PSHE Association welcomes Youth Select Committee report 'A Curriculum for Life'

The PSHE Association warmly welcomes the Youth Select Committee report, 'A Curriculum for Life', which was published yesterday.

The report makes a number of helpful recommendations in relation to PSHE education, including that Government should update its guidance on sex and relationships education with input from young people and experts; that professionals should have improved training in PSHE education; that there should be more quality assurance of external organisations delivering PSHE education; and that local young people's forums should be established to help identify local PSHE education needs. We hope to work with Government and members of the Youth Select Committee to take these recommendations forward.

The Committee also recommended that the subject should be made statutory if another Ofsted report suggests it is not good enough. As the members of the Committee know, the PSHE Association continues to call for the subject to be made statutory so that we can properly address the weaknesses identified in this report, many of which result from the subject’s status in the curriculum. That being said, the idea for a long term strategy for the promotion of PSHE education is one we welcome and which we hope the Department for Education will take up.

Chief Executive Joe Hayman said:

"We really welcome the report but it makes difficult reading in places: young people are clearly echoing Ofsted in saying that PSHE education is vitally important but that it is not yet good enough in some schools. This is something we are working hard to address and we will continue to do so.

Many of the reports' recommendations are addressed to local and national Government but as the national association for the subject we want to work with the members of the Youth Select Committee, the British Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament to take the recommendations forward."