Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-01-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to increase schoolchildren’s understanding of the Commonwealth by increasing the proportion of the national curriculum dedicated to teaching about the Commonwealth and its relationship with the UK.

Nick Gibb

The national curriculum’s programme of study for citizenship education sets the expectation that pupils are taught about the United Kingdom’s current relations with the Commonwealth. There are also opportunities in the history national curriculum for schools to teach about the Commonwealth.

The national curriculum, introduced in September 2014, does not attempt to represent the sum total of everything that should be taught in schools. It prescribes the essential knowledge that pupils should be taught, leaving schools greater flexibility to teach over and above what the national curriculum requires, and to decide how to teach the essential content that is prescribed.