🔍💡 Psychosocial skills at school: this IGÉSR report shows how to move from isolated projects to a structured education policy that genuinely supports learning and students’ emancipation.
🧠🤝 In the context of the 2022–2037 national strategy, this text equips school leaders, trainers and staff teams to integrate PSS into subjects, school life and governance, without therapeutic drift or injunctions to “be happy”.🔍➕ Practical relevance of the report
For a primary school head, secondary school principal or district inspector, this report clarifies why and how psychosocial skills (PSS) should be placed at the core of the school/college/lycée project and academic steering, rather than treated as a peripheral “wellbeing extra”. For a school life officer, health and social staff member, EAFC/INSPÉ trainer or Health‑Promoting School coordinator, it provides guidance on how to articulate evidence‑based programmes, the Santé publique France framework and everyday teaching practices, while avoiding normative or quasi‑therapeutic drifts. It can be directly used to design training plans, PSS roadmaps, formative assessment criteria and collective support schemes for staff teams.
Source : 📒 Les compétences psychosociales : une exigence pour soutenir la promesse émancipatrice de l’École républicaine
📜🔗LIEN
1. Analytical summary
Context, tensions and stakes
The report stems from a referral to the IGÉSR in December 2024, aiming to clarify the questions raised by the introduction of psychosocial skills (PSS) in schools, building on an earlier mission focused on vocational upper secondary schools. Psychosocial skills, defined in the Santé publique France framework as a coherent set of cognitive, emotional and social capacities, are now anchored in the 2022–2037 multisectoral national strategy and are gaining prominence in the common core and new curricula. The report highlights a gap between a strongly proactive institutional discourse and a still limited, sometimes wary appropriation by staff, many of whom see PSS as “one more task”, insufficiently linked to disciplinary learning.
The authors identify three major areas of resistance: workload and accumulation of institutional demands; value‑based tensions (fear of questioning professional identity and the traditional hierarchy between disciplinary knowledge and transversal competences); and semantic vagueness, fuelled by psychological, managerial or self‑development vocabulary. They also underline the risks of over‑psychologising school difficulties, normalising behaviour and drifting towards quasi‑therapeutic practices if PSS are poorly conceptualised and poorly steered. At the same time, the report reaffirms that PSS are a lever for individual emancipation, academic and professional success, and social cohesion, directly connected to the republican mission of the school system.
Operational contributions for practitioners
The second part of the report sets out concrete conditions for developing PSS: systematic integration into teaching and educational practices, strategic steering from pre‑primary to upper secondary, structured training and support for staff, and a shift in assessment methods towards a formative approach. A set of prioritised recommendations (national policy framework, school‑oriented adaptation of the Santé publique France reference, explicit inclusion of PSS in competitive exams, national training frameworks, model pedagogical resources) aims at a coherent and sustainable large‑scale rollout. The report stresses the need to develop a shared culture of PSS, stabilise their vocabulary and clearly interlink wellbeing, school climate and learning, to avoid relegating them to the margins or reducing them to ad‑hoc “emotion management” workshops.
The authors illustrate these directions with field observations (several academies, primary and secondary levels, vocational schools) and practice examples: integrating PSS into subject teaching, working on empathy through the arts, using forum theatre, collective analysis of situations experienced by students, and the role of EAFC, INSPÉ and PSS delegate teams. The report insists on the responsibility of school leaders (principals, inspectors, rectors) to create organisational conditions (time, prioritisation, recognition of initiatives), ensure coherence across projects and support changes in professional posture. It sets out a vision in which PSS are neither a stand‑alone programme nor a behaviour‑control tool, but an educational requirement embedded in knowledge transmission, educational relationships and school climate.
2. Key points of the report
PSS as a scientific, public health and educational issue (pp. 1–9, 7–9)
The report recalls that PSS, promoted by WHO and the 2022–2037 national strategy, are backed by a body of meta‑analyses involving more than 700,000 students, showing consistent effects on mental health, school climate and academic achievement. It highlights the rise of a PSS culture within the French education system via the Health Education Pathway, the Health‑Promoting School approach and evidence‑based programmes, while pointing to heterogeneous practices and the absence of a stabilised national policy framework.
