PSHE education in 2025: time to put tech back in its box?

It’s 2025, and technology continues to astound, confound and seize the headlines.

Despite deep and justifiable concerns, there are undeniably areas in which it’s proving to be a force for good, and this can include education. But we must never lose sight of the fact that teaching, and certainly PSHE education teaching, is a truly human pursuit.

In other words, your roles as PSHE teachers and leads are incredibly and increasingly important.

No matter how sophisticated AI gets, it will never be able to fully understand the challenges and opportunities facing the children and young people in your classroom, or provide learning that truly supports their wellbeing, safety and ability to thrive.

Of course, this technology should not be ignored. And it isn’t going away any time soon.

Indeed, we’re working on a guide to using generative AI for PSHE leads and teachers, as AI may be a useful tool in your arsenal (as pointed out by the Education Secretary in her BETT conference speech).

But AI can only take us so far. And tech should only be embraced to the extent that it supports you in your role.

You are the key agent that makes a positive difference through a carefully considered and delivered curriculum. You can be supported, but never supplanted by, technology.

Because high-quality PSHE education isn't something you can just ‘plug and play’. There’s no viable ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. And your crucial role can never be replaced by off-the-shelf programmes, AI lesson builders or passive classroom videos.

An important part of our role — as your subject association and an independent-minded charity and membership organisation that puts you and your pupils front and centre — will be to fight very hard to maintain your agency in this challenging environment, while supporting you with all the tools, guidance, training and resources you need to do your job to the best of your ability.

This means focussing on the ‘best’ solutions, which doesn’t always mean the ‘easiest’ when it comes to something as complex as PSHE education.

That said, we’re here to make it a lot easier to get it right, by striking a balance between convenience and quality, through planning tools such as our Programme Builders. These provide example structures that you can adapt to your needs, and link to best practice lesson plans that cover the full PSHE curriculum (including statutory RSHE), without being a prescriptive programme.

So it’s never been more important for anyone teaching or leading PSHE education to become a member — as it both allows us to raise the quality and profile of PSHE education nationally and means we can provide a growing range of high-quality products and services at a modest cost per school.

This includes our soon-to-be-launched mental health curriculum and programme of on-demand training.

It also allows us to spot and interrogate the challenges ahead, via our research and development arm ‘Fully Human’, which explores everything from online misogyny to the reduced, real-world opportunities for children to play.

And a final, but important note on technology: perhaps too there’s an importance in sometimes putting tech back in its box, or at least thinking carefully about the message we’re sending to students when we use it.

At the same time we’re supposedly seeking to limit pupils’ exposure to screens and algorithms, we’re also filling their school day with technology that is all too often gimmicky, gamified or unproven, produced — in many cases — by those with little or no education expertise.

In an online environment where even the limited guardrails and protections that do exist are being removed or watered down, we need to stress the primacy and importance of human teaching and guidance — and your role as an enabler for positive change, versus the quick and easy (but sometimes false or inadequate) solutions that tech alone provides.

We’ll explore these and other pressing themes at our 6 March Spring online conference, alongside a range of keynotes and practical workshops. Read more and book your place.