Peter Bottomley
Main Page: Peter Bottomley (Conservative - Worthing West)Department Debates - View all Peter Bottomley's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I read with interest the work that was done looking at some of the weaknesses in the current English GCSE, and the controlled assessment of speaking and listening was one of the areas in which there were the greatest problems in ensuring effective marking by teachers assessing their own students. I agree that effective speaking and listening is essential to a broad curriculum, but when it comes to ensuring that speaking, listening and every other skill is assessed properly, we need to move away from the model of the past.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend can expect some representations on the expression “baccalaureate”, which originally came from an English degree at age 21 and a university course, is now a European system for 18 or 19-year-olds and will in future be provided to 16-year-olds who qualify in the core subjects.
As well as the public examination and certification system, we ought to encourage people to pass standards and get grades in their academic and other school subjects in the same way as they can in music and sport, to allow those who are achieving things to have that recognised. They can then get add-on tuition and develop.
As a last point, may I say that my right hon. Friend ought to look at the sub-editors of his article in the Evening Standard? The first four times he used the word “both”—meaning the coalition, presumably—were unnecessary, and the fifth time, the word “We” would have substituted for the first four words of the sentence.