Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of similarities between elements of the 11+ practice examination paper and this year's key stage 2 Standard Assessment Test; and if he will make a statement.

The test development process used by the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) is rigorous, with teachers and experts commenting on the materials throughout the three-year development process. These reviewers are selected to be broadly nationally representative, in terms of geography and school type, to minimise bias. The 2022 key stage 2 reading test went through these processes and the expert reviewers considered all materials appropriate and fair.

STA cannot entirely mitigate against pupils having already read certain texts, or against them being used by other organisations developing materials for schools, though checks are undertaken throughout the process. There are many resources and practice papers in the public domain, and it would be impractical and expensive to monitor them all. When it is identified late in the development process that a text has been used elsewhere, STA must also consider whether setting aside the text would be an appropriate use of public money. Although STA makes use of specifically written texts where possible, particularly for non-fiction, fiction texts can come across as contrived and the use of high-quality texts by published authors is essential.

STA are confident that the 2022 reading test was appropriate and accessible for all pupils.