Fears for PSHE grow after review scotches hope for statutory status

After spending 20 months reviewing personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education, the government has decided the subject will remain non-statutory.

The decision is a blow for those who argue PSHE is vital for young people’s development. They fear the subject’s prominence will diminish as schools get to grips with a reformed national curriculum and the expansion of academies.

A survey by the teachers’ union NASUWT last October suggested PSHE teaching had declined 14 per cent since late 2010. Joe Hayman, chief executive of the PSHE Association, says that finding adds to anecdotal evidence from his organisation’s members that the subject is in decline.

“It’s not necessarily the case that people are ignoring it, but that they are not giving PSHE as much time on the timetable,” he says.

Hayman says PSHE is vulnerable because of its “unique position as a non-examined, non-statutory subject”.

One area he has particular concerns for is sex and relationship education. Despite being an element of PSHE that has some statutory classification, he says the topic is in danger of being watered down.

“Changes are being made to the science curriculum at the moment which really undermine sex education,” he says. “The ideal is for the factual basis to be explored in science lessons and then for children to explore the real-life context in PSHE. But the national curriculum doesn’t have references in it to sexual health, the naming of external genitalia, reproduction and so on. It’s unhelpful and undermining high-quality sex and relationship education.”

Darren Northcote, national official for education at NASUWT, is less concerned about the statutory status of PSHE. He argues that even if the government had made the subject compulsory, the rate at which schools are converting to academies and free schools would have undermined its prominence.

Declining subject
“About 70 per cent of secondary schools are academies or free schools,” says Northcote. “They are not subject to the national curriculum, so even if you were to include PSHE in the curriculum, academies wouldn’t be bound by it.”

Northcote’s main concern is the English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) – the school performance measure introduced by the DfE in 2010. It recognises achievement in English, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and, from 2014, computer science. But the teaching of other subjects, including PSHE, has declined as a result. He advocates putting pressure on the government to broaden the Ebacc’s remit.

“The government needs to think about the negative implications of its policies on PSHE, and whether there’s a different way of approaching its school accountability and curriculum policy,” says Northcote.

Paul Pettinger, co-ordinator of the Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education, says his organisation had concerns about patchy PSHE delivery before the review. Now it fears that provision will deteriorate further.

“Accord wants all children to have an entitlement to PSHE,” says Pettinger. “We are concerned that, particularly in the faith sector, there might be schools that teach poor-quality sex education, or don’t teach it at all. There is anecdotal evidence that the sex and relationship education within the faith sector is poorer than the non-faith sector.”

Pettinger feels disappointed that 20 months of review has resulted in little movement. “It’s not immediately obvious from a campaign perspective how we try to push the issue forward,” he says.

A DfE spokeswoman says that the non-compulsory status of PSHE gives teachers flexibility. “PSHE encompasses a number of different areas, many of which are compulsory. Beyond that, it is right that teachers are given the freedom to tailor PSHE to the pupils whose needs they know best.”