More than I Am

Medlar with WeshamChurch of England Primary School

Mission Statement

We are a happy, caring,Christian family, aiming to provide outstanding education in a safe place where everyone is valued for being special.

Personal Social Health Economic EducationPolicy (PSHE)

Our school's overarching aims and objectives for our pupils are to provide outstanding PSHE education in a safe place where everyone is valued for being special.This policy outlines a co-ordinated approach to ensure that our delivery of PSHE provides opportunities for all pupils to learn and achieve.

Our PSHE curriculumwill ultimately enable pupils to acquire learning that will allow them to make their own choices through the development of good sense or practical wisdom, whilst also embedding the Christian values which we promote. Whilst promoting these values we will ensure that our pupils are offered a balanced curriculum offering a range of viewpoints, which reflects the diverse world we live in today. We will provide equal opportunities for all pupils in relation to gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, religion and cultural belief.

Our school aims to:

• promote a positive sense of the self;

• promote good relationships with others;

• promote good attitudes towards others and an understanding of differences between people and their viewpoints;

• provide opportunities to share and explore life experiences/emotions/difficulties in groupings beyond the family;

• equip pupils with knowledge about the world in which we live;

• equip pupils with the skills and attitudes to engage successfully in the task of learning;

• provide pupils with ‘Character Education’ by developing ‘good sense’ or ‘practical wisdom’ in our children;

• promote a healthy and safe lifestyle;

• provide opportunities, responsibilities and experiences that will prepare pupils for the adult world;

promote being a responsible British citizen and British values.

Intended outcomes:

Our PSHE curriculum will enable our children to:

• acquire knowledge and understanding of themselves, others and the world they live in so that they may grasp what is ethically important in situations in order to make wise choices;

• develop skills for living in the modern world;

• understand and manage their emotions;

• become morally and socially responsible;

• take on a range of roles and relationships;

• value themselves and respect others;

• contribute to their community;

• appreciate difference and diversity;

• participate actively in our democracy;

• safeguard the environment;

• act in the wider world in a way that makes the most of their own and others’ human potential.

Creating a Safe and supportive Learning Environment:

We will create a safe and supportive learning environment by establishing clear ground rules. Class ground rules are established during PSHE activities to ensure children feel safe & are willing to explore sensitive issues. Class Teachers and Teaching Assistants will conduct PSHE lessons in a sensitive manner and in confidence. We will ensure that where pupils indicate that they may be vulnerable and at risk, they will get appropriate support by informing the School Development Plan (SDP) in school and follow the school's policy for safeguarding and confidentiality.

Special Educational Needs (SEN), Inclusion, equality and diversity:

Our PSHE curriculum positively supports the school’s policy for inclusion. Our PSHE curriculumprovides opportunities for all pupils to excel. We promote the needs and interests of all pupils, irrespective of gender, culture, ability or aptitude by ensuring PSHE education is accessible to every pupil. Although parents still have the right to withdraw their children from the non – statutory elements of sex education (those parts not within the national curriculum science programmes of study)

Teaching will take into account the ability, age, readiness and cultural backgrounds of our young people and those with EAL to ensure they can fully access PSHE education provision. PSHE education promotes social learning and expects our pupils to show a high regard for the needs of others.Under the Equalities Act 2010 our Governing body has a responsibility to ensure that our school strives to do the best for all pupils irrespective of disability, educational needs, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, pregnancy, maternity, sex, gender identity, religion or sexual orientation or whether they are looked after children. We will ensure we are sensitive to the different needs of individual pupils and may need to adapt over time as the pupil population changes.

We will ensure that pupils with special educational needs receive access to the PSHE education through differentiated lesson planning and activities tailored to their needs.

British Values:

In our school British values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways through our PSHE education:

Democracy:- embedded within the school. Pupils have the opportunity to have their voice heard through our School Council and Pupil questionnaires, Worship and PSHE reflection time. The children elect class representatives for the School council. Children are taught through PSHE lessons how a democratic society works.

The Rule of Law:-The importance of laws, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced throughout regular school days, as well as when dealing with behaviour and through school worship. Pupils are taught in PSHE sessions the value and reasons behind laws, that they govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken. Visits from authorities such as the Police; Fire Service; etc. are regular parts of our calendar and help reinforce this message.

Individual Liberty: -Within school, pupils are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school we educate and provide boundaries for young pupils to make choices safety, through of provision of a safe environment and empowering education.Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and how to exercise these safely, for example through our E-Safety and PSHE lessons.

