PSHE
Intent
Our school’s overarching intent for our pupils is to provide a Personal, social, health, economic, relationship and sex education (PSHE/RSE) programme of study which ensures all pupils are provided with:
- Accurate, realistic, balanced and relevant knowledge, underpinned, where relevant, by British Law.
- Opportunities to turn that knowledge into personal understanding.
- Opportunities to explore, clarify and if necessary challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities.
- Opportunities to be courageous advocates for change.
- Encouragement to reflect on their learning and the progress they have made, and to transfer this knowledge and skills from one school subject to another, and from school to their lives in the wider community.
- The skills, language and strategies they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling responsible and balanced lives.
- Opportunities to develop positive personal attributes such as having a growth mindset, resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem and empathy.
- Accurate, balanced and relevant knowledge to enable them to appreciate what it means to be a positive, kind, tolerant member of a diverse multicultural society.
Our children will be taught in a safe and supportive learning environment where the children are able to develop the confidence to ask questions and challenge the information that they are given. We want them to be able to draw on their own experience, express their views and opinions and put what they have learnt into practice in their own lives. We want them to be able to make their own choices and take responsibility for their own actions. We want them to understand that their actions can have an impact on others and when and how to ask for help. We will follow our safeguarding policy should a concern be raised as a result of a lesson.
Implementation
At Monksmead school we use SCARF, a comprehensive scheme of work for PSHE and Wellbeing education. An overview of SCARF can be found in our long/medium term plan. It covers all of the DfE's new statutory requirements for Relationships Education and Health Education, including non-statutory Sex Education, and the PSHE Association’s Programme of Study’s recommended learning opportunities, as well as contributing to different subject areas in the National Curriculum.
We follow the six suggested half termly units and adapt the scheme of work where necessary to meet the needs of our school community. Teaching staff can access a range of teaching support resources within SCARF, including guidance documents and teacher training films. Lessons can be a weekly standalone PSHE lesson or be cross curricular. The lesson plans list the specific learning objectives for each lesson and provide support for how to teach the lessons; teaching staff and our PSHE lead often discuss this on an informal basis.
We have chosen SCARF as our PSHE resource because the lessons build upon children’s prior learning; we have assessed the content and feel that it is relevant and sensitive to the needs of our children. There is planned progression across the SCARF scheme of work, so that children are increasingly and appropriately challenged as they move up through the school.
What is being taught
KS1 and KS2
The SCARF programme divides the year into 6 themed units:
- Me and My Relationships: includes content on feelings, emotions, conflict resolution and friendships;
- Valuing Difference: a focus on respectful relationships and British values;
- Keeping Myself Safe: looking at keeping ourselves healthy and safe
- Rights and Responsibilities: learning about money, living the wider world and the environment;
- Being My Best: developing skills in keeping healthy, developing a growth mindset (resilience), goal-setting and achievement;
- Growing and Changing: finding out about the human body, the changes that take place from birth to old age and being safe.
The Early Years Foundation Stage
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE is taught as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. Adults working within the EYFS, also plan and optimise opportunities to develop the individual needs of each unique child through both adult led activities and during child initiated learning. Personal emotional and social development is a prime area of the Early Years Foundation Stage. In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE education is about making connections relating to the children’s experiences; it’s strongly linked to child-led activities, including play. Therefore, the order in which the topics are covered may at times vary from that in the long-term plan. Children are given the opportunity to engage in social activities, as members of a small group, whole class or occasionally during whole-school activities. Key texts, SCARF lessons and various other resources are used to support the personal, social and emotional development of the children in EYFS.
Impact
The intended impact of the teaching and learning of PSHE at Monksmead School follows our school drivers:
- Self-Awareness – Pupils are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and understand how they are developing personally and socially, and have the confidence to tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up.
- Embrace differences – Our children will have learnt about their rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society. They learn to understand and respect humanity; diversity and differences so that they can go on to form the effective, fulfilling relationships that are an essential part of life and learning.
- Ambitious to take the next step – Pupils will feel prepared for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. Through a carefully planned programme, supported by all who work in or with the school, we want children to leave Monksmead ready for the transition into secondary school and adult life.
- Worldy-Wise – By the time children leave Monksmead they will have the means to become healthy, independent and responsible members of a society. Pupils will have the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to lead confident, healthy, independent lives.