Balancing Acts in Personal, Social and Health Education

A Practical Guide for Teachers

Judith Ryder, Lesley Campbell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367441340
• eBook ISBN: 9781000769593
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book, originally published in 1988, is designed for two types of reader: teachers trying out active learning methods and those with responsibilities for curriculum coordination and staff development. Its view of PSHE, and of the balance between personal and social values, is argued in relation to theoretical and practical questions which teachers can explore through a variety of exercises as they read. The authors offer four models of PSHE and a technique to help teachers identify these different approaches in practice. A framework is suggested for distinguishing PSHE form other areas, including the Pastoral Curriculum, Health Education, Moral Education and Careers Education, and a procedure, using grids, is described to help identify which elements of PSHE are being taught and by whom. Given their commitment to a holistic view of health, in which both individuality and collaboration have a place, the authors argue for active teaching methods and include examples of a wide range of PSHE exercises and evaluation techniques for use in schools. The book also discusses the importance of 'healthy' whole school organisation and suggests strategies for staff development.

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1
What is PSHE?

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This chapter describes our values as teachers and explains how they relate to practice in PSHE. First, we tackle the question of what Personal, Social and Health Education means. There is a profusion of related and, frequently, overlapping areas: Moral and Religious Education, Political and Social Studies, Community and Development Education, and so on. Each of these can make a legitimate claim to independent existence. Yet each also supports and is supported by PSHE. Our conflation of Health Education with Personal and Social Education also needs explanation since, historically, the two areas have been seen as separate.

We begin with an example of PSHE in practice. There are other cameos in Chapters 5 and 6.

Cameo

It is mid-morning on a wet Wednesday in September. The 17 students (16–19 year olds) in a class on a City and Guilds Community Care course are milling around a visitor who has come to talk about adoption. The students have been studying adoption and fostering procedures during the previous two weeks and have decided that they need a more personal perspective. Their visitor and her husband have recently adopted a young child.

Jill, the visitor, is collected by two students from the foyer and then introduced by them to the rest of the group. Two other students serve tea and coffee to everyone. After five minutes or so, Jill is asked to sit in the middle of a semicircle of students and the more formal session begins. One girl welcomes Jill and explains that the class has prepared several questions for her. The questions, each posed by a different student, cover such areas as the duration of adoption procedures, the most painful or worrying moments, the rights of adopted children and parents, adopting handicapped children and Jill’s recommendations for prospective adoptive parents. The exchanges are relaxed and good-humoured, the occasional silence or confusion being dealt with by the students themselves, without recourse to the teacher who is participating in the group.

After about half an hour, a student announces that ‘time is up’ and asks Jill if she would like to add anything. She is then asked a final question, ‘How do you feel about the way the session went?’ Jill admits that she was nervous initially but was soon made to feel comfortable. The whole group, including Jill and the teacher, then ‘debrief the session, using a prepared checklist as a framework. The students, prompted by the teacher, discuss what they have learned and make constructive criticisms of the session. At the end they thank Jill for coming and she is escorted to the dining room. The teacher stays a while to check that the students are all right. She then leaves them to rearrange the room. They work together efficiently and cheerfully (with one or two exceptions), chatting meanwhile about how pleasant Jill was and how much they enjoyed the discussion. One student wonders what they will do next lesson to ‘follow it up’.

Do you recognise this as a PSHE lesson? If so, can you define its particular PSHE characteristics? If it is not a case of PSHE, in your view, where else does it belong in the curriculum?

As a starting point in defining PSHE, it is useful to acknowledge the wide range of potential ingredients it can embrace. The following brainstorm exercise is a method of doing this.

Exercise 1.1: Brainstorm: What is PSHE?

1. Draw a line down the middle of a large sheet of paper. Head one column ‘PSHE IS …’ and the other ‘PSHE IS NOT …’ Allowing yourself only five minutes to complete the task, write down whatever words or phrases come into your mind under each heading. Remember, in a brainstorming session, all ideas count. Do not waste time editing or refining what you have written at this stage.

2. After the five-minute brainstorm, briefly tidy up your list and compare it with a partner’s or with our own list (next page).

3. Use the tidied list to reflect on similarities and differences. For example, use the list(s) to select your priorities for PSHE or use it as a checklist against current practice in your school. Grouping your ideas according to knowledge areas, values, methods and other categories can also be a useful clarification exercise.

We implied in the Introduction that there could be many valid interpretations of PSHE — even if, in our view, some are perhaps more valid than others! However, given that PSHE is still relatively uncharted territory, your brainstorm list — like the one in Figure 1.1 — is likely to be couched in very generalised terms. There is still the problem of defining PSHE rigorously, therefore, and of generating practical guidelines to help decide appropriate content and approaches. Some of the reasons why PSHE is such a tricky area to pin down and translate into practice are hinted at by Pring (1984 and 1987). He points to five main areas of difficulty.

DIFFICULTIES IN DEFINING PSHE

1. Conceptual

The very words ‘personal’, ‘social’ and ‘health’ education are contentious and invite an infinite number of interpretations. ‘Personal’ can mean individual but does that imply individualistic? ‘Social’ can be applied to a number of levels: the peer group, the school organisation, the community, the country, the world. But when does social equate with ‘political’ and how far should social education either reinforce the status quo or foster changes in society? If ‘health’, as we believe, incorporates physical, mental, social, emotional and spiritual aspects, how is it possible to weigh up what is healthy? And what of ‘education’? Some argue that, in this context, the word is synonymous with development. But development towards what, and how? Does it involve familiarity with a body of knowledge, the acquisition of particular skills, or the development of attributes and qualities?

Figure 1.1: What is PSHE?

PSHE is... hard work fun structured dependent on certain skills for everyone holistic eclectic contentious based on a particular ideology about whole-school policies evaluative, using a variety of methods about the ‘new 3 r’s’: relationships responsibility relevance

PSHE is not... just process counselling or pastoral casework indoctrination a fad or bandwagon just for the least able students social and life skills playing games for the sake of it a means of social control about good manners just for 4th and 5th years about crisis management a historical accident

2. Political

All the terms associated with PSHE can be, and are, used as a vehicle for values stemming from different educational ideologies. In fact, sometimes, the gap between rhetoric and reality opens up into a gulf under the influence of these processes. The impact of the 1986 Education Act is a case in point. Now, instead of teachers being able to negotiate appropriate sex education for different groups of students, they find themselves constrained by what governors determine students’ needs to be. The fundamental question here is one concerning power. Who decides what goes on in school and, in particular, what goes on in PSHE?

For the record, we are both socialists and feminists and although we may argue over diff...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Exercises
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: What is PSHE?
• Chapter 2: The Social Condition
• Chapter 3: Models of PSHE and the Pastoral Curriculum
• Chapter 4: The Needs of Adolescents
• Chapter 5: PSHE and the Curriculum
• Chapter 6: The Teaching Methodology of PSHE
• Chapter 7: The Healthy School
• Chapter 8: Staff Development/INSET for PSHE
• Chapter 9: PSHE in Further Education
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index