Education A to Z

Education and Curriculum Terms: A Guide for Students and Teachers

Please note: This page explains a word or a process in education. It is general information about the system, the law and the guidance in England — not advice about your child, your school or your exam. If a decision is going against you, get advice from one of the free services we link to before you agree to anything or miss a deadline. If you are revising, check your own exam board's specification: boards word things differently and yours is the one that marks you.

Revising? We write GCSE revision songs — a playlist covering most subjects and the English set texts. Listen to the revision playlist.

45 terms filed under P, showing 11–20 (page 2 of 5).

P

Persistent absence

Also called PA, Severe absence

Missing 10% or more of sessions. It triggers school and council processes whether the absence was authorised or not.

Person-centred care

Care organised around the individual's own needs, wishes and choices.

Personal budget

Also called SEN personal budget, Direct payments

Money identified in an EHCP that a family can have some control over. Available on request, with limits.

Personal education plan

Also called PEP

The education section of a looked-after child's care plan. Reviewed termly, and it controls pupil premium plus spending.

Personal statement

The written part of a university application. Evidence, not adjectives.

Personification

Also called Anthropomorphism

Giving human qualities to something that is not human.

Phonics screening check

A short year 1 check of a child's phonic decoding. Forty words, half of them made up.

Photosynthesis and respiration

How plants make glucose and how all living things release energy from it. Not opposites, and not the same as breathing.

Physics equations

The formulae you are given and the ones you must learn. Knowing which is which is worth marks.

Plagiarism

Also called Malpractice, Collusion, AI misuse

Passing off someone else's work as your own. In assessed work it is malpractice, with real consequences.

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