Review of Personal and Social Education: preparing Scotland's children and young people for learning, work and life

Ensure that children's and young people's learning experiences in PSE/HWB are of a consistently high quality

Priority and place of HWB/PSE in the curriculum

Consistency of HWB/PSE delivery

Scottish Government and Education Scotland will collaborate with COSLA, local authority partners and practitioners to co-produce a new HWB/PSE Toolkit to enhance HWB/PSE delivery at all stages of education, with due consideration given to the requirements of children and young people with additional support needs. This will:

• promote the role of schools senior leadership team in promoting the importance of HWB/PSE;
• ensure HWB/PSE is up to date and reflects local contexts and issues relevant to children and young people;
• illustrate models of good practice;
• promote the role of the third sector in delivering HWB/PSE; and
• provide models of involvement of children and young people in the design and delivery of HWB/PSE.

Improve approaches to tracking and monitoring children's and young people's progress in PSE/HWB to ensure their needs are being met and that they are making suitable progress. Use of the national benchmarks and the wellbeing indicators will support this work.

Assessment of HWB/PSE to ensure that children and young people are making progress

Methodologies to monitor long term impact HWB/PSE learning

Scottish Government and Education Scotland will work with practitioners to produce advice and guidance on approaches to monitoring young people's progression in HWB/PSE, linked with the wellbeing indicators and the HWB experiences and outcomes and PSE benchmarks to:

• encourage children and young people to take ownership of their learning and progress in HWB/PSE;
• ensure approaches are appropriate for use throughout the learner journey, from early learning to senior phase and link to transition monitoring systems in Further and Higher Education; and
• link with the action underway in the Learner Journey Review regarding an Online Learner Account and the recommendation to develop better data.

Improve access to professional counselling services

Spectrum of mental health support services important in schools

Need consistent support for mental health issues in schools

The Scottish Government, working with partners in local government, Health Boards and the third sector, will provide guidance and support to schools on the spectrum of mental HWB services that are available to meet the needs of staff and children and young people. This will:

• link with the work to implement the Programme for Government commitment on access to counsellors in schools and on provision of mental health first aid training for school staff;
• enable schools to complement existing provision with additional services and support; and
• demonstrate best practice that has been proven to be effective in schools.

Ensure an appropriate focus on the issue of sexual consent, especially in primary schools and the early stages of secondary schools.

Enable confidence in teaching the issue of consent

Enable consistent teaching of consent at all levels of education

The Scottish Government, working with key partners in local government and the third sector, will ensure that the forthcoming review to update the existing guidance available to schools 'Conduct of Relationships Sexual Health and Parenthood Education in Schools (2014)' includes appropriate guidance to ensure that consent education is age and stage appropriate and reflects the issues that are facing children and young people, especially from online influences. This will:

• link with work being done on Key Messages on Healthy Relationships and Consent being developed by the Scottish Government;
• ensure that the guidance reflects views of young people to focus on issues relevant to them;
• link to the wider work being done across Scottish Government and Education Scotland to address the issue of sexual harassment and gender-based violence; and
• link to the work being taken forward to implement the recommendations of the LGBT Inclusive Education Working Group.

Increase opportunities for children and young people to be involved in designing their PSE/HWB programmes.

Pupil Involvement in design and planning

Provide opportunities for accreditation for pupils in voluntary awards

Schools, working with Regional Improvement Collaborative partners, should further empower young people's participation in the delivery of HWB/PSE, including involvement in the design and delivery of lessons, building on best practice identified by collaborative partners. This will:

• identify ways for young people to gain accreditation for voluntary awards (e.g. SQA Personal Development Awards for learners designing courses and for completion of PSE); and
• link with learner participation resources and further career long professional learning will be made available by Education Scotland to support.

Ensure a greater focus on learning about all aspects of equalities.

HWB/PSE can be an effective tool for early intervention and awareness of equalities issues which may impact on bullying

More than just LGBT issues – promotion of positive relationships, behaviour, understanding and inclusivity

Education Scotland, building on the recommendations of the LGBT Inclusive Education Working Group, will undertake a peer-review, in collaboration with practitioners, of selected effective curriculum materials to support learning related to the other protected characteristics and for learners requiring additional support needs

Continue to ensure a range of opportunities for Career Long Professional Learning to support staff, in developing confidence, knowledge and skills in delivering fully up-to-date PSE/HWB programmes

Support for professional learning and resourcing on HWB/PSE subjects (RSHP/consent/life skills/mental health)

The Scottish Government and Education Scotland, working with specialists in Career Long Professional Learning, will develop learning resources to support HWB/PSE that are accessible to all teachers and school staff in Scotland.

