Education: Personal, Social and Health Education

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I will make three points. First, I strongly support the calls of the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey of Darwen and Lady Morris, for a strengthening of the position of PSHE in the curriculum. Earlier this afternoon, I had the good fortune to speak to pupils and teachers from Leamington Spa’s Trinity Catholic School, which is particularly strong on pastoral care and particularly reaches out to young people who are looked after by local authorities. I spoke to one pupil who has her PSHE lesson on Monday mornings, in which she is currently studying child labour in the developing world. She was animated; it was interesting her. I spoke to one of the teachers responsible for teaching the subject in the school, who said that the status of this subject was low among other teachers and it is not respected. She also said that it is difficult to teach and teachers need to be well trained to deliver it properly. She pointed out that, particularly in her school, many children do not hear what they need to know from their parents, and they get that in these classes.

My second point concerns governors. I was speaking to the same head teacher, I think, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey—the primary school head teacher who had turned around three schools using PSHE. I listened with great care to what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, and the noble Lord, Lord Eden of Winton, said about school ethos. Interestingly, the head teacher used PSHE as the basis for developing an ethos within the school that respected relationships, where relationships between pupils, pupils and teachers, and the school and parents were fundamental. She also found, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, that if you get the relationships right, the learning takes place. I hope that is somewhat reassuring to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. To some extent I share the noble Lord’s concern about the possible hijacking of some political correctness in terms of sex education. We need to watch that carefully but should not stop doing this because of those concerns.

The head teacher I spoke to had the first chartered PSHE education teacher in her school, in 2008. Since then, we have three chartered PSHE teachers; there may be more now. What is happening to move that ahead? Why is the progress so slow? Perhaps I may also ask the Minister about training for teachers in child development. This should be available to all teachers and would underpin success, particularly in this area as it deals with the emotional development of children.

I remember working with a 10 year-old child about five years ago on a summer play scheme on which I had a placement. This child was attention-seeking and getting into fights with other children; he caused us all a great deal of anxiety and we were not able to attend so well to other children because of him. In the lunch hour, he would sit in an old tyre and rock himself. After 10 days of working with that child, I sat in the back of a minibus with him and heard that he was just about to be moved into his new adoptive home. This child had experienced trauma, he was at a very difficult stage in his life, and of course he had regressed towards the behaviour of a three year-old or a five year-old.

It is very important that teachers understand child development so that they can understand why a child is behaving in such a way. Is it simply misbehaviour? Is something going on in the home? Teachers should have the understanding to be able to work their way through this. I ask the Minister: how is he working with Charlie Taylor, the head of Education England, to ensure that with the welcome progress being made in teacher training, this essential element of child development is being embedded?