This article explores the current context for personal, social and health education (PSHE) in English schools, and examines what the implications of the 'Every Child Matters' (ECM) agenda are for schools in the future and how these changes may affect the profile and provision of PSHE in the curriculum. The author begins by revisiting the most recent Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills in the UK (Ofsted) subject report on PSHE, before moving on to consider both the potential impact of the (2006) duty on schools to promote well-being contained within the recent Education and Inspections Act and the recent review of the English Secondary National Curriculum, which presents PSHE as personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE education), establishing twin, non-statutory programmes of study for personal well-being and economic well-being. He argues that there are now significant opportunities for PSHE to realise its potential through these shifts in context and emphasis. He proposes that in order for this to happen, policymakers and practitioners must embrace the concept of 'well-being' as an educational imperative and align and embed it within the drive to raise standards, concluding that PSHE must be given statutory status within the National Curriculum and must, as a result, prepare itself to accept the challenge of increased scrutiny and accountability that this revised status will demand.
