Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools pass onto students information on the environmental effect of poaching and of the illegal trade in ivory.

All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Teachers in all schools are therefore free to discuss environmental topics such as poaching and the ivory trade.

The National Curriculum is compulsory in maintained schools, and academies and free schools can use it as a benchmark. The science national curriculum includes references to animals and their environment, and provides opportunities to teach about positive and negative human impact on these.