PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(27 November 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to increase the number and proportion of pupils attaining a pass grade in GSCE (a) maths and (b) English by the age of (i) 16 and (ii) 18.

Asked by:
Mr Richard Holden (Conservative)

High and rising school standards are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best life chances.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review which will seek to deliver, amongst other things, an excellent foundation in core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics. The reformed curriculum will drive high and rising standards in schools, ensuring children are prepared for life, work and the future. The review will look closely at the key challenges to attainment that children and young people face, in particular those with SEND, as it seeks to ensure that all pupils benefit from a broad curriculum. This will also include looking at how the assessment system can be improved.

The review group will publish an interim report in early 2025 setting out their interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work. The final review with recommendations will be published in autumn 2025.

High-quality teaching is the most important in-school factor supporting pupils’ attainment and outcomes. The department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in secondary schools, special schools and colleges to drive high standards for children and young people. Our measures will include getting more teachers into shortage subjects, supporting areas that face recruitment challenges and tackling retention issues. Additionally, in October the department introduced a teacher retention incentive of £6,000 for teachers in secondary schools and colleges in shortage subjects including science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The department’s English and Maths Hubs are providing school to school expertise and advice on how to strengthen outcomes in these subjects.

From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice and enabling schools to better access support, including for English and mathematics, and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support, based on a school’s particular circumstances.

The department considers level 2 English and mathematics to be essential for enabling students to realise their potential, and seize opportunities in life, learning and work. That is why we have the mathematics and English condition of funding (CoF), which enables all students on 16-19 study programmes or T Levels who have not yet attained grade 4+ GCSE (or equivalent) in English and mathematics to access support that leads to the best outcomes for them. A GCSE pass grade includes students with a prior attainment of grade 9-1, but a pass below grade 4 is not a level 2 pass which is why those students are supported by this policy.

The department has announced updates to the CoF requirements to help more students without a level 2 pass to progress in English and mathematics, the updated requirements ensure all students are offered a minimum number of teaching hours for English and/or mathematics. These are three hours for English and four hours for mathematics per week for 2024/25 academic year, and 100 hours for English and 100 hours for mathematics for the 2025/26 academic year. This support must be delivered as in-person, whole class, stand-alone teaching. The 2024/25 requirements are ‘best efforts’, whereas the updates from 2025/26 are mandatory. We also encourage providers to offer an extra 35 hours of mathematics teaching in the 2025/26 academic year, continuing their best efforts in delivering these. We are also reducing the tolerance by which providers may opt out students from these requirements to 2.5% in 2025/26 (from its current level of 5%) so as many students as possible get support for English and mathematics.

Answered by:
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1 January 1970