The Holocaust has been a compulsory subject in English schools since the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1991, when it became the only specific historical event named in the Key Stage 3 history programme of study. It is the only historical event made compulsory in this way; all other periods, themes and events are at the discretion of the school or the examination board. The compulsory status has produced thirty-five years of substantial institutional infrastructure for Holocaust education in English schools and substantial accumulated research evidence on what English schoolchildren know and do not know about the subject. The position is markedly different in the other UK nations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate education systems and treat the Holocaust as a recommended rather than compulsory subject), so this page treats the English situation specifically.
The compulsory status and what it requires
The 1991 National Curriculum required the teaching of the Holocaust in Key Stage 3 (years 7 to 9, ages 11 to 14). The 2014 revision retained the requirement and tightened its specification: the current statutory framework requires “the Holocaust” to be taught as part of the wider study of “challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world from 1901 to the present day”. Schools have substantial discretion over how the requirement is met, including the time allocated, the materials used, the teaching staff who deliver it, and the integration with other subjects.
The minimum implementation in many schools is around four to six lessons in a single Key Stage 3 unit. The maximum, in schools that take the subject particularly seriously or that have specialist Holocaust education staff, is substantially more, sometimes including extracurricular Holocaust visits to Beth Shalom, the Imperial War Museum or, in some cases, Auschwitz-Birkenau. The variation between schools is substantial; the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education’s research has found that the variation is one of the most striking features of English Holocaust education and a substantial source of the unevenness in pupil knowledge.
The pupil knowledge
The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education has conducted, since 2009, the most extensive research programme on Holocaust knowledge among English secondary school pupils. The principal findings have been substantial. English pupils have, in general, heard of the Holocaust and recognise it as a major historical event involving the murder of Jews. Beyond that recognition, the knowledge becomes patchy. Pupils substantially over-estimate the death toll among children specifically (because the materials they have studied have, for understandable pedagogical reasons, focused on Anne Frank and other young victims), substantially under-estimate the involvement of non-German European populations in the killing, and substantially mis-attribute the responsibility for the events to Hitler personally rather than to the wider apparatus of the regime.
The most-cited specific findings include: around 80 per cent of pupils know that the Holocaust involved the murder of Jews; around 60 per cent know that around six million were killed; under 40 per cent know that other groups (Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Soviet POWs, political prisoners, homosexual men, Jehovah’s Witnesses) were also targeted; under 30 per cent can identify any specific country other than Germany or Poland involved in the killing; and around 25 per cent believe that the Holocaust ended in 1942 (the substantial misconception about the chronology). The findings have been published in the Centre’s research reports since 2014 and have been used to inform subsequent curriculum and teacher-training work.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas problem
The most-cited specific problem for English Holocaust education has been the widespread classroom use of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) and Mark Herman’s 2008 film adaptation. Both are widely loved by their young readers and viewers and are used extensively in English secondary schools as an entry point to the Holocaust. The problem is that the book and film embed several historical impossibilities (the survival of an unaccompanied Jewish boy of Shmuel’s age in any concentration camp, the ignorance of camp conditions on the part of a commandant’s family, the open and unguarded camp perimeter that allows the central friendship) that produce, in pupils who have read or watched them, substantially less accurate Holocaust knowledge than in pupils who have not.
The UCL Centre’s research on this point, published by Michael Gray in 2014, found measurable knowledge differences between groups of pupils who had used the book and groups who had not. The Centre has produced curriculum materials specifically designed to address the misconceptions the book embeds; the materials are widely used by teachers but the book remains in widespread classroom use. The Auschwitz Memorial issued a public statement in 2020 criticising the book and discouraging its use in Holocaust education; the statement has not removed the book from English classrooms.
The institutional support
English schools have access to substantial institutional support for Holocaust teaching. The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, established in 2008 with major funding from the Pears Foundation, provides teacher training, curriculum materials, online resources and research support. The Holocaust Educational Trust, established in 1988, runs the Lessons from Auschwitz Project (a one-day visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau for sixth-form students from English schools, which has taken approximately 50,000 students since 1999), the Outreach Programme (which arranges survivor talks, although the survivor pool is now small), and the Ambassador Programme (which trains school students who have completed the Lessons from Auschwitz programme to deliver further talks in their schools). Beth Shalom in Newark and the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust Galleries provide visit opportunities and curriculum support.
The combined institutional infrastructure for Holocaust education in English schools is, by international comparison, substantial. The variation in school-level uptake is the principal limiting factor; the schools that draw on the institutional support tend to have stronger Holocaust teaching, and the schools that do not, do not.
The continuing challenges
The continuing challenges for English Holocaust education in 2026 are several. The disappearance of the survivor generation, which has been particularly steep in Britain because the British survivor community was substantially first-generation immigrant and is now small. The handling of contemporary antisemitism in classroom contexts where Jewish pupils may be present and where political polarisation around Israel and Gaza has substantially complicated the teaching since October 2023. The continuing widespread use of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as a primary teaching text. The variation in school-level engagement with the institutional support that is available. The competing demands on Key Stage 3 history time from other compulsory subjects. The training of new history teachers, who in most cases will not themselves have had substantial Holocaust education during their own schooling and who require institutional preparation to teach the subject confidently.
See also
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
- Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre
- Imperial War Museum Holocaust Galleries
- Holocaust Memorial Day
- The Next Generation of Holocaust Education
- The Living Memory Problem
- Modern Antisemitism and Historical Patterns
Sources
- UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, What Do Students Know and Understand About the Holocaust?, Institute of Education, 2016
- UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, What Do Teachers Know and Understand About the Holocaust?, Institute of Education, 2009
- Stuart Foster, Andy Pearce and Alice Pettigrew (eds), Holocaust Education: Contemporary Challenges and Controversies, UCL Press, 2020
- Michael Gray, Contemporary Debates in Holocaust Education, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014
- Andy Pearce, Holocaust Consciousness in Contemporary Britain, Routledge, 2014
- Department for Education, National Curriculum in England: History Programmes of Study Key Stage 3, 2014
- UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, https://www.holocausteducation.org.uk
- Holocaust Educational Trust, https://www.het.org.uk