Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the year 8 reading test is used to direct interventions and not be used as a bench marking exercise for schools.

This government is determined to drive up standards for young people. Reading holds the key to the rest of the curriculum, with pupils who struggle to read so often struggling across the board, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The department will introduce a new, statutory reading test in year 8 to ensure a focus on reading in key stage 3. This builds on the wider support we are providing to drive up standards in reading, including training and resources for secondary school teachers to help them support readers at all levels, with a particular focus on struggling readers in secondary school who are at risk of falling behind. This training should reach 75% of secondary schools this academic year.

Development of the new statutory test will be led by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), experts in assessments who will work independently from ministers on the test’s contents. The STA will work with the sector to develop the test, including undertaking trials of test materials. Like the phonics screening check, school-level results will not be published. However, individual schools will receive their own pupils' results and will be able to access national, regional, and local authority data to ensure their pupils are on track.