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Testing and Assessment

I very much appreciate the work done by my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee over the past year on these issues. He is right to say that the primary curriculum, testing and accountability all hang together. It has been helpful to us that Sir Jim Rose has been doing the primary curriculum review and sitting on the expert group. My hon. Friend is right to point out that we must ensure that the accountability system works to reflect both the curriculum and the testing regime in a way that is fair to all schools. I hope that in the coming weeks before the White Paper we will have the chance to explore these issues, particularly the report card, in greater detail in the Select Committee. It is very important that we get this right. I hope that I have allowed more consultation on the report card and the difficult issue of a single grade so that we can go into this in depth. I appreciate my hon. Friend's contribution.