Calling all young people from 13-19! 

My name is Gabriel Brown and I am 20 years old. Ever since my early days of middle school I have always felt that there was a huge gap in young people’s education, that of topics relevant to our future and adult life. PSHE, life skills, its true name could be argued all day long, but one thing that can’t be argued is how little room this lesson is given on the timetable. 

With schools hardwired to focus on subjects such as Maths and English, life skills education gets left on the side of the road. True, these are important lessons to teach, but it is at the foregoing of one that is just as important.  

Young people get their sex education from this lesson, their drug and alcohol awareness, and more. This lesson teaches them about politics, mental health, soft skills for the future and in general about how they can become the best them that they can be. 

I believe young people should have a far better life skills education than I had, and receive regularly taught, student driven lessons, so that the young people at school both feel like they are receiving education that will help ready them for the adult world, while allowing them lessons where their input is valued and taken into account. 

As of September 2020, aspects of PSHE education are compulsory in schools (The PSHE Association) yet there is still no real stress on teaching these lessons, and no consistency across schools. 

WE WANT TO SEE: 

A review of the PSHE curriculum that focuses specifically on three factors: 

• More lesson frequency/longer PSHE lessons.  
• More emphasis given to the importance of these lessons in the vein given to Maths and English. 
• Young people allowed to give their input into the lessons and what they’d like to see taught to them about the adult world. 

With a consistency of the above across all schools. 

Together we can make this critical change to education. 

Take a look at our documentary campaign film, What Comes Next? here, where we showcase the views of a range of young people in person.

https://www.facebook.com/WCNFilm/  

Twitter: @WCNFilm