Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for the National Curriculum when all schools become academies.

Nick Gibb

In 2014 the Government introduced a new, more rigorous national curriculum which was developed with regard to the views of subject experts and teachers and to the findings of international best practice comparisons.

A system where every school is an academy will mean that the national curriculum will be a benchmark. It will serve an important role in setting out the level of knowledge-based, academically rigorous education which every child should experience.

If academies or Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) want to deliver the national curriculum in their schools, they can do so confidently. The Government wants academies to use their freedoms to innovate and build challenging, tailored curricula to meet the particular needs of their pupils, their local area or the particular ethos of the school.