Henry Smith
Main Page: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)Department Debates - View all Henry Smith's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is right. In January, in response to the Livingstone-Hope review, I announced that we would disapply the current ICT curriculum, which did not provide the sorts of skills that the hon. Lady mentions, and that we would develop new computer science specifications. That announcement was widely welcomed, and I have been working since then with Ian Livingstone, Microsoft and others to ensure that we can provide people with the coding skills with which they were not provided in the curriculum that we inherited.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I seek reassurances from my right hon. Friend that students who have been diagnosed with dyslexia will be afforded the additional time and appropriate assistance needed during a more rigorous exam process.
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically acute point on behalf of those students who labour under the disadvantage that comes from having special educational needs. We want to ensure that all students are capable of sitting the examination and that, if they have a particular disability, or live with a condition such as dyslexia, appropriate support is provided.