– 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by on 2014-03-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remark by Lord Nash on 9 July 2013 (HL Deb, col 225), that they are focusing heavily on ensuring that teachers have the resources to deliver the new curriculum

Lord Nash

The new national curriculum sets out very clearly what should be taught to pupils. However, it deliberately gives teachers the flexibility to decide how to teach it. We expect schools to identify the support that they need to prepare for the new curriculum, recognising that different schools will face different challenges.

The Department for Education has provided funding to teaching schools to work with their alliances and beyond, and we have been signposting schools to the range of free support that is available in English and mathematics including the resources developed by the National Literacy Trust and the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. The sector-led expert subject groups have been providing audit tools and guidance, and publishers are bringing a variety of new materials to market.

The Government is funding a national network of around 30 Maths Hubs to drive up the quality of mathematics teachers. Each hub will be led by an outstanding school and will provide support to all schools in the area, across all areas of mathematics education. Systematic phonics has been emphasised in the teaching of early reading in the new national curriculum because evidence shows that it is the most effective way of teaching all children to begin to read. We have provided match-funding of £23 million to primary schools to purchase high quality phonics resources.