What probably happened is that the nose was raised too high, leading to a full-power stall. This is something that's not covered in the PPL syllabus (only power-off stalls are normally taught)
I'm sure I remember "slow flight" being on the syllabus. In my slow flight lesson I was asked to fly as slowly as possible, which is of course using full power, and was then asked to pull the nose up a little more to see what happened. Doesn't everyone get this lesson then?