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Withdrawing pupils from subjects
Find out which subjects parents can withdraw their children from and how these rules apply to maintained schools, academies and independent schools. Plus, get advice on disapplying pupils from the National Curriculum.
Contents
Withdrawal is only a right in certain subjects
Maintained schools
You must follow the National Curriculum. The following table shows which subjects parents have the automatic right to withdraw their child from:
| Subject | Automatic right to withdraw child? |
| Religious education (RE) | Yes |
| Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education | From some aspects – see below |
| English | No |
| Mathematics | No |
| Science | No |
| Art and design | No |
| Citizenship | No |
| Computing | No |
| Design and technology | No |
| Languages | No |
| Geography | No |
| History | No |
| Music | No |
| Physical education (PE), including swimming at either KS1 or KS2 | No |
Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education
Parents can withdraw their children from sex education, apart from the aspects covered by the science curriculum.
They can't withdraw their children from relationships or health education.
Find out more about parents' right to withdraw their children from relationships and health education (primary) and relationships and sex education (secondary).
PE
Swimming in KS1/KS2 (as it's part of the National Curriculum) – get more detail on your requirements for swimming here Off-site PE activities arranged by
- Anti-racism: how to review and re-frame your curriculum
- Bloom's Taxonomy: summaries
- Classroom displays: effective practice
- Covering LGBT content in your curriculum
- Curriculum accessibility for pupils with SEND: checklist
- Curriculum audit: gender and LGBTQ+ inclusivity
- Curriculum maps: templates and examples
- Curriculum provision in PRUs and APs
- English genres in the National Curriculum
- How to design a curriculum
- How to promote British values across your school
- How to review your curriculum
- Implementing a knowledge-rich curriculum
- PE teaching hours: guidance and examples
- Quality first teaching: guidance
- Relationships and sex education (RSE): curriculum audit
- Requests to withdraw a pupil from RE
- School reopening and getting learning back on track: where to start
- Whole-school curriculum audit
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