Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to (a) raise the aspirations of and (b) address the educational attainment gap for working class boys.

This Government is determined to deliver an education system that works for everyone and ensures that all pupils – regardless of background, ethnicity or gender – have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. We are therefore unapologetic in setting high expectations for what all pupils will achieve.

Our curriculum and qualifications reforms will ensure that pupils receive a rigorous academic education that prepares them for further study and ultimately success in employment. Our new performance measures focus attention on the academic progress pupils make throughout secondary school, as well as on GCSE attainment.

We are encouraging schools to help pupils develop essential qualities that underpin success in education and beyond, such as resilience, perseverance and self-control.

Disadvantaged pupils attract the pupil premium, which is providing schools with £2.5bn of additional funding in the current financial year alone to raise the attainment of eligible pupils.

We are continuing to strengthen apprenticeships and technical education routes in partnership with industry, so that young people have a wider range of high-quality education and training options which will equip them with the skills employers need and value.

We are also equipping young people to make informed decisions on the education, training and employment options open to them. We are investing £90m over this Parliament to ensure all young people have access to high-quality careers advice – through the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company and a business mentoring programme for young people at risk of underachieving or dropping out of education

In addition, we recently consulted on a number of measures designed to increase the number of good school places – including allowing the creation of new selective schools, lifting the cap on faith admissions and further drawing on the capacity and expertise of the universities and independent schools. In considering these proposals we are keen to understand how we can open up access to good school places for all pupils – particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are currently analysing the submissions to the consultation and plan to publish a response in the spring.