Rationale
PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) education encompasses all areas of our curriculum.
At the Grove Primary School, we intend to provide a PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) curriculum that equips every child and young person with the knowledge, understanding, attitudes, values, emotions, and skills needed to stay safe and healthy, play an active role in society and to thrive now and in the future. This includes helping them to deal with critical issues they face every day such as friendships, emotional well-being and change.
Intent
It is our intention that our PSHE education will help pupils prepare for all the opportunities, challenges, life decisions and responsibilities they’ll face.
The curriculum for PSHE incorporates all aspects of SMSC, Citizenship, British Values, as well as the statutory content of the RSHE programme of study. At the Grove Primary School our vision aims to create a happy, purposeful and supportive environment where children are enabled to become successful learners, develop to their full potential and achieve the highest educational standards they can. We aim to promote positive mental health for every member of our school community including, pupils, staff and families.
We want our pupils to:
- develop the knowledge, skills and understanding of how to keep themselves healthy and safe (including online.)
- become responsible global citizens.
- build positive, healthy and respectful relationships with others.
- develop their mental and physical wellbeing.
- show tolerance towards others-their beliefs, religions and life choices and to respect their differences.
- be resilient and to make the most of their own abilities.
- develop self-confidence and be able to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions with others.
The promotion of our pupils’ personal development at The Grove Primary school is at the heart of everything that we do. It is a fundamental aspect of their education and underpins all other learning.
Implementation
As a school we use SCARF, a comprehensive programme of work for PSHE and wellbeing education.
SCARF stands for Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship and promotes positive behaviour, mental health, wellbeing, resilience and achievement. It covers all of the DfE’s new statutory requirements for Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education.
We follow the six suggested half termly units and adapt the programme of work where necessary to meet the needs and requirements of all of our children.
Through weekly timetabled PSHE lessons children have access to key and accurate knowledge, language and meanings. They will develop their understanding of PSHE and will be given opportunities to explore and challenge a range of values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities. They will develop a range of skills and strategies to live a healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced life.
Our PSHE curriculum is taught in a variety of ways and a range of teaching strategies are used such as: circle time, role-play, discussions (whole class, individual, small group or in pairs,) stories e.g. exploring behaviour of characters, creative activities, and pupil-initiated activities. Visitors such as the emergency services and the school health advisor offer additional learning and complement our PSHE curriculum.
Beyond the planned programme for PSHE, we provide our children with a variety of experiences and opportunities to further learn about PSHE. These opportunities have the potential to promote their personal and social development and their economic education. These may include assemblies, cross curricular teaching, fund raising and charity events-interaction with members of the local community, clubs, extra-curricular activities such as outdoor pursuits and team building, the School Council, visiting speakers and professionals, visits to places of interest, residentials and themed days.
E-Safety is taught within this subject and our Computing curriculum. Our approach to this subject is kept flexible, so that we can address any local or national issues that may impact upon children, when they arise.
Early years
For pupils in Early Years, Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) is a prime area of learning, which supports their learning in all other areas. In Early Years it is about making connections and is strongly linked to play. It supports children to learn to get on with others and make friends, understand and talk about feelings, learn about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, develop independence and ultimately feel good about themselves and is an integral part of the daily school life. The SCARF programme of work is also used in Early Years.
Key Stage One and Two
The SCARF programme divides the year into 6 themed units:
1. Me and My Relationships: content on feelings, emotions, conflict resolution and friendships.
2. Valuing Difference: a focus on respectful relationships and British values.
3. Keeping Myself Safe: looking at keeping ourselves healthy and safe.
4. Rights and Responsibilities: learning about money, living the wider world and the environment.
5. Being My Best: developing skills in keeping healthy, developing a growth mindset (resilience), goal-setting and achievement.
6. Growing and Changing: finding out about the human body, the changes that take place from birth to old age and being safe, including on and offline and keeping our bodies safe.
Please see our school Long-term plan below.
Impact
We believe that a meaningful PSHE curriculum is the key to our children becoming confident, respectful, resilient, high achieving, tolerant and responsible members of society.
Our curriculum will ensure that our children will be on their journey preparing them for life and work in modern Britain.
Our PSHE education isn’t just another school subject. It encompasses all areas of our curriculum and will be the golden thread which forms part of our whole school ethos. It runs through every aspect of school life, providing children with essential life skills and knowledge to enable them to make informed decisions and choices and become healthy, confident, respectful and responsible citizens both now and in the future. The promotion of our pupils’ personal development at The Grove Primary school is at the heart of everything that we do. It is a fundamental aspect of their education and underpins all other learning.
Our monitoring of PSHE is an ongoing process.
RSHE
From September 2020 it is compulsory for schools to teach the Relationships and Health Education aspects of PSHE.
The new statutory requirements do not extend to sex education (beyond the biological/reproductive aspects that are required in our Science curriculum,) however the Department for Education strongly encourages primary schools to deliver age-appropriate sex education.
