Statutory PHSE Education

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Teresa Pearce

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of statutory personal, health, social and economic education.

In March 2017 the then Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), announced her intention of putting relationships and sex education on a statutory footing, and of creating a power to make PSHE statutory in future, following further work and consultation. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 provides for it to be made statutory in all schools in England through regulations. A call for evidence is running from December 2017 up to this month. I welcome that call for evidence, which gives us a chance to explore what world-class PSHE looks like, going forward into the 2020s. I hope that this debate will be a useful part of that process.

PSHE in this country has suffered on several fronts. It has been caught up in sterile debates about the difference between knowledge and skills, and about school freedom. It has also become a battleground because of its status as the home of sex and relationships education. It has been incorrectly associated with generic and sometimes obscure pet subjects—even origami. Often, we have lost sight of the fact that PSHE at its best supports the development of skills and attributes such as managing risk and taking responsibility, and the honing of critical skills that set young people up to succeed in other areas of the curriculum and in their wider lives. Surely that is what education is about.

Despite some of the cartoon battles that I have mentioned, there is a fair level of consensus about what PSHE includes: the knowledge and skills that young people need to stay safe—online and offline—healthy, and prepared for life. There should be programmes of study such as that prepared by the PSHE Association, with a spiral curriculum that is consistent with the ethos of the school and able to take account of the specific needs of the school’s community. It can support children’s mental and physical health, reduce the risk of drug and alcohol misuse, support financial capability, develop employability skills and provide emergency life-saving skills. Many schools provide excellent PSHE education, but others struggle. The fact that the subject is not mandated in all schools does not help; if there is a tussle for timetable space, the statutory subject will always win. Figures from the Department for Education itself show that time given to PSHE fell by 32% from 2011 to 2015, and the Select Committee on Education warned that that situation could still be deteriorating.

Mandatory or not, PSHE is of course not a magic bullet, but a clear position in the school curriculum, with support from inside and outside the education community, would be a good start. Giving PSHE statutory footing and enabling schools to act within a broad framework would make it easier for the Government to deliver their stated aims of improving outcomes in safeguarding pupils against online harm, and in mental health. That is because PSHE is a complementary subject area: for example, relationships are influenced by other areas covered in PSHE and cannot be taught in isolation. Although parents, teachers and pupils support the subject, I believe that schools would welcome clarity on its status. A Government decision to establish mandatory PSHE must be the start of the work, not its end.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Lady is making a strong case and I congratulate her on securing this important debate. Does she agree that it is not appropriate for parents to be able to withdraw their children from some of the lessons? Should not the guidance and regulations make it clear that all pupils have the right to know the facts? There is a big difference between opinion and fact, and all children, regardless of faith or background, have the right to know the facts.

[Teresa Pearce]

I agree. Things work best when the home and the school work in partnership, not when they are in conflict. I am the mother of a teacher who often tells me about problems she has in trying to teach religious education in school. Some parents want their child removed from the lessons, because they do not want their child to be taught about other religions. That does not help. All children should be treated equally and have equal access to information, as the hon. Lady says. I completely agree.

One of the key benefits of PSHE, I believe, is that it increases academic attainment. A report by Pro Bono Economics in 2017 found that the provision of high-quality PSHE has a positive impact on young people’s academic attainment. Moreover, a study of 200 social and emotional skills programmes, predominantly delivered through PSHE lessons, demonstrated an 11% improvement in young people’s academic achievement. Encouragingly, evidence also showed that PSHE can have a positive impact on life chances, as it was the academic performance of the most disadvantaged children that improved by the greatest amount as the result of receiving high-quality PSHE.

PSHE does more than just add value to the qualifications that young people leave school with. Evidence suggests that it supports children in developing skills and characteristics such as teamwork, confidence, flexibility and resilience—all of which will enable them to achieve in their future lives and careers. I am sure that many hon. Members in the Chamber have had conversations with employers about young people leaving education with a handful of perhaps excellent qualifications, but no life skills. Many years ago when I was young I learned those life skills through such things as Saturday or holiday jobs, which are hard to get now. I learned what it was to be an adult by working with older women in Timothy Whites—whatever happened to them?—on a Saturday. Those things are not there for young people now; they need somewhere where we can teach them the life skills that they need to become the sort of employee that employers are looking for.

That is because the world of work that young people enter now is very different from the one I entered when I left school. People are not just looking for examination results; they want a candidate with the ability to adapt, innovate and work in partnership. Key leaders in business and industry support that view. The CBI has said that there is a need to focus

“not only on knowledge and skills, but also on the key attitudes and behaviours that are needed for success in life outside the school gates”.

That is where PSHE can certainly help. There is strong evidence that it improves academic attainment and young people’s prospects. I remind the Minister that at the Education World Forum in January he said:

“Preparing pupils to compete in an ever more competitive jobs market is the core purpose of schooling”.

I agree, and if he means what he says, as I believe he does, we need to be serious about attainment and social mobility, and about making provision for high-quality PSHE as a statutory requirement in schools.

Many other Members want to speak, and I do not want to cover every aspect of the subject, but I want to talk in particular about one area that is dear to my heart. In 2015 I tried to get a private Member’s Bill through Parliament—the Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill. Unfortunately it did not succeed, and the Government and the Minister did not support it. Perhaps the Minister was right and it was not the right place for the matter to be dealt with; perhaps the place for it is in PSHE. I should be happy to know whether he thinks that that is so.

I have worked hard on the issue for a number of years, as have many other Members of Parliament. The British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance have all welcomed the call for evidence, believing that the teaching of first aid could sit happily within PSHE. The teaching of first aid, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, as a mandatory component of statutory PSHE in both primary and secondary school, could be done in one hour a year, each year. It would ensure that all children and young people had the opportunity to learn that crucial life skill, building up knowledge and confidence over the course of their time in school. We know the statistics about first aid: only 5% of adults feel knowledgeable or willing to act in an emergency. Up to 59% of pre-hospital deaths from injury could have been prevented with basic first aid. More than 30,000 cardiac arrests occur out of hospital every year in the UK, and fewer than one in 10 people survive. If we could match the survival rates found in parts of Norway, where CPR is routinely taught in secondary schools, we could save around 5,000 lives per year in the UK.

As a mother of teachers, I understand that teachers are hard pressed and that their job is difficult, with long hours and little space, but I believe teachers are best placed to deliver the training, and they are not alone. They do not need specialist training to deliver it, because there are many quality, approved resources already being used in schools, such as those used by the three organisations I mentioned. The British Heart Foundation provides free CPR “watch and learn” training kits, which are in place in 66% of secondary schools. The British Red Cross provides “Life. Live it.” first aid for children and first aid learning for young people, with resources for primary and secondary schools. St John Ambulance provides free online access to its streamed sessions under the banner, “The Big First Aid Lesson”, which many of us will be aware of. The most recent session reached 125,000 students in a single sitting, in addition to more traditional teaching resources.

First aid learning must be appropriate to the development level. The optimal age to start teaching cardiac compressions is around 12, but learning the symptoms of cardiac arrest and how to call for help can begin with much younger children. When they start school, children should be taught how to dial 999 and what happens when they do. That will impart a sense of confidence and responsibility to act. In the current climate, when we all, particularly young people, go out to bars, cinemas or concerts, there is an ever-present threat of terrorism. We need to turn young people into life-savers so that they do not become bystanders.