Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including political education in the national curriculum.

For secondary schools, democracy and politics is currently taught through the national curriculum for citizenship at key stages 3 and 4, which covers parliamentary democracy, the key elements of the constitution of the United Kingdom, the power of government and how citizens and parliament hold it to account. Primary schools can choose to teach citizenship, using non-statutory programmes of study at key stages 1 and 2.

Support for curriculum delivery is available through optional, free and adaptable resources from Oak National Academy (Oak). Oak launched its new curriculum sequences for secondary citizenship earlier this academic year, with the full package of curriculum resources expected to be available by this autumn. Oak resources can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.

The Review Group has now published its interim findings and clarified that its next phase of work will consider coverage of key knowledge and skills within every subject. The interim report can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report.

The government will respond to the review’s final recommendations in the autumn.