PSHE Association appeals for partnership in support of PSHE education

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PSHE education is by its very nature a subject which includes a broad range of topics vital to helping young people negotiate life’s challenges and opportunities. Therefore it appeals to a wide range of organisations with a wide range of interests. Hundreds of organisations, from those focused on sex and drugs education to those interested in enterprise and employability, have a stake in the success of the subject. With PSHE increasingly at risk of being squeezed in school timetables, we want to harness the collective power of the diverse groups with an interest in PSHE behind a call for a high-quality PSHE education for every child.

Please see our initial draft of a 'shared statement' in support of PSHE education which we are asking organisations and interested individuals to help us develop and then unite behind. Baroness Massey, Chair of the All Party Group for Children, has already registered her support for such an initiative, while a number of prominent organisations in the sector such as the Alcohol Education Trust, ASDAN, Brook, the Drugs Education Forum, the Institute of Health Promotion and Education (IHPE), Mentor, pfeg, the Royal Society for Public Health, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Sex Education Forum have agreed in principle to work in coalition with us in support of these aims. We are particularly pleased to have the support of the UK Youth Parliament, which has set its campaign priority for the year ahead as ‘A curriculum which prepares us for life’ after a vote involving over 250,000 young people.

Now that the PSHE review has concluded (see our outcomes and our response here) and the Government has been clear in its intention to keep PSHE as a non-statutory subject, our first priority for this partnership initiative is to make the case for an explicit link between PSHE and existing statutory responsibilities for schools. We support the PSHE Strategic Partners response to the national curriculum consultation, which suggests that the following should be inserted into the new national curriculum framework:

“Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which:

Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and
Prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life

All schools should make provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), alongside their statutory programme of study, in order to meet these requirements.”

Bringing the PSHE sector together to make the case for a high-quality programme for every child is a priority for us. Please get in touch with our Chief Executive, Joe Hayman, if you are interested in getting involved or have any questions or comments.

Please note that this news article is archived content from our old website and some internal links may not be working. If you need help finding information please get in touch with us at info@pshe-association.org.uk.