Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the number of (a) students training to be citizenship education teachers and (b) schools providing GCSE citizenship education as an option.

The annual Initial Teacher Training (ITT) census provides data on the number of trainee teachers recruited each year in which citizenship trainees are included in the “Other” subject category.

Analysis of the underlying data shows that in the academic year 2018-19, 37 postgraduate trainees began training in citizenship.[1][2] Of the 385 trainees included in the “Other” subject category, 146 trainees do not belong to any of the available subject categories and therefore it is not known if any of these are citizenship trainees.

The Department does not collect data on the subject options provided in schools therefore entries into GCSE citizenship by schools included in Key Stage 4 performance tables has been provided instead. In 2018, 492 schools included in Key Stage 4 performance tables had pupils with entries into GCSE Citizenship. [3][4][5] This accounts for 9.3% of schools included in Key Stage 4 performance tables for that year.

Citizenship is an important part of the national curriculum at Key Stage 3 and 4. We want all children to leave school with the knowledge, skills, and values that will prepare them to be citizens in modern Britain. Schools have freedom to decide how they wish to teach the citizenship curriculum to meet the needs of all their pupils.

[1] Figures for 2018/19 are provisional and subject to change.

[2] Data was extracted on 19 November 2018.

[3] Includes state funded and independent schools, excludes alternative provision and pupil referral units. School performance tables includes schools based on their status as of 12 September the previous year.

[4] Only entries by pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 at schools which were published Key Stage 4 performance tables are included and no discounting has been applied so these totals may differ from those reported in our statistical release.

[5] In 2018, the reformed 9-1 GCSE in Citizenship counted in performance tables for the first time, replacing the unreformed A*-G qualification in the same subject. Once a reformed qualification is included in performance tables, the unreformed qualification no longer counts, regardless of when it was entered.