Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what legal rights parents have to access the teaching materials used at their children's schools.

All schools have a duty to share information about their curriculum with parents and, whilst this does not require them to share all of the teaching materials they use with parents routinely, the department has been very clear that schools should respond positively where parents request to see specific materials. On 31 March 2023, the Secretary of State wrote to all schools to set out that, under current arrangements, schools can and should share curriculum materials with parents, and the department would expect schools to avoid entering into any agreement with an external agency that seeks to prevent them from ensuring parents are properly aware of the materials that are being used to teach their children.

The department is aware that some parents have particular concerns about materials used to teach Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). The department will consider, as part of the review of the RSHE statutory guidance, whether any further changes are needed to reinforce the need for transparency around RSHE materials.

In May 2023, the Secretary of State announced the details of the independent expert advisory panel who will advise on the review of the RSHE curriculum. They have been tasked with identifying the topics within the curriculum which would benefit from age limits.

It will remain important that schools take full responsibility for ensuring lessons and materials are age appropriate, suitable, and politically impartial, particularly when using materials produced by external organisations.

Oak National Academy, the independent provider of freely available online curriculum and lesson resources, will develop curriculum materials to make sure every school can access high quality, compliant RSHE resources.

Schools may choose to use curriculum materials developed by Oak, an Arm’s Length Body, working independently of Government and collaboratively with the education sector. Oak works with teachers across the country, giving them and their pupils access to free, optional, and adaptable high quality digital curriculum resources. Its current resources can be viewed online at: https://www.thenational.academy/. Oak is developing new resources which will begin to become available from this Autumn.

Schedule 4 Paragraph 7(a) of the School Information Regulations (England) 2008/3093 requires all maintained schools to publish their school curriculum on their website. The guidance for this is outlined online at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-maintained-schools-must-publish-online.

All academies must follow a similar process for their school curriculum. The guidance for this is outlined online at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/what-academies-free-schools-and-colleges-should-publish-online.

If a parent feels that a maintained school is failing to comply with its legal requirements relating to the provision of the curriculum, or that the school is acting unreasonably in the way it complies with them, they can make a formal complaint to the governing body by following the school’s statutory complaints procedures.