Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve standards in schools.

The ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ White Paper sets a clear path to ensuring every child can achieve and thrive, from tackling the scourge of child poverty to securing the highest school standards for all young people.

When children born under this government finish secondary school, it is our ambition that all children achieve higher standards and the disadvantage gap will be halved. We will take children’s education experience from narrow to broad. This includes a renewed curriculum, setting children up to thrive in the modern world. Our reformed curriculum will deliver high standards for all, delivering strong foundations in oracy, reading, writing and maths, and offering a triple science entitlement for all pupils. This is alongside improving transitions and providing an enrichment entitlement for every child.

We will ensure children who for too long have been sidelined are included, raising standards and providing stretch and challenge for all no matter their starting point, targeting deprivation funding to boost outcomes for the most disadvantaged children and launching two place-focused missions to provide a blueprint for national change. Our ambitious special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms will ensure children and young people with SEND get the support they need. The government consultation on SEND is ongoing until 18 May 2026.

We will move children and communities from withdrawn to engaging with education. We will introduce a new pupil engagement framework, support schools to improve behaviour, attendance and parental engagement, and give parents a clearer view of their child’s education.

To deliver this change, we will strengthen the foundations of our education system. We will invest in high quality staff, promote school collaboration, drive standards through new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence teams and realise opportunities from data, artificial intelligence and technology.