Our aim in PSHE is to grow well-rounded, informed pupils who become active citizens. We want our children to play a part in their communities and in society, to be equipped with the knowledge that will enable them to succeed in school and in life, to promote their wellbeing and for them to be healthy and safe. Above all, we want them to be kind, respectful and to be able to make the most of all of the opportunities that life has to offer.
Children from YN to Y6 are taught a robust, discrete Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum. Children receive the equivalent of a lesson a week in PSHE. In addition to regular PSHE lessons in EYFS, Learning and development opportunities for these areas, as well as Communication and Language, are also interwoven within the pupils’ experience through play-based activities, role-play areas, quality children’s fiction and reflective discussion to begin to build pupils’ knowledge and understanding, skills, attitudes and attributes related to PSHE elements of education.
We follow the You, Me and PSHE scheme of work that is taught in many Leeds schools. It provides us with a clear and progressive PSHE curriculum across Key Stage One and Key Stage Two.
Our PSHE curriculum is split into 7 strands: Relationships and Sex Education (RSE); Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco; Keeping Safe and Managing Risk; Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing; Physical Health and Wellbeing; Careers, Financial Capability & Economic Wellbeing; and Identity, Society and Equality. Within each strand, there are age-appropriate topics for each year group and two topics are taught per term.
We supplement our core PSHE curriculum with a number of other resources:
PolEd: The Pol Ed (Police Education) framework supports us to deliver discrete teaching of the Modern British Values (MBV), to react to local and regional patterns relating to the risks facing young people and to supplement our relationships education with specific lessons focusing on consent.
Specialised resources: Resources from specialist providers, such as St John’s Ambulance and The Canal and River Trust, allow us to provide specialist teaching in First Aid and to respond to the needs of our community, such as water safety.
Thrive: The Thrive Approach is a dynamic, developmental and trauma-sensitive approach to meeting the emotional and social needs of children. It is through this that we aim to achieve our vision of a world in which children's social and emotional needs are better understood and met. The main principles of the THRIVE Framework are a common language to support a shared understanding among all those involved. needs-led plans, not based on diagnosis or severity. shared decision-making with children, young people, their families and carers at the core.
Relationships Education is taught in each year group and is revisited in our assembly rota at strategic points throughout the year. Relationships and Sex Education is taught in Y2, Y4 and Y6. Our RSE programme helps pupils to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes they need to live confident, healthy, independent lives now and in the future. Throughout the unit, children learn about the biological differences between males and females (Y2), the changes associated with puberty (Y4, Y6) and human reproduction (Y6). Our parent consultation details the content covered and explains to parents from which lessons they have the choice to remove their child.
Links to PSHE are often covered in assemblies and through discussions around our school values and British Values. We teach British Values discretely in PSHE lessons and in assemblies, and throughout the curriculum, for example, when exploring the development of democracy in a History topic about the Ancient Greeks or discussing tolerance and religious diversity in RE.
Allerton Bywater prides itself on meeting the needs of each individual. If a teacher identifies that a child may need more emotional wellbeing input than their whole class teaching allows, they will discuss it with the PSHE Lead, Learning Mentor or SENDCO. The child may then receive a variety of interventions to help them thrive.
Assessment in PSHE comes in a variety of forms: in-lesson, formative assessment; thrive profiling; the ‘my health, my school’ annual survey; and pupil voice collected at different points throughout the year.
For more information on PSHE and RSE, please speak to Mrs Bagnall.