Three major types of resistance and misunderstanding (pp. 9–16)
The authors describe pedagogical resistance (PSS seen as outside the “core job” or peripheral to knowledge), philosophical resistance (suspicion of behaviour normalisation, injunctions to positivity) and cultural resistance (psychological vocabulary not widely shared, references to “human capital” and employability). They emphasise deficits in initial and in‑service training, the fragility of teachers’ PSS culture and the risk of widening the gap between “transversal” trainers and subject‑specific trainers if no integrated approach is developed.
Critical analysis and necessary adaptation of the Santé publique France reference (pp. 15–19, 22–23, annexes)
The report acknowledges the scientific robustness and structuring value of the national PSS framework, while pointing out several limitations: at times ambiguous wording of competences, a segmentation considered not very operational, vocabulary perceived as normative or managerial, and a scope that should be extended to competences more directly linked to classroom situations. It recommends adapting this framework to the school context, clarifying the notion of competence as a “capacity to act” mobilising resources and contexts, and translating public health concepts into language that is accessible to teachers and students.
Embedding PSS in teaching practices and assessment (pp. 22–28, 69–72)
The text argues for an integrated approach to PSS: embodying them in professional gestures, working on them in all subjects, dedicating time to the collective analysis of lived situations, and linking them with disciplinary learning. It calls for prioritising formative, continuous assessment based on contextualised descriptor scales, and for avoiding widespread use of summative assessments that would risk turning PSS into new tools for ranking or behavioural control.
Strategic steering, training and shared culture (pp. 29–35, 3–5)
The authors propose a set of recommendations structured around five axes: a clear theoretical and policy framework, integration of PSS at the core of the institution (curricula, reference frameworks, competitive exams), training and support for staff, territorial steering that fosters local initiative, and a communication strategy to build a shared culture of PSS. They emphasise the responsibility of central and local leaders (DGESCO, EAFC, INSPÉ, IH2EF, rectors, school heads) to organise sustained spaces for training, experimentation and professional dialogue, so that PSS are perceived as an extension of the teaching profession rather than an additional burden.
3. Actionable pathways for local actors
Embedding PSS in school projects as levers for learning (pp. 18–23, 29–32)
At school, lower‑secondary and upper‑secondary levels, PSS should be explicitly included in school/college/lycée projects and linked to concrete priorities: classroom climate, bullying prevention, student autonomy, engagement in learning. Teams can use the report’s insights to formulate precise pedagogical objectives (e.g. cooperation in mathematics, emotional regulation in PE, empathy in civic and moral education) and to organise team‑based work on integrating PSS into subject‑specific units.
Building a shared PSS culture around the national framework (pp. 10–16, 22–23)
At the level of school districts, schools or EAFC, teams can set up critical reading workshops on the Santé publique France framework, cross‑referencing it with the report’s examples (cognitive, emotional and social skills, disciplinary illustrations). A locally shared “PSS lexicon” can be co‑constructed for the school context, clarifying notions such as wellbeing, benevolence, empowerment, empathy and assertiveness to prevent misunderstandings and normative drifts.
Developing integrated and safe pedagogical arrangements (pp. 23–28, 69–72)
Drawing on the scenarios mentioned (visual arts, civic and moral education, forum theatre, situation analysis), teams can design sessions where PSS are addressed directly through disciplinary content and real situations (conflicts, bullying, relationship to errors). These activities should be framed by explicit ethical guidelines (what can be shared in the group vs. what remains confidential, reminders of the limits of the teaching role) and by clear referral pathways to mental health professionals when sensitive situations emerge
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Structuring training and support pathways for staff (pp. 34–35, 3–5)
EAFC, INSPÉ and academic trainers can be mobilised to build multi‑year PSS training pathways, combining theoretical input, practice analysis and co‑design of teaching sequences. Specific training modules should be offered to school leaders (principals, inspectors) on PSS‑related steering (prioritisation, alignment with academic policies, recognition of initiatives, leadership styles consistent with PSS).
Linking PSS with existing prevention and mental health schemes (pp. 7–9, 18–20)
PSS development should be articulated with existing schemes: Health Education Pathway, CESC/CESCE, anti‑bullying programmes, academic mental health strategies, and Health‑Promoting School projects. PSS can serve as a common framework to coordinate the actions of partners (IREPS, NGOs, local authorities, youth justice services, social work), strengthening coherence between prevention activities, support for vulnerable students and everyday classroom practices.
🔍➕ Pour plus d'informations, voir les articles référencés par "Pratiques en Santé" sur le thème des politiques nationales ➡️🔗