Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will take steps to ensure that regional school commissioners encourage multi-academy trusts to follow the national curriculum.

Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based, which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.

Academies and free schools have greater freedom and autonomy in how they operate for areas such as the curriculum. They are expected to teach a curriculum that is comparable in breadth and ambition to the national curriculum, and many choose to teach the full national curriculum to achieve this.

The curriculum at an academy or free school is the responsibility of the academy trust. The curriculum provided in each academy to pupils up to the age of 16 is set out in their academy and free school funding agreement, which provides the framework for an academy or free school to operate in. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-and-free-school-funding-agreements.

If autonomous academies or multi academy trusts wish to deliver the national curriculum in their schools, they can do so. Academies may use their freedoms to develop their own curricula, tailored to meet the particular needs of their pupils, local area, or the particular ethos of the school.