Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that all Key Stage 3 and 4 pupils cover (a) the creation of the United Kingdom, (b) Acts and Treaties of Union and (c) the creation of the Union flag as part of the national curriculum.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The National Curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the Department expects schools to cover in each subject. The National Curriculum does not set out how curriculum subjects, or topics within the subjects, should be taught. There is plenty of scope to teach about the creation of the United Kingdom, the Union and the UK flag within the themes and eras of the history curriculum.

The forming of the United Kingdom can be taught as part of the Key Stage 3 theme, ‘the development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745’ where one of the non-statutory examples is ‘the Act of Union of 1707’.

The later creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as its flag, as a result of the Acts of Union in 1800 could be taught as part of the theme, ‘ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain, 1745-1901’.