Intent
Our PSHE education, including statutory Relationships and Health education, and non-statutory sex education, [1] as recommended by the DfE, provides a framework though which key skills, attributes and knowledge can be developed and applied. This promotes positive behaviour, good mental health and wellbeing, resilience and achievement, helping children to stay safe online, develop healthy and safe relationships, making sense of media messages, challenging extreme views and having the skills and attributes to negotiate and assert themselves now and in the future.
The school’s PSHE provision supports the school’s aims of developing confident citizens and successful learners who are creative, resourceful and able to identify and solve problems. The social and emotional development of pupils is embedded throughout the entire school’s curriculum and culture. The school has a powerful combination of a planned thematic PSHE program, built around a spiral curriculum of recurring themes, designed to:
We know there is a proven link between pupils' health and wellbeing, and their academic progress. Crucial skills and positive attitudes developed through comprehensive Personal, Social, Health and Economic education are critical to ensuring children are effective learners.
Implementation
At Shakespeare Primary School we use SCARF, a comprehensive scheme of work for PSHE and Wellbeing education. 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 local circumstances of our school, for example, we may use our local environment as the starting point for aspects of our work. The school council are also consulted as part of our planning, to ensure pupil voice in considered and fed into the planned programme.
Our PSHE subject lead, Sarah Treece-Birch, works in conjunction with teaching staff in each year group and the phase leads (EYFS, KS1 and KS2) and is responsible for ensuring that all staff are equipped with the knowledge, skills and resources to deliver PSHE education confidently. Teachers can access a range of teaching support resources within SCARF, including guidance documents and teacher training films. Any teacher wanting further support should contact the PSHE subject lead in the first instance to discuss their training needs.
We are aware of the dynamic nature of Online Safety throughout school life. Children’s knowledge of Online Safety will be regularly assessed using the Project Evolve online safety tool. This will allow us to respond pro-actively to children’s Online Safety knowledge gaps in each year and teach lessons designed to fill them. Online Safety forms an essential aspect, not just of PSHE, but of life in general. Online Safety will be discussed in every lesson involving children’s use of the internet and Online Safety knowledge will be developed throughout the Computing and PSHE curriculum. Our PSHE curriculum (SCARF) contains many Online Safety lessons and an overview of the progression of Online Safety outcomes taught in these lessons throughout school can be accessed below.
The Early Years Foundation Stage
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE education is about making connections; it’s strongly linked to child-led activities, including play. PSHE is taught through activities that are part of topics, as well as on an individual basis to develop personal skills such as dressing, feeding and toileting. Positive experiences are built through daily opportunities, to share and enjoy a range of different activities. Children are given the opportunity to engage in social activities, as members of a small group or occasionally during whole-school activities.
Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
The SCARF programme divides the year into 6 themed units:
Children are encouraged to engage in activities that promote an understanding of themselves as growing and changing individuals, and as members of a wider community, based on their own first hand experiences. These activities also encourage pupils to understand how their choices and behaviours can affect others. They are encouraged to play and learn alongside – then collaboratively with – their peers. They may use their personal and social skills to develop or extend these activities. Children are also given the opportunity to make choices about their health and environment and are encouraged to develop a caring attitude towards others.
PSHE lessons are taught by their class teacher once a week in their timetabled PSHE lesson, throughout the whole year in their usual classes, in mixed sex groupings, using a range of interactive teaching methods, e.g. films, songs, stories online games, and drama techniques.
To ensure that children feel comfortable to learn about a range of topics, we create a safe learning environment using a group agreement at the beginning of lessons or topics. The teachers will also use a range of skills, including distancing techniques and the anonymous question box. Teachers will answer children’s questions factually and honestly in an age appropriate way and respond to any disclosures following the schools safeguarding procedures/child protection policy.
Support is provided to children experiencing difficulties on a one-to-one basis, via our Family Support Lead, Lucy McGough. Relevant leaflets, websites and posters can be found on display referring pupils to sources of help and advice, alongside suitable books which can be found in the library.
Impact
Class teachers follow the suggested six half termly units provided by SCARF for each year. 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; class teachers 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 the 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. Assessment is completed by the class teacher using the SCARF Summative Assessment ‘I can…’ statements, alongside the lesson plan learning outcomes to demonstrate progression of both skills and knowledge.
Cross curricular PSHE:
E.g. Science: Sex Education, Drugs Education, healthy eating.
Geography: Diversity of cultures and communities.
History: How societies have changed and developed over time.
R.E: Cultural beliefs of different communities.
Music: From different cultures; its use as expression of self.
Art: As above.
P.E: Bodily development, personal expression, and keeping healthy
through regular exercise.
Literacy: Coverage of a variety of subjects within texts explored.
Computing: Online safety (see outcomes document above).