Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the teaching and learning about Israel in UK schools.

Schools can teach pupils about Israel as part of a broad and balanced curriculum, including in history and geography. For example, at key stage 3, history encompasses the study of Britain, Europe and the wider world from 1901 to the present day, and must include the Holocaust. At key stage 4, there are GCSE specifications that include Israel, in the context of the study of the Middle East. However, we do not specify how schools should teach the curriculum and we trust teachers to use their professional judgement and understanding of their pupils to develop the right teaching approach for them.

We are aware of unfortunate issues around bias and imbalance in teaching about Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On 28 May 2021, my colleague and the former Secretary of State for Education, wrote to all schools to reiterate that they are subject to legal duties on political impartiality which are relevant to teaching about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This intervention was a clear message that this government is committed to upholding the principle of political impartiality in our schools and will act where necessary to do so. The department is also developing further guidance on political impartiality in schools, and we continue to work with the sector and others across government to ensure schools are adequately supported in this area. We hope this guidance will offer clarity to the sector and support teachers to cover sensitive political issues and topics in an appropriate manner.