Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that first aid is taught in schools.

Schools are free to teach first aid, and many schools already choose to teach it as part of personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), building on the relevant statutory content in the National Curriculum, such as the science programmes of study at key stages 3 and 4.

Schools are free to draw on materials from expert organisations; for example the non-statutory programme of study produced by the PSHE Association, which encourages schools to teach young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures, ways of reducing risk and minimising harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid.

The Children and Social Work Act provides powers for the Secretary of State to make PSHE, or elements therein, mandatory in all schools, subject to careful consideration.

We have begun an engagement process to support the development of the regulations and guidance on Relationships Education for primary schools, and Relationships and Sex Education for secondary schools, and to be able to consider carefully the future status of PSHE.