PSHE
PSHE at Overleigh St Mary’s C of E Primary School
Our motto, ‘Children First’, resonates throughout school and in our partnership with our families and wider community. This is reflected throughout our work in PSHE, in order to help all children in their personal development. We ensure that all pupils can access the PSHE curriculum, including the most disadvantaged children and SEND pupils, so that they gain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in life.
Curiosity
The PSHE curriculum encourages children to ask questions, to be open-minded and to discover more about themselves and about others around them.
Community
Through our work in PSHE, we study local, national and international issues, especially current issues which will affect the children’s lives. This enables children to be respectful individuals who make reasoned, positive, unbiased and informed choices.
Christianity
As a church school, the Christian values are embedded within our PSHE curriculum. Our school celebrates and embraces difference, which nurtures children to become tolerant, respectful and empathetic individuals. This is clearly evident than within the PSHE curriculum.
Intent
At our school we provide a rich and varied learning environment that allows all children to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities to their full potential through being informed, articulate and empowered learners. In PSHE, this means children are given the tools with which to build lasting and meaningful relationships for life, to stay safe and also to make good decisions about their health and wellbeing. Through our PSHE curriculum, we strive to help our pupils develop into happy, confident, well-rounded members of society, who can make a positive contribution to their community.
We intend for the principles and positive messages covered within PSHE to be integrated into whole school life and the ethos of the school. Children’s attitudes towards themselves, towards their learning and towards others are positively strengthened through the knowledge and skills developed through our PSHE curriculum.
What we want our children to gain in our curriculum comes from being informed, articulate and empowered learners:
Informed:
Our PSHE curriculum is strongly tied to our Relationships and Health Education and we are guided by the statutory guidance for Relationships Education. Through this, all children will be taught the content in the following areas:
- Families and people who care for me – including that families provide safety and stability and are all different.
- Caring friendships – including how to make and maintain them
- Respectful relationships – including the importance of respecting others, the dangers of stereotypes and about bullying.
- Online relationships – including how to stay safe online
- Being safe – including setting boundaries and how to seek help
- Mental wellbeing – including understanding their emotions, self-care techniques and how to seek help
- Internet safety and harms – including rationing use of devices and staying safe
- Physical health and fitness- including making choices for an active healthy lifestyle, including food, exercise, sleep, dental and sun care.
- Healthy eating
- Drugs, alcohol and tobacco - including legal medicines and drugs, alcohol and tobacco and the associated health risks.
- Health and prevention – including identifying the signs of illness and healthy behaviours
- Basic first aid – including how to deal with injuries and how to call the emergency services
- Changing adolescent body – including puberty and menstrual cycle
- Economic wellbeing and being a responsible citizen – including healthy money habits
Articulate:
- Through PSHE lessons, there is a focus on oracy, with many opportunities for children to use their speaking and listening skills, including group and class discussions, circle time games and oral presentations.
- During PSHE lessons, key vocabulary is introduced, explained and used at an age-appropriate level.
- During PSHE lessons, we develop the children’s sense of belonging in our local community, celebrate diversity and embed a culture of inclusion.
Empowered
- In PSHE, we empower all children to participate, by ensuring respectful behaviour and that the rules for discussion are followed.
- As a diverse school, we empower children by ensuring that we present different cultures, different backgrounds and different families positively, so that all children feel included, can relate and learn to respect each other and their differences.
- Through the PSHE curriculum, we empower all children to make good choices – around being online, healthy lifestyle etc.
- All children, including those who have SEND or are disadvantaged, are supported to fully access the PSHE curriculum. This may include additional adult support, peer support, scaffolding/ alternative recording methods and the repetition and further explanation of vocabulary.
Implementation
PSHE is taught as a discrete lesson, every week and a range of teaching and learning styles are used, with an emphasis on discussion, group work and problem solving. The whole school follow the Heartsmart Scheme of work as a basis, complimenting it with creative ideas to motivate all learners. Clear ground rules regarding discussions are put in place to ensure a safe, supportive and positive learning environment. At Overleigh, we welcome visiting speakers, such as health workers and the police, to broaden the curriculum and share their real-life experiences. We also consult with the local community on to ensure that local issues are covered in lessons.
In addition to discrete lessons, the PSHE and RHE objectives are covered in other areas of our curriculum, for example an aspect of health may form part of the Science curriculum and positive relationships may be explored through a shared book. PSHE and RHE objectives are also key when we are planning and delivering our Values Days, other whole school or year group specific themed days and Acts of Worship.
As a child moves through our school, their knowledge and understanding develops and deepens. The ideas and concepts that children explore are revisited, allowing children to continue to develop in order to prepare them for future learning and life.
We implement our curriculum using the Heartsmart scheme which organises the skills and knowledge into six areas:
- Get Heartsmart
- Don’t forget to let love in
- Too much selfie isn’t healthy
- Don’t rub it in, rub it out
- Fake is a mistake
- No way through isn’t true
Impact
Our PSHE curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to ensure progression. Our teachers measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- A knowledge check at the beginning of each unit to see what the children already know
- Make links to previous learning
- Start lessons with a recap of understanding from the previous session
- Provide opportunities for open-ended tasks, to allow the more able to demonstrate their greater knowledge
- Assess children at the end of the unit to ascertain their learning
- Continue to assess children by observing how their growing knowledge and understanding is applied in areas other than in PSHE lessons (for example during book discussions or answers given in Acts of Worship)
The leadership team check that this impact is being secured through monitoring the subject on a regular and frequent basis. The method of monitoring supports the ongoing development of the curriculum. This includes:
- Staff subject knowledge, which is audited each year to ensure knowledge is secure, and additional support provided if necessary
- Termly staff meetings (to discuss current practices, keep all staff abreast of any changes and to identify needs)
- A ‘pupil voice’, which is conducted at the beginning and end of each year to allow pupils to contribute to their curriculum content
- Termly monitoring of work
- Tracking of content against the long-term plan of the school, to ensure the full breadth of the curriculum is met.
The impact of this is that children at Overleigh are equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge and are secure in their understanding of the characteristics of positive relationships and emotional and mental wellbeing. This will enable them to be resilient individuals, ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.