If the role of schools is to prepare us for adult life, it is crucial that the preparation considers parenting, the most important job most of us will ever do.

Parenting UK promotes best practice in parenthood education for children and young people in schools. We convened an expert working group between 1996 and 2002, and were a member of the Department for Education and Employment National Advisory Group for PSHE. These pages are intended as a resource for anyone involved in planning or delivering parenthood education.

Parenthood Education for Schools Guidance Document

The working group produced a guidance document covering all aspects of parenthood education in schools It includes sample lesson plans, charts showing how parenthood education fits into Key Stages 1-4 and maps onto the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum, and lists of recommended materials.

Download your free copy here

For current training courses in this area please go to the Schools and PSHE and Adolescents training pages, for events go to Other Events and use the search facility. You could also search the Commissioning Toolkit, a database of replicable parenting programmes, available on the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners website. 

The National Curriculum and Key Stages 1-4 

In 1999 the DfES published frameworks for PSHE and Citizenship that repeated the Government's wish to include parenthood education as a topic at all key stages. A MORI poll conducted the same year for the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) found that school children want to learn about parenting.  Ofsted reports have suggested that Parenthood Education should be included in the Sex and Relationships Education curriculum. Download the reports on PSHE in Secondary Schools (2005) and Sex and Relationships Education in Schools (2002).

Please visit National Curriculum online to view the non-statutory guidelines for PSHE; the QCA website for guidance on PSHE; and the DCSF Standards website for Schemes of Work for Citizenship.

What weight is given to parenthood will be up to schools to decide, but there are obvious and relevant links to both the PSHE and Citizenship curriculum that mean schools can integrate parenthood education effectively.

Parenting UK strongly believes that only those colleagues who have chosen to do this work should be asked to deliver it, and that they should be offered specific initial and in service training as well as supervision and support.