Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department has taken to include Black British history in the national curriculum for primary and secondary school pupils.

The Department is committed to an inclusive education system which recognises and embraces diversity and supports all pupils and students to tackle racism and have the knowledge and tools to do so.

The national curriculum is a framework setting out the content of what the Department expects schools to cover in each subject. The curriculum does not set out how curriculum subjects, or topics within the subjects, should be taught. The Department believes teachers should be able to use their own knowledge and expertise to determine how they teach their pupils, and to make choices about what they teach.

As part of a broad and balanced curriculum, pupils should be taught about different societies, and how different groups have contributed to the development of Britain, and this can include the voices and experience of Black people. The flexibility within the history curriculum means that Black British history can already be included in the teaching of the curriculum. For example, at key stage 1, schools can teach about the lives of key Black historical figures such as Mary Seacole or others; at key stage 2, pupils can be taught about Black Romans, as part of teaching that era in history or Black history within the requirement for a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066; and at key stage 3, we give an example for a more in-depth study on the topic of the impact through time of the migration of people to, from and within the British Isles, and this key stage can include the development and end of the British Empire and Britain’s transatlantic slave trade, its effects and its eventual abolition. Additionally, local history is an element across key stages. The teaching of Black history need not be limited to these examples.