Asked by: Steve Yemm (Labour - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that primary school children are educated about the Holocaust.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Government is deeply committed to ensuring pupils receive Holocaust education. It is the only compulsory topic in Key Stage 3 History. Primary schools learn about the Holocaust in events such as Holocaust Memorial Day.
Alongside this, the Government is investing significantly in support for schools and teachers. We fund programmes to strengthen teaching quality, including the University College London Centre for Holocaust Education’s professional development work and the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz programme.
In the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024, we also committed a further £2 million for Holocaust remembrance and education to help ensure that every young person can access recorded survivor testimony. This sits alongside £4.8 million of wider departmental funding between 2024 and 2027, including £2.3 million for Lessons from Auschwitz, £500,000 for the Centre for Holocaust Education, and £2 million for our Supporting Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Teaching programme across 2025-26 and 2026-27.
Together, this ensures that pupils develop a meaningful and age-appropriate understanding of the Holocaust, supported by high-quality teaching and powerful survivor testimony.