PSHE Subject Association response to the Youth Parliament SRE Report

The PSHE subject association welcomes the Youth Parliament Report on SRE and is committed to supporting schools in developing SRE programmes that meet its recommendations.

We fully support the young people’s recommendation that PSHE should be statutory with SRE as an integral part of it.  A recent survey of the association’s members showed overwhelming support from the teaching profession for statutory status. Making PSHE statutory would help to address young people’s concern about untrained staff teaching SRE. As a statutory subject it would be possible for it to be offered as a specialism in initial teacher education, creating specialist teachers from the very beginning of their careers. The National PSHE CPD programme has made a major contribution to increasing the professionalism of the subject and schools should be encouraged to support teachers in achieving certification through this route.

We agree that all children and young people should receive SRE as an entitlement. This should be appropriate to their needs and circumstances. Best practice in SRE is where schools begin planning their provision by considering the nature of their school community and identifying its specific needs and circumstances. By doing this they take into account the age and maturity of the children and young people and their cultural and religious circumstances alongside a range of other factors including issues raised by local data on, for example, teenage pregnancy. An effective planning process would also involve the young people and their families in planning the programme.

Young people’s view that SRE should be taught throughout the school career fits with national guidance and established good practice. SRE should begin at an early age and be taught as a ‘spiral curriculum’ throughout all key stages. This enables children and young people to acquire facts and explore issues related to sex and relationships at an appropriate age and stage of maturity. They gradually clarify knowledge and consider more complex relationship issues as they mature and their own social circumstances broaden and change.  For this reason SRE should be provided to ALL young people including those in education post-16 and should, of course, include relationships as well as the biological aspects of SRE.

An example of a spiral curriculum could be sources of help and advice. Young children would explore a topic such as ‘people who help us’ and identify where to go for help if they need it for example, in relation to bullying. As they mature young people will learn how to find accurate information about all aspects of health including sexual health and this will include information about sexual health services available in the community.

The report recommends that young people consider the implications of teenage pregnancy as part of SRE. We support this. Young people should have the opportunity to explore a range of personal and social situations, decisions they may have to make in the future and the consequences of choices including those related to sex and relationships. The implications of teenage pregnancy is an important part of this and does, of course, include the social, health and economic impact thus offering links with the achievement of economic well being as well as other ECM outcomes.

The report expresses concern about the inspection of SRE. We believe that Ofsted is increasingly seeking the views of young people and Ofsted publishes findings of themed inspections of SRE from time to time. These largely concur with the young people’s report. It is hoped that inspections carried out using the most recent Ofsted framework will include high quality judgements about SRE provision as part of the report on pupils’ health and wellbeing. 
 
Read the report on SRE from UK Youth Parliament