As part of Relationships, Sex and Health Education at our school, children will learn about the emotional, social and physical aspects of growing up, including the changes that take place at puberty. It will provide our children with the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, with particular reference to, friendships, family relationships, and relationships with other peers and adults. Children also learn how to keep themselves safe and to ask for help when they need it.
RSHE will be taught as part of our PSHE programme using the SCARF programme of work. It is taught throughout the school in every year group and is monitored and reviewed regularly by the staff and Governing Body.
All teaching in PSHE will take place in a safe learning environment and be underpinned by our school ethos and values. Lessons will be age-appropriate and a variety of opportunities will be provided for pupils to ask questions to further their understanding and to find out more about what affects them personally.
Biological aspects of RSHE are taught within the Science curriculum.
RSHE will also be covered in Computing lessons –this will include teaching pupils how to be safe online, and about cyberbullying.
For more information, see the resources below and read our RSHE policy.
Combined PSHE and RSE Policy 2022
Whole school LTP PSHE 2023 24
SCARF Information for parents RSE
RSHE Guide for parents
Have a look at some of our PSHE work so far:
In classes we have engaged in PSHE lessons in a range of different ways such as taking part in role-play activities and ‘freeze frame’ scenarios, listening and discussing stories, completing collaboration challenges, working as part of a team and learning to compromise when we do so and writing activities, to name just a few.
So far this year, we have:
-discussed how to be kind to one another and wrote messages of kindness on handprints,
-talked about similarities and differences, in our school and further afield, discussing tolerance and acceptance of others.
-discussed friendships and how to treat others. Looked at behaviours that make a good friend or behaviours that may mean we find it difficult to make friends, such as aggression, as well as discussing what we could do in that situation.
-named and identified different emotions that we may feel and what we could do or who we could talk to when we experience these.
This list covers some of our main areas of learning but is not exhaustive.
Our PSHE curriculum has also been complemented through visits from the local fire brigade, school trips and awareness raising days, such as Children in Need, Anti-Bullying week and World Mental Health Day.
Our theme as part of World Mental Health Day was ‘kindness is power’ and making the world a better place for everyone. Each class wrote a kindness letter to someone in school to tell them how they have made them feel by showing kindness. During a kindness assembly our head boy and girl read the letters out to some very surprised recipients. It was lovely to hear of all the kindness that is shared in our school community.
Children in Need- as part of our fund raising and awareness day, children brought in small amounts of change to cover a large Pudsey Bear face. Classes learnt about the work the charity do to support children and their families and how our fund raising would help.
Rights Respecting School
We are a Bronze- Rights committed school.
This means in our school the headteacher, school leaders and all school staff are committed to becoming a right-respecting school. Children and young people work with adults to decide how to develop a whole-school rights-respecting approach.
Where are we now?
We are now working towards the next level which is Silver: Rights Aware.
In order to achieve Silver, we will need to:
- explicitly embedding the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in our policy, practice and culture
- promote knowledge and understanding of the Convention throughout our school community
- put into action and develop the plans outlined on our Action Plan for Silver
- begin to see the positive impact of these actions on children and young people, staff, and on the school’s ethos, practice and environment
- Show that children and young people are beginning to see themselves as rights respecting global citizens and advocates for fairness and children’s rights, both locally and globally.
We will now set up a Rights Respecting steering group who will meet regularly to help to monitor the progress made towards becoming a Rights Respecting School and suggest ways to improve our school further. They will help to raise awareness of Rights Respecting with in the school.
Behind the scenes staff will be making sure that school policies reflect the Articles of the UNCRC demonstrating the whole school commitment to embedding them within the school ethos.
What does Rights Respecting mean for our school?
Becoming a rights respecting school means that we aim to be a school where children’s rights are at the heart of our ethos and culture, to improve well-being and to develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential.
Put simply this means that we believe that “All children have the right to a good quality education (Article 28) and that this education should develop their talents and abilities and enable all children to reach their full potential (Article 29).”
The Grove Primary School pupils will learn about their rights by putting them into practice every day. A Rights Respecting School models rights, respect in all its relationships and we will promote these Rights in all that we do.
We really hope that you will be able to support us on our journey towards becoming a Unicef UK Rights Respecting Silver Rights aware school.
If you would like to find out more about the Convention on the Rights of the Child you can visit unicef.org.uk/crc.
Theme Days
At the Grove Primary school our children are given a wide range of opportunities to further enhance and promote their PSHE development. This often takes the form of themed days and opportunities to learn about other cultures, charities and children’s rights.
PSHE Parent resources and Mental health
Ollee_Support_Pack_Flyer
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Our_Healthy_Year_Calendar_KS2
Calming-Techniques-for parents
Using play to support your child_
Book to support mental health
Movement/Brain Break Resources
At home movement breaks sensory
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sensory-brain-break-activity-cards
time-for-a-brain-break-