How much training to teachers get to deliver PHSE?

[BackInTime]

Y7 DS has been quite upset and worried following lessons on Mental Health delivered in PHSE by his form tutor. He has relayed some things that the teacher has said including things about schizophrenia and psychosis that I can see why an 11 year old would be a bit worried. Basically the teacher implied that they were at risk of these mental illnesses and needed to watch out for voices in their head.

He is normally an easygoing kid and it takes a lot to bother him but it strikes me that unless these issues are being treated sensitively and age appropriately there is a danger of causing more harm than good.

Do teachers get any formal training for delivering these topics?

Nope! Well some do but it's often more case of Miss X has an extra free period on her time table so we'll give her year 8 pshe. In many schools all teachers teach it to their form group as a registration activity.
I hate teaching it because I don't feel sufficiently well trained or up to date with things like drugs ed.

Actually some teachers have been on courses and tend to do the more sensitive topics like sex and relationships. It will vary from school to school.

They are trained to be teachers. They will then deliver the information provided. I am
not sure what the teacher has done wrong here - she delivered facts.

You should be really pleased the school are covering MH topics,that's a good thing. The more chat about it the better. Talk to your ds and see this as an opportunity to continue to talk about things that worry him.

Basically the teacher implied that they were at risk of these mental illnesses and needed to watch out for voices in their head

Yes, the teacher is correct. Everyone is at risk of MH problems.

I am not against MH education in schools far from it. My issue is with the delivery and whether or not the form teacher has the training and ability to deliver the information sensitivity and age appropriately.

The teacher is trained, safeguarding training is compulsory and part of this. The teacher is competent and more than capable of delivering the topic. We deal with issues around mental health daily. For
some parents, however, it's never enough.

I trained donkeys years ago. PSHE was called something else and we had one session of the PGCE on it, plus observing then teaching some on placements.

In my first job, all the y7 teachers were NQTs (high turnover of staff - dreadful SLT) and when we had to teach sex ed, the school nurse came in to speak to us as a group after school one day about how to approach it and what worked for her. That was really helpful.

Now, I am happy to deliver most aspects of PSHE. It helps that my TG are year 10 and I have DDs of 19 & 17. The only topic I have found challenging is gender identity, simply because it was not discussed when I was either at school myself or training. However, lesson plans are prepared for us and I had a couple of kids who are really clued up, so we all learned together. I also think it's ok to tell the kids that you aren't sure and will look something up or ask about it - we're all on a learning journey.

Pieceofpurplesky that is presumably true in your school but is not a blanket truth.

I taught PSHE without any training whatsoever at a "good" English secondary. I was given a very well prepared scheme of work and materials by the excellent head of PSHE, but no training at all, and it wasn't even mentioned during my GTP training.

There are most certainly some teachers who are not specifically trained to deliver PSHE delivering some PSHE lessons. It is not impossible that the lesson in question was delivered by someone equipped to teach their main subject but uncomfortable or unfamiliar with delivering sensitive PSHE units to year 7.

DH teaches in an outstanding state school. He has some small gaps in his timetable and so is scheduled to teach PSHE, for which gets precisely no training. He’s told a topic (eg puberty) and then there’s a coordinator who sometimes suggests resources, of varying quality; more often he has to find his own resources (fortunately the PSHE Association has some good lesson plans on various topics, and recently he discovered tha Tampax do too on puberty!).

This means the quality and even more detailed content of PSHE at his school is entirely dependent on the quality / enthusiasm/knowledge of the teacher.

Why not raise with the school, and ask what their overall approach to teaching about MH is, particularly now that MH is going to be a mandatory part of the curriculum?

Blueskies teachers are trained to teach so should be able to deliver PSHE. They will also have had safeguarding inset

Pressed too soon!
Is what I meant I just didn't phrase it well

Pieceofpurplesky yes teachers are trained to teach, and will have had a certain amount of safeguarding training (though for a teacher without explicit extra pastoral responsibility this often won't be extensive and more along the line of "cover your arse, don't be alone with a child, look out for A, B and C behaviour and physical signs and document concerns and pass them to the relevant colleague/s".

BackInTime 's opening post asked whether teachers get formal training for delivering these topics and the answer to that is "no, not necessarily".

Someteachers teach sensitive PSHE topics extremely well without subject specific training, but it would be disingenuous to pretend to believe that all do.

I can certainly remember colleagues (the head of PE who told the young woman PE teacher suffering recurrent miscarriage that she'd had too much time off now and should pull herself together and work through "the next one" springs to mind) who I would not have wanted teaching my children about any topic requiring sensitivity and empathy.

I haven't had any specific training to teach PHSE (although we call it something different in our school.) Every teacher teaches it as it is done as part of form time. Honestly most of the topics are common sense and I'd happily deliver any of them but then I am a science teacher so we cover a lot of things in a lot of detail within our topic anyway, which some people may be uncomfortable teaching.

I actually think training for specific PHSE topics would be beneficial to a lot of staff. I've heard some form teachers give out terrible opinions and advice.

I actually think training for specific PHSE topics would be beneficial to a lot of staff. I've heard some form teachers give out terrible opinions and advice.

I agree that lots of what is covered is common sense and deliverable by most teachers but with increasing onus on schools to cover some quite difficult and sensitive topics, training should be given to teachers. There is a danger of causing confusion and distress to students if they are given misinformation. DS was certainly confused and alarmed by information about mental illnesses so much so that it has kept him awake at night. Today he said that a girl in his form has been crying as she was a bit nervous about and end of term test and then believed this meant she had anxiety.

Aspects of it should be very sensitively taught, for the reasons you describe. We do it more as being mentally healthy, bouncing back from problems and resilience in years 7 and 8.

I would expect a teacher to understand the MH continuum, to remote resilience, and to manage MH risks. It’s a duty of everyone who works in a school, from the head teacher to the dinner ladies.

As for PSHE, they deliver the SOW, so should research the issues ahead of the lesson. If unexpected topics come up, they should admit lack of knowledge but commit to finding out before the next lesson (and make themselves available in the meantime to listen).

Schizophrenia is a rare illness that typically develops in late teens/early adulthood. There is no reason for an 11 year old to be worried about it - that does make me wonder what the teacher was telling them.

Teacher training on mental health is patchy in the extreme.