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<p>The department will not be making any changes to the national curriculum for the
remainder of this Parliament to provide stability for schools, and enable them to
remain focused on recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and teaching the broad and rich
curriculum.</p><p>Over the past decade, the department has reformed the national curriculum
to set world-class standards across all subjects. Programmes of study are flexible
enough for teachers to be able to add their own content – including taking account
of new developments, societal changes, or topical issues, such as global fashion and
supply chains – without there being a need for the department to review the national
curriculum.</p><p>An example of this could be the teaching of textiles in design and
technology (D&T). D&T is compulsory in state-maintained schools from key stage
1 to 3 and pupils in maintained schools also have an entitlement to study D&T
in key stage 4. The national curriculum is a framework, designed to give teachers
the freedom and flexibility to go into greater depth and cover additional topics,
such as details of the global fashion industry and supply chains, as they wish, according
to the needs of their pupils. The use of textiles is encouraged in the D&T programme
of study, though this is non-statutory guidance.</p><p>The department believes it
vital that young people are taught about global issues such as sustainability and
climate change. Topics related to these are covered in the national curriculum, which
are mandatory in all state-maintained school, such as the science and geography curricula
and GCSEs. For example, secondary geography includes the study of the climate, how
human and physical processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments
and the climate. Citizenship education, which has been a compulsory subject in maintained
schools since 2002, also covers contents on global issues, such as the environment.
Furthermore, the department introduced a new environmental science A level in 2017.
This will enable pupils to study topics that will support their understanding of the
global issues, such as climate change.</p>
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