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Local training, national reach: Last year in numbers

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Sep 9, 2026, 11:04:18 AM
PSHE Association

 “Empowering teachers of PSHE to upskill and gain real confidence.”

— Online CPD delegate, Autumn 2025

For us, and many of the teachers we work with, live training remains one of the most effective bridges for translating policy into practice.  

And last year was one of our busiest on record for CPD, with updated RSHE statutory guidance driving demand across schools in England to upskill PSHE leads and wider staff teams ahead of the September 2026 deadline.

We worked in partnership with hundreds of schools and councils up and down the country — delivering hands-on, practical CPD as part of our wider mission to raise national standards for both PSHE education and statutory RSHE.

Headlines

  • 110+ live CPD training sessions delivered, with over half run locally in schools
  • 3,600+ teachers, local authority leads, and education professionals trained
  • All 8 regions of England reached — covering primary, secondary, cross-phase, SEND, further education, and ITT provision
  • 96% of delegates rated our training excellent or very good

RSHE ready

To support schools with implementing the updated RSHE guidance, we launched our “Successfully implementing the new statutory RSHE requirements” live CPD course at the start of last academic year, adding extra dates every term to keep pace with demand as sessions booked out fast.

This course helped hundreds of teachers across England to update their existing PSHE programme and policy, expand their understanding the new statutory content areas, and identify clear next steps for making their provision fully compliant for September 2026 and beyond.

79% of delegates who attended these courses rated their training as excellent (the highest possible rating), and many described leaving with new lesson ideas ready to take back to the classroom and an increased sense of confidence overall.

One online delegate described:

“The best CPD I’ve done. This will have a big impact in terms of my time and future planning.”  (Summer 2026)

Our wider live CPD programme also continued to reflect a broad range of school settings and pupil needs, with dedicated courses running every term for SEND provision (suitable for both mainstream and special schools), key stage 5, and independent schools.  

Taking a local lens 

No two schools are the same. And this is why the majority of our live training takes place locally, in school settings.

Last year, we delivered more than 70 live CPD sessions directly to schools, local authorities, PSHE/RSHE hubs, and MATs — from small rural primaries, SEND/SEMH provisions, and independent schools right up to large urban state schools, London boroughs, and entire counties.

Many of these sessions were tailored to the specific needs of staff and pupils in that school or area, drawing on local data from Public Health England, local authority JSNA data, and school-level pupil surveys, as well as priorities raised directly by teachers and senior leadership teams.

 “[Our trainer] included lots of relevant classroom scenarios, and was genuinely interested in helping us to how tailor these to our school’s context.”  
—  School staff training delegate, primary school (East of England), Summer 2026  

Our regional face-to-face seminars also returned for the fourth year running, bringing together hundreds of PSHE professionals in 9 cities across the country throughout June for an afternoon of local networking and practical workshops.

Each event brought together colleagues facing similar local challenges (from funding pressures to pupil demographics and safeguarding priorities) to exchange ideas on how their own provision could meet the specific needs of children and young people in their area.

99% of delegates who attended their region’s seminar said they’d recommend attending to another colleague or school.

Building whole-school, lasting impact

The Teacher Development Trust recently found that teachers find CPD most valuable when it is “relevant, personalised, and embedded in school culture”, and it follows that CPD has the greatest impact when it leads to lasting change — not just short-term satisfaction on the training day.

With this in mind, we interviewed a group of delegates who attended our live CPD training last year to understand what next steps they’d taken within one to two months of training:

  • 100% had updated their PSHE policy, completed a curriculum audit, or revised other supporting documents using materials shared from training

  • 97% reported feeling more confident in a specific area of pedagogy or topic (including some of the new statutory content areas)

  • 83% had briefed their senior leadership team and/or DSL within days or weeks of training, often securing approval for additional planning or CPD time

  • Two-thirds had led or had plans to lead whole-school CPD to share their learning and upskill colleagues — supporting a cascade “train-the-trainer” model

In every case, interviewees had gone on to apply the tools and knowledge from the training to their school’s unique context — developing a tailored PSHE programme fit for their pupils, supporting non-specialist staff, and strengthening their whole-school approach to PSHE.

“This has been great for our confidence as a school.”  
 — Face-to-face CPD delegate, SEND independent school (South East England), Spring 2026

“One of the things I love about the PSHE Association is that so many of your resources and trainings are based on evidence and research — that’s so important for me when explaining to colleagues why we’re teaching aspects of the subject in a particular way. Really useful for me in terms of cascading.”

 — Online CPD delegate & local authority lead, Spring 2026

Many of the schools, local authorities, and MATs that we train return for repeated sessions across multiple terms and years — building not just individual subject expertise, but a wider staff culture where ongoing CPD is a fundamental part of how PSHE is taught.

This helps to create a provision that is both agile and resilient — with skills held across a whole team rather than resting on one person — and able to keep pace with changing policy and pupil needs.

Camaraderie and confidence: embracing the wider PSHE community

What came through especially strongly in feedback from delegates last year wasn't just what they learned, but the community they learned alongside.

And with many PSHE leads working in isolation to plan and teach the subject, delegates consistently shared how much they valued the chance to meet a larger network of colleagues from a range of contexts:

 "It’s so good to meet other people delivering PSHE/RSHE through these group trainings. This really helps to improve and level out experience for delivering effective PSHE/RSHE across schools [both regionally and nationally]. I feel lucky to have the PSHE Association for my subject specialism.”          — School staff training delegate, state school (North East England), Spring 2026

As with previous years, we also provided tailored training to various ITT providers and trainee teachers around the country, supporting the next generation of PSHE educators to build strong foundations in best practice, curriculum knowledge, and classroom delivery skills that can be taken into their first teaching role and beyond: 

“For those feeling less confident, this training could make them feel much more at ease with taking on that role – particularly those at PGCE level.”     

— Primary PGCE student (London), Spring 2026 

And we hosted termly, free networking meetings for ITT providers, and regional network meetings for local authority, public health, and PSHE/RSHE colleagues — providing opportunities to network and build lasting professional relationships.

Each of our live training sessions represents a smaller corner of our wider network of over 60,000 PSHE professionals, and our flagship annual Spring Conference brings this community together at scale.

In March 2026, over 600 members (our biggest gathering of the year) joined us for a half-day online event of expert keynotes and practical workshops grounded in world-leading research, and the chance to learn alongside colleagues from a huge range of settings, based across the entire country and internationally.

96% of conference delegates reported feeling better prepared to support their whole school community through PSHE education:

“The conference experience taps into amazing knowledge and understanding beyond what I could manage on my own. A mind-opening experience — and the feeling of sharing this knowledge with all these other teachers is very powerful."

— 2026 conference delegate (South East England)

What next?

Great PSHE education doesn't stop at what's being taught. We also need to ensure the people teaching it feel confident, supported, and connected to others within a wider professional network.

High-quality CPD training plays an instrumental role in building and sustaining this, helping PSHE educators to create lasting change both inside and beyond the classroom.

Here are just some of the opportunities that we provide: