Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of making elements of the national curriculum relating to organ donation compulsory; and of extending those requirements to primary schools.

The science National Curriculum allows opportunities to teach about organ donation and schools can choose to cover this topic through the biology curriculum at Key Stage 4. The National Curriculum is compulsory for Local Authority maintained schools and is often used as a benchmark for academies.

Whilst organ donation is not a compulsory subject at primary level, schools can talk about it more generally, in an age appropriate way, as part of the statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, which includes content on physical health and mental wellbeing.

As with other aspects of the curriculum, schools have flexibility over how they deliver important topics and should use their autonomy and local community knowledge to do this.

The Department is reviewing the content of the RSHE statutory guidance, looking at areas of the guidance that need to be strengthened and will consult publicly over proposals, with a view to publishing revised statutory guidance in 2024.