Fury erupts over DfE review of PSHE

Announcing the results of a Department for Education (DfE) review of the subject, education minister Elizabeth Truss said schools, not government should decide the content of PSHE lessons.

“To allow teachers the flexibility to deliver high-quality PSHE we consider it unnecessary to provide new standardised frameworks or programmes of study,” she said.

“Teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and do not need additional central prescription.”

Truss also announced that the DfE had given money to the PSHE Association so that it could help individual schools develop their own PSHE curriculums.

However, the association said that this funding has been "significantly reduced" from what it was.

The DfE has also asked Ofsted to produce a good-practice guide for schools on the teaching of the PSHE.

But the announcement sparked an angry reaction from organisations that want clearer rules on the subject for schools.

“At a time when children are bombarded by media messages about sex and subject to peer pressure, the government has decided to stick its head in the sand,” said Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chair of the Accord Coalition, which campaigns for PSHE to be taught in all state-funded schools.

“The government’s commitment to PSHE is half-hearted and inadequate.”

Simon Blake, chief executive of youth sexual health charity Brook, said: “This ‘review’ is a not very funny joke. Clearly the Department for Education has not been looking at the same evidence as the rest of us, or listening to the views of children and young people themselves.

“We now look to those who do understand young people’s needs – schools.