Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that all 18 year olds leaving school have the skills to prepare a high quality CV.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Department publishes statutory guidance (for schools which sets a clear framework for the provision of careers advice and guidance. The guidance, which is available at www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/440795/Careers_Guidance_Schools_Guidance.pdf sets out how every school should engage with local employers and professionals to ensure real-world connections are in place to prepare young people for working life. These activities could include speakers from the world of work, mentoring, workplace visits or help with basic career management skills like CV writing.
The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) continues to make excellent progress. Its Enterprise Adviser Network is brokering links between schools, colleges and employers in 36 Local Enterprise Partnership areas; with 60 Enterprise Coordinators and 400 Enterprise Advisers working with schools and colleges to support their careers and enterprise provision. In March 2016 The CEC announced 33 successful bidders to its £5m careers and enterprise fund. This £5m investment from government will boost provision for nearly 250,000 young people across England in 75% of the areas the company has identified as ‘cold spots’. In addition, the company is working to create a new generation of high-quality mentors to help teenagers fulfil their potential.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the extent of changes in the workload of teachers arising from the new Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 testing regime.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The removal of unnecessary workload is a priority for this Department and is considered carefully when introducing any significant change for schools. Our primary assessment reforms have been designed to put arrangements for the majority of classroom assessment back into the hands of the school and to reduce the tracking burdens that national curriculum levels previously encouraged. We believe schools are best placed to decide how to assess pupils in line with their curriculum and that over time this should lead to a reduction in workload for teachers.
Following the introduction of the new national curriculum and the removal of levels, we have developed new forms of statutory assessment at the end of Key Stages 1 and 2. The duty to report assessment at these points remains unchanged from previous years. We do recognise, however, that in this first year of the new forms of assessment teachers will be adapting their approach. Significant reforms like take time to embed and the best way to prepare pupils remains to focus on teaching the core knowledge set by new national curriculum, which schools have been doing since September 2014.
Throughout the introduction of our important reforms to primary assessment, we have worked closely with teachers and head teachers and continue to listen to the concerns of the profession as the details of the new arrangements are finalised. We are working constructively with the teaching profession and their representatives to find solutions to some of the remaining issues.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what provision is made in schools for young adults to learn about money management.
Answered by Edward Timpson
In September 2014, financial literacy was made statutory for the first time as part of the curriculum for citizenship education for 11 to 16 year olds. Pupils are taught the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal budgeting, money management and the need to understand financial risk.
The government has recently introduced a Core Maths qualification that may be taken by post-16 students to prepare students for a variety of mathematical contexts they will encounter in future study, employment and life. This includes managing their personal finances.
We have also strengthened the national curriculum for mathematics to give pupils aged 5 to 16 the necessary mathematical skills they need to make important financial decisions about mortgages and loan repayments.
The programme of study for citizenship and mathematics can be found online: www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum.
Asked by: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential benefits of a national funding formula for early years education.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The government understands the importance of funding that secures the effective and efficient delivery of early years education. We are aware that there are historical inconsistencies and inefficiencies with the current funding system for the three- and four-year entitlement. The government is committed to early education funding which is simple, transparent and maximises funding reaching the front line. Our long term objective is to make funding truly fair.