Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the findings of the study funded by the Education Endowment Foundation into the effect on primary schools pupils' ability in mathematics and literacy of weekly philosophy classes.

We support the work of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in helping schools to use more evidence-based approaches and to put what works into practice. Research from the EEF has already revealed much about how schools can spend their budgets, and particularly their pupil premium allocations, more strategically to improve outcomes for pupils. There is evidence that Philosophy for Children had a positive impact on key stage 2 attainment in reading and mathematics. We trust individual headteachers to develop a school curriculum that will best help their pupils succeed, drawing on the best evidence available.