Transcript
With the Christmas break just around the corner, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and your colleagues for all your excellent work this year, bringing high-quality PSHE to children and young people. As always, we know how hard teachers have been working recently, often under challenging circumstances, and want to wish you a relaxing, well-deserved break.
Before we break up, here’s a rundown of what we’ve been up to this term, and some key developments to look out for in early 2024, starting with a quick update on the RSHE consultation.
So at the beginning of term, the RSHE guidance was under review and an Independent Panel was looking at providing guidance on age restrictions for some aspects of the RSE curriculum. The Department for Education had suggested the scheduled draft update to RSHE guidance would already be with us for consultation by this point. But it's now looking likely that this will arrive early in the new year. We’ll let you know through our usual channels as soon as we hear more about what will be a critical opportunity for all of us to inform the shape of the guidance. Looks like 2024 will be another year with PSHE education in the spotlight.
A quick recap of what we’ve put out for members this year. Kicking off with our Friendship and bullying lesson packs for key stage one to four — which we launched back in September. With fifteen lesson plans available in total, these lesson packs help pupils to make and maintain respectful friendships, manage any friendship challenges that arise, and identify and safely respond to bullying incidents. More than a thousand of you have downloaded the packs already, and it was great to revisit the materials in our latest PSHE Talks podcast, which landed earlier this week. The story doesn’t end there though — and I’m delighted to announce that we have adapted versions of the KS3-4 lessons for pupils with SEND on the way in the new year. Watch this space.
Just last month, we launched our Committed relationships and family life lesson packs for key stages two, three and four. Building on our popular ‘Family life’ lesson pack on relationships, marriage and parenting, these new lessons will support young people to recognise that relationships and families come in many forms, and identify and explore the different types of commitments they may choose to enter into in the future. The key stage four pack has now been incorporated into this new suite, and enhanced with a new design.
Keep an eye out for our new ‘Ground rules, rule!’ lesson pack for key stage one. This one-lesson pack focuses on the importance of ground rules in creating a safe and supportive climate for learning, and includes adaptations for key stage two pupils who are unfamiliar with ground rules, or have yet to be taught the lesson at key stage one.
As well as these member-only lesson packs, we’ve also Quality Assured a number of new resources from a range of other organisations. See the resources section of our website to find out more and download the latest versions of our Programme Builders to see what’s new.
We’ve seen lots of you at our CPD training and events this year, and we’re excited to build the momentum into 2024. Earlier this term, we debuted a new cross-phase Twilight CPD course — Protected characteristics: promoting equality and inclusion through PSHE — which we’re running again in March of next year. And we have a brand new course lined up for next term, Engaging with parents: Working together for effective PSHE education, available for both primary and secondary settings. All of our spring term CPD dates are live and ready to book on the training and events section of the website.
Bookings are also open for our spring online conference, taking place on the 29th February next term. Don’t miss your chance to hear keynotes from Laura McInerney, Baroness Floella Bejamin and Polly Haste — HMI Subject Lead for PSHE, RSHE and Citizenship at Ofsted. Attend practical workshops, and join hundreds of other PSHE professionals on the day. Our last conference attracted over 700 of you and we’re expecting a similar turnout this time around, so we encourage you to book soon to avoid disappointment.
Hopefully you’ve already had a chance to explore our new website homepage — which better highlights the increasing volume of resources, guidance and advice we’re producing. We’ve also made improvements to our search — to help you quickly find what you need.
You may have also spotted our new logo and visual identity on our website and latest resources. We made this change to better reflect our core mission, and improve the usability of our materials. But while our website and lesson plans may look different, you can rest assured that our mission — to raise the status, quality and impact of PSHE education for all children and young people — remains unchanged. So whatever the year ahead holds, we're here by your side.
Enjoy your well-earned break and here’s to a healthy 2024 for all teachers, children and young people.