Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help increase levels of attainment in schools in Surrey Heath constituency.

All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed.

Through the government’s Plan for Change, the department is giving every child the best start in life and has set a milestone of a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn. This is backed by an investment close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education.

Building on this work, the department is driving high and rising standards in every school to strengthen attainment and outcomes for all children.

This includes regional improvement for standards and excellence teams, recruiting an additional 6,500 teachers across secondary and special schools, and colleges, and a refreshed high quality curriculum and assessment system.

Alongside this, we are working to address barriers to learning, including rolling out free breakfast clubs and tackling school absence in all schools, including in Surrey Heath, as well as tackling child poverty through our historic Child Poverty Strategy that will lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030.

We know there is further work to do, which is why our upcoming Schools White Paper will set out our vision for a school system that drives educational excellence for every child, no matter their background or circumstances.