not.