Member

On those firm foundations, we will build choice and breadth as children move into secondary school. That means preparing them to tell fact from fiction, truth from lies and right from wrong. Our young people need a rich core of knowledge and skills—the high standards that I am determined to drive—but we must take literacy further and wider. The reformed English programme of study and English language GCSE will open students up to a wide range of texts to see how arguments are made across different types of media, to discover the power of persuasion and emotive language in different contexts, and to understand how they can be used not just to educate but to manipulate—exploited by dark forces online to spread lies and sow division. That is why we are building media literacy to prepare young people not to consume passively, but to engage critically and to recognise and reject disinformation.