Education

Today I have laid before the House a departmental minute giving notice of a contingent liability for the issuing of an indemnity in respect to the formation of the curriculum arm’s length body.

The proposed indemnity will be reported as a contingent liability in line with the HM Treasury contingent liability framework and managed in accordance with managing public money (MPM).

The Government have announced that Oak National Academy will be converted into a new arm’s length body to the Department for Education—focused on supporting teachers to plan and deliver an excellent curriculum and building on Oak’s success. Oak National Academy was created in April 2020 as a sector-led, national response to support schools in educating pupils remotely during the pandemic. It is incubated by the Reach Foundation charity and part funded by Government grants.

The proposed indemnity is for £10 million and would cover the Reach Foundation, which is a charitable organisation, against liabilities, claims, costs, and obligations that are made in relation to the transfer for free of assets, licences, and undertakings of Oak National Academy to the curriculum arm’s length body, including the TUPE transfer of staff.

It is usual to allow a period of 14 sitting days prior to accepting a contingent liability, to provide hon. Members an opportunity to raise any objections. I regret that on this occasion pressing requirements to transfer the assets to the ALB before 1 September, together with the dissolution of Parliament, have meant that it has not been possible to provide the full 14 sitting days prior to taking on the contingent liability.

Her Majesty’s Treasury has approved the contingent liability in principle.

A copy of the departmental minute will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

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The key stage 2 (KS2) national statistics released today show that the percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in all three subjects of reading, writing and maths at age 11 was 59% in 2022. This is lower than it was before the pandemic: 65% of pupils met the standard in all three subjects in 2019. While this is disappointing, it was expected due to the impact of the pandemic. The Government recognise, and value, the work that teachers up and down the country are putting into education recovery, but also understand that there is more work to do.

We welcome the increase in reading attainment from 73% in 2019 to 74% in 2022, despite the disruption of covid, which is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of our teachers, pupils and parents. Indeed, these figures build on the research we commissioned from Renaissance Learning, published in March 2022, that showed faster recovery in English reading than in maths. Reading is, of course, fundamental: we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well. Attainment in maths and in writing, however, are disappointing, but not unexpected: in 2022 71% of pupils met the expected standard in maths, compared to 79% in 2019, while in writing, 69% of pupils met the expected standard, down from 78% in 2019.

Today’s statistics summarise KS2 attainment at national level and, of course, we want to understand the detail beneath these figures. There will be a further statistical release on 6 September setting out breakdowns of the KS2 results, including by region, local authority area and pupil characteristics such as disadvantage. It is, of course, likely that some pupils, and some areas of the country, will have been impacted more than others due to the pandemic.

It is vital that we have a clear understanding of the impact of the disruption caused by covid-19 on the attainment and progress of all pupils, to support schools in their work on education recovery. That is why we decided to go ahead with primary assessments this year, without adaptations, so that we can have a consistent measure of attainment before and after the pandemic. This will enable us to be open and transparent about the impact of the pandemic on attainment at system level. As we announced in July 2021, we will not be publishing school-level KS2 data this year in performance tables because we did not make adaptations to the tests and assessments or the standards. We will share school-level data in the autumn with schools, academy trusts and local authorities to inform school improvement and support school leaders. We will ensure clear messages are placed alongside any data shared to advise caution in its interpretation.