Oral Answers to Questions

Sheryll Murray Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. The work that she has done on emphasising how much better a job we can do to help vulnerable children and young people has been exemplary, and I very much take her point to heart. I stress that local safeguarding children boards have had a bad press recently but it is important that we use all the agencies at our disposal to try to ensure that the most vulnerable are in school, where they can benefit from great education and appropriate pastoral support.

[Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to improve mathematics education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

We are raising expectations in mathematics, in line with top-performing countries. We are strengthening the primary school curriculum to focus on core arithmetic and removing calculators from primary school tests this summer. We expect secondary schools to increase teaching time, with a more challenging maths GCSE that will, for the first time, be double-weighted in the performance tables. We are also providing £11 million to build a network of maths hubs across the country.

[Sheryll Murray]

Will my hon. Friend join me in praising my constituent Mr Kevin Bennett, who is helping local schoolchildren to learn maths through real-life applications, using astronomy at his Caradon observatory in South East Cornwall?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate my hon. Friend’s constituent, Kevin Bennett. It is really important that young people understand not only how to do maths, but how it can be applied, from astronomy to business. We know that maths qualifications command the highest earnings in the workplace, and it is really important that all our young people understand how valuable they are.