Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing mandatory education on antisemitism in schools.

Schools and colleges are a place of protection, as well as education. There is no place for antisemitism in our society, and it is essential that Jewish students feel safe in education.

The Holocaust is the only historic event which is compulsory within the current national curriculum for history at key stage 3, and teaching about antisemitism is integral to teaching this event.

There are many other opportunities in the existing curriculum for schools to teach about antisemitism, including through citizenship, relationships and religious education.

The department’s ‘Tackling Antisemitism in Education’ programme, backed by £7 million of funding, seeks to improve confidence and resilience in tackling antisemitism across settings including schools, colleges and universities. It includes an Innovation Fund, which will be launching in the summer. This fund will support the creation of mechanisms to educate young people about antisemitism and provide them with key skills in areas such as media literacy.

The department is also supporting teachers through our Educate Against Hate website, which provides teachers with a range of free, quality assured resources, including on building resilience to antisemitism, teaching about tolerance and rejecting discrimination.