Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education

PSHE enables our children to become healthy, independent, and responsible members of society. It aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social, and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society.

Our children are encouraged to become critical thinkers and develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.

PSHE is integral to the development of children’s values for them to become a positive citizen in a forever changing community. The curriculum complies with the statutory guidance for Relationships and Sex Education. The delivered curriculum reflects the needs of our pupils and is tailored to meet specific needs. We use the PSHE programme to equip pupils with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions.

We strongly believe that PSHE plays a vital part in our students’ education – for this reason it is taught once a week to all pupils across KS3 – KS5. There also may be occasions where staff may feel it necessary to digress from the planned curriculum to teach something as a result of an issue which has arisen in school or in the wider local area.

The curriculum is split into three core themes of: Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World. The children will meet these themes throughout the course of the year and the themes are built upon as the children move through school. Through KS3 – KS5 pupils record their work in their own exercise books or on a word processor depending on whatever is their normal way of working.

Through the programme of study, the children should have a good balance of these overarching concepts:

• Identity

• Relationships

• A healthy, balanced lifestyle

• Identification of risk and safety

• Diversity and equality

• Rights, responsibilities, and consent

• Change and resilience

• Power

• Career

We aim to prepare children for life, helping them to really know and value who they are and understand how they relate to other people in this ever-changing world. We hope that through the teaching of the different threads in the PSHE and RSE curriculum, children will learn strategies to help them stay safe and healthy and be able to manage their personal and social lives in a positive way. Key areas are revisited so children can gain a good understanding of how to be healthy, how to create respectful relationships and how to look after their mental wellbeing.