This will:

• ensure that the professional learning is available through a range of formats (in person, webcasts and online material) to make it accessible to all;
• ensure that the professional learning resources promote a focus on the issues identified by young people during the review (life skills/personal development/planning for choices and change/RSHP); and
• ensure that the professional learning aligns with the material produced as part of the new online RSHP resource that will be available from Spring 2019.

Support in ITE on priority of HWB/PSE within the curriculum

The standards for professional registration managed by the GTCS should be updated, as appropriate. This will:

• ensure the importance of personal and social education is recognised as a skill expected of newly qualified teachers.

Building on the positive progress being made in S5/S6, more emphasis should be given to developing an understanding of future career options and skills for work in the earlier stages of secondary as well as in primary schools and early learning and childcare settings in line with the Career Education Standard 3-18. This should include purposeful engagement with local employers and meaningful experiences of the world of work.

Preparing Senior Phase pupils for life after school and making the transition to – FE/HE, training and work and in preparation for the life of young adulthood

Need strong links with FE/HE providers and local employers

The Scottish Government will ensure that the HWB/PSE Toolkit will build on the actions within the Developing the Young Workforce: Scotland's Youth Employment Strategy and the recommendations from the 15-24 Learner Journey Review to include clear direction for teachers on where to access support for senior phase pupils preparing for life after school. This will:

• include options available including further education, vocational education opportunities, career options, volunteering, community learning development (CLD), third sector opportunities, working abroad and travelling/gap year; and
• align with Scottish Government development of the Disability Action Plan which aims to build on known existing good practice to set out the consistently high quality support required across Scotland to help disabled young people who want to work to make the right choices to enable them to fulfil their potential.

Review PSE/HWB programmes in S5/S6 to ensure young people get their full entitlement and their needs are met.

Further develop the involvement of young people to deliver HWB/PSE to younger peers during the Senior Phase

Increase value of HWB/PSE in the Senior Phase to prepare students for the next phase in life

The Scottish Government will build on the recommendations in the 15-24 Learner Journey Review and establish a senior phase PSE Mentoring Programme to coach and enable pupils to design and deliver aspects of HWB/PSE whilst working towards an award. This will:

• enable the sharing of best practice;
• emphasise the important role of parents and partners in delivering the programme; and
• build on existing mentoring schemes like Mentors in Violence Prevention^[17], MCR Pathways^[18], Intandem^[19], Career Ready^[20] and other approaches to mentoring emerging through the Scottish Attainment Challenge and work to support Looked After Children.

Review the effectiveness of tutor periods in secondary schools to ensure that the time spent is well used and relevant to support young people's HWB.

Inconsistent approach to tutor periods across secondary schools

Can be an effective use of time

Schools, working with Regional Improvement Collaborative partners, should keep under review the use of tutor periods to identify strengths and weaknesses in existing approaches in order to deliver universal support for all young people. This will:

• build on the findings of the HWB/PSE Thematic Inspection; and
• provide a range of models which provide evidence of impact.

Continue to review the role of guidance/pupil support/pastoral care staff in secondary schools to ensure an appropriate balance of responsibilities across universal and targeted support.

High Caseloads of guidance staff a concern

Alleviate pressure on staff and provide supportive structures

The Scottish Government, working in conjunction with local government and teaching unions as part of the SNCT, should take steps to ensure that the role of guidance/pupil support/pastoral care/career guidance teachers is recognised and promoted in the implementation of any new career pathways for teachers. This will:

• link to the work to provide access to counsellors in secondary schools;
• share good practice models that have been evaluated as effective; and
• improve guidance on a whole school approach to universal support to build staff confidence and skills.

Facility for school resources to be shared

Good quality resources being produced by schools in partnership with other organisations

Education Scotland will develop a dedicated section on an appropriate online resource to support the consistent delivery of HWB/PSE. This will:

• provide platforms to enable teachers to access relevant material easily;
• enable easy upload of materials to support the sharing of effective practice ; and
• provide professional learning resources for all staff to access.