Pupil Premium

Debate between David Laws and Nick Gibb

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the early comments she made. I should point out that what we are talking about is on entry to school, not at a ridiculous age. [Interruption.] Frankly, many schools—to which I would be happy to take the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is shouting from a sedentary position—are already doing that type of assessment. They are doing it to inform their education and also to measure progress. We have descriptors at the moment that classify some young people as the lowest performers. That information is available at the moment; it is just very difficult for anyone to understand. Why should we impede parents in understanding more what their pupils are doing in schools?

I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, who leads for the Labour party on these issues, for being pragmatic. Although I quite understand the concerns about assessing youngsters at an early age, the logic of measuring progress, which is not in dispute in this House or among head teachers, teachers or parents, means that it is rational to measure progress right across the educational experience. It is not rational simply to pick an arbitrary date at the end of key stage 1 and to measure progress only from there. That is why we think it is sensible to have this debate.

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement today, and particularly on the abolition of the meaningless and distorting levels in key stage assessment. Does he agree that the substantial rise in the pupil premium will mean that every school should now be able to ensure that all children, regardless of their background, will be fluent readers and fluent in arithmetic—including long division, long multiplication and fractions—by the time they leave primary school? Does he also agree that there will no longer be any excuse for an attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is reassuring to be able to visit schools with very large numbers of disadvantaged youngsters, such as the one I mentioned earlier, and to see that the attainment gaps have now been extinguished. This shows schools across the country that it is possible to close that gap, and that that is not just the perspective of some DFE Minister but the experience of schools across the land that are achieving that. The huge amounts of money that we are now putting into the pupil premium and other disadvantage funding for schools with disadvantaged youngsters will remove what were legitimate excuses 10 or 20 years ago about the absence of the resources necessary to achieve these big changes. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who did so much in his time in the Department to champion higher standards and to pave the way for much of what is in today’s statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Nick Gibb

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

What I can guarantee is that the pupil premium will go on rising every year in this Parliament. The hon. Gentleman might like to know that, in this current year, more than £2 million of pupil premium funding is going into his constituency, and he will be delighted to know that that will rise to more than £3.3 million in the year to come.

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

A car travels, on average, 41.8 miles per gallon. How many miles will it travel on 8.37 gallons? The answer, of course, is 349.866 miles. The problem is that, while 54% of 14-year-olds answered that question correctly in 1976, only 33% did so in 2009, according to a study carried out by King’s College, London. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new draft maths primary curriculum and the new teacher training courses for specialist maths teachers in primary schools will have a significant effect on ensuring that children grasp and understand the fundamentals of maths and arithmetic by the time they leave primary school?

[Mr Laws]

For a moment, I thought that my predecessor as Schools Minister was going to skewer me at the Dispatch Box, and I began to freeze over. However, I am most grateful to him for his question—and for providing the answer—and for highlighting the important work that the Government are doing to restore the credibility and seriousness of these subjects. I pay tribute to him for the superb work that he has done in these areas over the past two years.