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Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I welcome the comments of the Chairman of the Select Committee. He is absolutely right that we need to aim for greater continuity in education policy. After all, we are talking about young people who, even individually, will take a considerable number of years to go through the education system. We want to ensure as much cross-party consensus as possible on some of the changes, so that they last.

My hon. Friend is also absolutely right that the additional money will give primary schools the opportunity to bring in greater subject specialism, which will help to boost the quality of teaching not just in English and maths, but in all the other subjects, which are so crucial and which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned earlier.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the focus on primary education in the statement, which is a good thing. It is time we had that focus. I also welcome the extra spending on primary education, but I am worried about the proposal for national examinations at the age of three as well as at 11. May I urge the Minister to drop the exams for three-year-olds? As someone who represents a town where most of the pupils already do the 11-plus, let me tell him that the consequences for children—as well as for parents—of knowing that they are at the bottom of the list need to be examined. It breaks my heart every year when I have children in my constituency surgery—hauled in by their parents—who do not have the bicycle for passing the 11-plus and are going to a school that they never applied to as a result.

[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.