Responding to new research from the NFER (National Foundation for Educational Reserach) which found that students' post-16 choices have narrowed over the last two decades, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“The previous government used published performance measures to drive curriculum and qualification choices in schools.

“That misguided approach means that students now have very limited choices over their Key Stage 4 qualifications. The rigid and prescriptive set of GCSEs which form the EBacc narrow the curriculum, and those effects can clearly be seen in students’ post-16 choices too.

“To encourage and enable students to study a broader range of subjects post-16, including the creative arts, the government must make changes at Key Stage 4. These should include scrapping all performance measures based on the EBacc subjects and reviewing the Progress 8 measure of the progress pupils make between the end of primary school and the end of Year 11.”