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Testing and Assessment

I can give this assurance. We are changing the nature of school accountability away from the current focus on the performance of the average child, which, as my hon. Friend says, incentivises focusing on children just below that level, to give schools proper credit for the progress not only of the most talented children but of the children who fall behind. The report card is the right way to do that. As teachers, head teachers and parents look at our proposal in detail in the coming weeks, they will see that that situation, rather than the testing regime, needs to be changed in order to ensure that we achieve the outcome for every child that my hon. Friend supports.