Clause 82 - Power to alter or remove requirements for the fourth key stage
Education Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Ivan Lewis (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Education and Skills; Bury South, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. We need to separate the power to innovate from what may become universally the norm—key stage 4, for example. If a school wanted to innovate by changing its delivery of the curriculum or becoming exempt from current curriculum requirements, other things being equal, would the Secretary of State look favourably on such an application? I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if an individual school applied to the Secretary of State and met all the relevant criteria—and a significant part of the application related to the organisation of key stage 4—it would indeed be acceptable for the Secretary of State to consider it. There would be no difficulty in respect of other changes that Parliament may choose to make for key stage 4 in all schools. The particular power to innovate that we would like for a school relates to key stage 4.