In March, Education Minister Liz Truss announced PSHE would remain a non-compulsory subject, saying it should be down to schools and teachers to decide on the topics covered in lessons.

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Labour said its policy was to make the subject compulsory to 18.

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But the government says it is already a compulsory National Curriculum subject and the English Baccalaureate is to encourage more students to take up geography and history in addition to RE - not instead of it.

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Backed by their powerful subject associations, science, history, mathematics, languages and other subjects arrogate to themselves as much compulsory curricular time as they can manage, forcing everything else to the margins.

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