Children will be taught how to budget and how mortgages work as the government seeks to modernise the national curriculum in England's schools. They will also be taught how to spot fake news and disinformation, including AI-generated content, following the first review of what is taught in schools in over a decade. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government wanted to revitalise the curriculum but keep a firm foundation in basics like English, maths and reading. Head teachers said the review's recommendations were sensible but would require sufficient funding and teachers. The government commissioned a review of the national curriculum and assessments in England last year, in the hope of developing a cutting edge curriculum that would narrow attainment gaps between the most disadvantaged students and their classmates.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education told the Times the education secretary "has been clear about the government's appetite to pursue the opportunities - and manage the risks - that exists in this space, and we have already published information to help schools do this.

GCSEs should be scrapped and A-levels should be replaced by a mix of academic and vocational subjects, says Robert Halfon, chairman of the Education Select Committee. His radical rewriting of England's exam system is designed to give young people a much broader range of skills for their working lives. The former Tory minister says GCSEs for 16-year-olds have become "pointless". The Department for Education defended GCSEs as "gold standard" exams. But head teachers' leader Geoff Barton said the ideas had a "lot of merit".