Develop the basic understanding and skills you'll need to teach PSHE effectively and gain our Certificate of Professional Development in PSHE Education.
PSHE helps children and young people to be safe, healthy and prepared for life's opportunities.
It's likely you will be asked to teach PSHE education during your teaching career — possibly straight after qualifying. So, it’s important that you are knowledgeable and confident to teach it safely and effectively.
Achieving our Certificate of Professional Development for Trainee and Early Career Teachers is a way of gaining recognition for your understanding and experience of safe practice in PSHE education. We are confident that the process of achieving this certificate will enhance your professional practice and enrich your application for future employment.
Achieving the PSHE Association’s Certificate of Professional Development has been a genuinely rewarding experience. Throughout this journey, I have developed a deeper understanding of what makes PSHE education both impactful and safe for all pupils.
Through completing the framework, I’ve learned how to:
Create a safe and supportive classroom culture using ground rules and distancing techniques
Adapt lessons to meet the diverse needs of pupils, including those with vulnerabilities
Promote positive, proactive approaches that encourage curiosity and reflection without fear or shame
Ensure PSHE learning is relevant, engaging, and grounded in real-world application
Use assessment meaningfully to evaluate and support pupil progress in PSHE topics
Most importantly, I now feel much more confident in delivering PSHE lessons that are rooted in evidence-based practice, align with school policy, and reflect the values we want to instil in our pupils.
I would strongly recommend this framework to any trainee or early career teacher. It equips you with practical strategies and insight that go far beyond just PSHE – supporting you to become a more reflective, compassionate, and responsive educator.
It’s an investment in your professional growth and in the well-being and future of your pupils.
—Trainee, 2025
Step 1: Getting started
Tutors/Mentors:
This resource is only available to members of the PSHE Association.
Log in to your membership or become a member. Once logged in, download the framework and tutor guidance from the "Downloads" section below.
If you are an ITT provider, you are then free to make the framework available for your trainees to complete.
Trainees:
Watch our'Introduction to the ITE Professional Framework'video below and make sure your course tutor/mentor is on board.
Step 2: Completing the Framework
Once you’ve cleared it with your course tutor/mentor and watched our introductory video, it’s time to get stuck in with our training module and framework!
Use the knowledge and skills you’ve developed from the training module — alongside your experience of planning and teaching PSHE lessons in school — to meet the framework standards. Make sure you complete reflections and if possible paste images of related evidence, within all standards in the framework.
Arrange to meet with your school mentor or course tutor/lecturer to discuss the completed framework and show evidence.
Tutors/Mentors
Sign the relevant column for each standard you believe has been met and co-sign the declaration with the trainee once all columns have been completed to your satisfaction.
If you have concerns about the standards being met, encourage the trainee to provide further evidence or to explore their views further, through discussion. Frameworks should only be signed off if you believe they reflect best practice PSHE knowledge and pedagogy.
Step 3: certification
Tutors/Mentors
Send us a list of all the trainees who are submitting along with all completed frameworks and signed declarations to ite@pshe-association.org.uk
Frameworks will enter a moderation process with the PSHE Association and successful trainees will be awarded with a certificate in due course.
Certificates will be emailed to the course tutor/lecturer to distribute to trainees.
