Sex and Relationship Education and PSHE Consultation Response

In December 2017, the Government’s Department for Education launched a consultation as part of their strategy to update existing guidance on the teaching of sex and relationship education, and personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE). This paper presents Just Finance Foundation’s joint response to the consultation, with Young Money and the Church of England.

We discuss the following themes:

• The need for making financial education compulsory, which lies in the fact that if it is not mandatory then schools will not teach it due to constraints on space and time in the curriculum and that uncertain incomes, the impact of lifelong indebtedness, and high housing costs are compounding to make financial capability an issue of pressing importance for younger generations.

• The distinctive features of the LifeSavers programme, for example its values-based approach, it’s flexibility and the emphasis on experiential learning, for example through getting pupils involved in setting up, using, and running their own school savings club.

• The importance of ensuring that PSHE content can be embedded within other aspects of the curriculum, which also contributes to wider PSHE goals too, such as building confidence, agency, and an awareness of the variety of different circumstances people live in.

• Finally, we recommend that a new duty to make financial education a compulsory part of the PSHE curriculum, is supported by a number of other enabling measures, which we set out