§ Mr. Anthony CoombsTo ask the Secretary of Stale for Education and Science what progress has been made on the review of the attainment targets and programmes of study for mathematics and science in the national curriculum.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeJointly with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, I am today publishing statutory proposals for new orders setting out the attainment targets and programmes of study for mathematics and science in the national curriculum. Our purpose is to make the assessment of these subjects more manageable for teachers and others, and to make reports on pupils' achievement in them easier for parents to understand. The effect of our proposals is to reduce the number of attainment targets in each subject to five. Within the attainment targets the number of statements of attainment will also be reduced, by slightly more than half. Our proposals will not change in substance the content of
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Institution Course BED COURSES Two-year Sheffield City Polytechnic Primary and Secondary La Sainte Union CHE Primary Edge Hill CHE Primary Hatfield Polytechnic Primary Leeds Polytechnic Primary Thames Polytechnic Secondary Wolverhampton Polytechnic Secondary Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic Secondary Birmingham Polytechnic Secondary Manchester Polytechnic Secondary Gwent CHE Secondary Crewe and Alsager CHE Secondary Middlesex Polytechnic Secondary Four-year Derbyshire CHE Primary La Sainte Union CHE Primary Bath CHE Primary and Secondary Crewe and Alsager CHE Primary and Secondary Cheltenham and Gloucester CHE Primary and Secondary Liverpool Polytechnic Secondary Middlesex Polytechnic Secondary Charlotte Mason College Secondary PGCE COURSES Two-year Bradford Community College Primary (P/T) Leeds University Secondary (P/T) Southampton University Secondary King's College, London Secondary (P/T) Oxford University Secondary (ATS) the curriculum for these subjects. I have today asked the National Curriculum Council in England to carry out consultations on the proposals, and comments should be sent to the council by 19 July. My right hon. Friend will initiate consultations in Wales. A copy of the published proposals has been placed in the Library of the House.
I intend that the new structure of attainment targets should be in place in time for the 1992–93 school year, and have decided that it would be right to consolidate their introduction with the first statutory assessments of 14-year-olds in these subjects, which will now take place in summer 1993. In preparation for those statutory assessments, I have invited the School Examinations and Assessment Council to co-ordinate a non-statutory pilot assessment of 14-year-olds against the revised attainment targets in 1992. The statutory assessment of seven-year-olds is already under way this year, and I think it right to continue with that assessment against the existing attainment targets in 1992, switching to the new structure in 1993.