British Sign Language: National Curriculum

Debate between Nick Gibb and Jim Fitzpatrick

Monday 5th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Before the Minister moves on from his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), will he give further clarification? Will he refer later to the point that has been raised by a number of colleagues, which is that the Department for Education has already piloted a BSL GCSE that is ready to go? Why is the Department not in a position, not able or not willing to validate that for schools that want to teach the qualification in such a way rather than at NVQ level?

[Nick Gibb]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I was about to say. He makes an important point and I will address it. Hon. Members should be aware that, of the four GCSE exam boards operating in this country, OCR, one of the major ones, recently stopped providing any language GCSEs at all, including French, Spanish and German, which are not small-cohort GCSEs. The hon. Gentleman mentions the GCSE that has been prepared by the awarding organisation Signature. We have seen that draft specification, and it has been tested in some schools. However, an established and rigorous process is in place to accredit GCSEs, and the specification has not been through that process.

A number of further steps are required to develop the specification into a GCSE, including developing broad and deep subject content by working with subject experts. It would also need to meet Ofqual’s assessment criteria and be accredited by Ofqual. Signature, were it to be the awarding organisation that offered the qualification, would need to be accredited by Ofqual as a GCSE-awarding organisation and be subject to its regulatory oversight. It is not a simple process of saying the qualification is already done and dusted and ready to run. A huge number of steps have to be gone through.

I presided over the reforms to GCSEs since 2010. The new GCSEs in English and maths were ready for first teaching in September 2015, and the next set were ready for first teaching in 2016, with exams in June 2018. These GCSE reform and accreditation processes take a long time. The accreditation is not a simple thing to acquire from Ofqual, which often sends the specifications back for further drafting before it is prepared to accredit them.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the Minister for that further clarification. Given the hoops that have to be jumped through to actually get to a position in which a GCSE will be available, is the Department in a position to say that it supports the additional efforts to get to that point, or is it not the Department’s role to encourage that? Where do we go from here to actually get to a position whereby there will be a BSL GCSE validated by the Department that can be taught and examined in schools?

[Nick Gibb]

We have been clear that we want schools to have a period of stability, so we have said that there are to be no new GCSEs or A-levels for a period of time. That is not to say that in the longer term we will not consider new subjects for GCSEs. However, it is important, after the hugely extensive reforms to GCSEs and A-levels, that schools have a period of stability. I have a responsibility to schools to enable them to have that period of stability, which they have asked us for.