Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 14 July (WA 105), what steps they have taken to ensure that teachers of English will have access to "high quality text books" comparable to those mentioned by Lord Nash with respect to mathematics.

The Department for Education has made it clear that a return to textbooks would support the new national curriculum. High-quality textbooks can prevent teachers from spending unnecessary time creating plans from scratch, and provide well-planned stretching activities for pupils. The new national curriculum presents new opportunities for publishers to provide quality materials for teachers. The expert subject groups that the department has facilitated have been working closely with educational publishers to make sure that the challenging areas of the new national curriculum, including English, will be fully covered by high-quality teaching materials.