Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to teach young people from disadvantaged backgrounds about (a) finance, (b)employment and (c) other life skills.

On 5 November, the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review published its final recommendations for a refreshed curriculum and assessment system in England.

The government’s response to the report includes a commitment to commits to strengthening pupils’ foundational understanding of financial education in maths and citizenship, with digital resources to support teaching. New statutory citizenship at key stages 1 and 2 will also ensure that primary aged children are introduced to key content on media literacy, financial literacy, law and rights, democracy and government and climate education. These principles will be extended to the secondary core content to reflect the age range of pupils and will focus on more complex content, particularly digital elements of financial literacy.

The department expects schools to develop and improve their careers provision to be inclusive for all young people in line with the world-class Gatsby Benchmarks, including benchmark 3, which focuses on addressing the individual needs of each pupil.