Helen Hayes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has asked Ofsted to inspect and report on how well schools are providing citizenship as part of the revised inspection framework with its focus on British Values, the Prevent duty and SMSC.

Nick Gibb

Individual subjects are not inspected by Ofsted inspectors. Ofsted do, however, look at factors that relate to citizenship, including Fundamental British Values (FBV) and Spiritual Moral Social Cultural (SMSC).

Citizenship education is in the national curriculum at key stages 3 and 4 and helps young people to prepare to play a full part in society, informed by a sound understanding of what it means to be a responsible citizen. As a result of the national curriculum review, the government has revised the programmes of study in order to direct teaching towards the core knowledge and to give schools more scope to decide how to teach citizenship. Pupils also learn about democracy, government and how laws are made and upheld. Teaching should equip pupils to explore political and social issues critically, to weigh evidence, to debate, and to make reasoned arguments. It should also prepare them to take their place in society as responsible citizens.