Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to introduce measures for tracking spoken language skills alongside existing literacy assessments.

The department recognises the importance of speaking and listening skills, which has been very clearly set out by the recent Curriculum and Assessment Review. As part of our English curriculum reform, we will make sure that communication skills inherent in curriculum subjects are more clearly expressed through revised programmes of study. We will revise the English and drama programmes of study to add more clarity and specificity in speaking and listening, as well as ensuring that the reformed English language GCSE focusses on the features and use of language as a form of communication.

We will also create a new oracy framework to sit alongside the national curriculum that will support primary teachers to help their pupils become confident, fluent speakers. We will also publish a combined secondary oracy, reading and writing framework that brings together guidance on these topics, to support teachers to connect and use all three in their teaching and to embed literacy and oracy across the entire curriculum as part of a whole school strategy. We will consider assessment approaches as part of this.

We want a record 75% of children to achieve a Good Level of Development by 2028. To achieve this, children will need to meet the Communication and Language Early Learning Goals.