The Education Reform Act of 1988 introduced a national curriculum into UK schools for the first time. This meant that pupils in all state schools were taught the same topics at the same time in the same subjects. Although there is still a national curriculum it is more flexible than that originally introduced in 1988 and is not compulsory in free schools or academies which now make up the majority of secondary schools and a significant proportion of primary schools in the UK. It never applied to private schools.