§ Mr. WorthingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on progress being made to change the requirements of key stages 1, 2 and 4 in the school curriculum. [34371]
§ Mr. AncramBetween September 1994 and February this year the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment prepared revised programmes of study for the subjects of the Northern Ireland curriculum and undertook a wide consultation on them, involving all schools in the Province, between March and June. These revised programmes of study reduce the statutory curriculum requirements for all pupils and the council will submit its final recommendations to the Department of Education in October. The Department will make the new programmes of study available to schools in January 1996 and they will become compulsory in September 1996.
§ Mr. WorthingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement about revised assessment arrangements of the national curriculum for the 1995–96 school year. [34741]
§ Mr. AncramI announced on 28 March that I had decided not to introduce statutory assessment until the 1996–97 school year. This will ensure that the assessment arrangements relate directly to the revised curriculum which will take effect in that year and will allow time for further consultation. I have, therefore, asked the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment to take views of teachers on what should happen in statutory assessment, and to advise me by Christmas on the form which it should take. I intend to make an announcement early in 1996 about the statutory arrangements which will apply in 1996–97.