Mutual Respect: -Our school ethos and behaviour revolves around ‘Christian Values’ with ‘Respect’ being an important one that is regularly taught to the whole school. Pupils are regularly part of discussions and assemblies relating to what respect means and how it can be shown. The school promotes respect for others and this is reiterated through our classroom and learning rules, as well as our behaviour policy.

Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs: This is achieved through enhancing pupils understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society and by giving them opportunities to experience such diversity. Assemblies and discussions involving prejudices and prejudice-based bullying have been followed and supported by learning in RE and PSHE. Members of different faiths or religions are encouraged to share their knowledge to enhance learning within classes and the school.

Timetabling PSHE education:

PSHE is most effectively taught through a 'spiral programme'. This involves us organising our learning into a series of recurring themes each lasting half a term, which pupils experience every year. This enables our pupils to expand key concepts and the key transferable skills are rehearsed and developed by our pupils.

Our PSHE curriculum will be taught through:

  • SEAL materials (Social, Emotional, Aspects of Learning)
  • LIVE WELL LEARN WELL (Lancashire)

Guidance for schools for planning their PSHE curriculum in school
  • whole school events
  • whole school and class Worships
  • assemblies
  • via creativity topics in other subjects/curriculum areas
  • circle time
  • Philosophy for Children

The use of visitors in the classroom:

Our annual 'Health Week' enriches our planned PSHE education programme and raises the profile of PSHE in our school each year to our school community. External speakers such as school nurses and outside agencies also provide an opportunity during this week to supplement the children's learning. During Health Week and at other times during the school year external contributors' input is part of our planned programme of PSHE and teachers and/or the PSHE Leader will manage this learning ensuring the learning objectives and outcomes have been agreed in advance.

Key Principles and Teaching Methodology

Our PSHE education needs to ‘start from where pupils are’. It is likely that pupils will bring prior understanding, almost understanding, misunderstanding, or gaps in understanding to any issue explored through PSHE education. Often this prior learning is more complex than we might assume. Where possible, any new topic in PSHE education should start by enabling pupils to share this prior knowledge with us.

Pupils frequently overestimate how often their peers take part in risky behaviours and feel that they are the ‘odd ones out’. It is important that they are reassured that, in reality, the majority of young people make positive, healthy lifestyle choices.

It is important that pupils are helped to make connections between the learning they receive in PSHE education and their current and future ‘real life’ experiences. The skill of critical reflection is therefore at the heart of assessment for learning in PSHE education.

(See Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education: From Theory to Practice, PSHE Association, 2009, for more information)

Best Practice should include:

  • consult with pupils to determine need
  • agenda for the term planned in line with pupil needs and the curriculum framework for PSHE Education
  • agenda for the term on view in the classroom and explained to pupils
  • use of ‘Circle Time’
  • purpose of the sessions written up, displayed and explained to the pupils
  • ground rules for working better together designed by the pupils, displayed and referred to at the beginning of each lesson
  • evidence of paired, group and whole class activity, pupils feeding back to whole class
  • pupils actively involved in their learning
  • time given at the end of the session for reflective learning
  • lesson drawn to a conclusion
  • teacher and pupil uses the learning elsewhere.

What topics will be covered and when?

In the 2014 curriculum document it clearly states that:

All schools should make provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), drawing on good practice.

Our Whole School PSHE Themes:

Term / SEAL Theme / PSHE Topic
1 / New Beginnings / Safety
2 / Getting on and Falling Out / Anti Bullying
3 / Going for Goals / Healthy Lifestyles
4 / Good to be Me / Economic well-being and being a responsible citizen in Britain.
5 / Relationships / Drug and Tobacco Education.
6 / Changes / Sex and Relationships Education.

Science Links from the 2014 National Curriculum:

Science Key Learning: / PSHE key Learning
Year 1
  • identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body
/ R and Y1
  • doctors words

Year 2
  • notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults
  • find out about and describe the basic needs of animals, including humans, for survival
  • describe the importance for humans of exercise, eating the right amounts of different types of food, and hygiene
/ Y2
  • how we have been growing since being born
  • how parents look after babies
  • eating and taking exercise, washing hands after using the toilet

Year 3
  • identify that animals including humans need the right types and amounts of nutrition and that they cannot make their own food; they get nutrition from what they eat.
  • Identify that humans and some other animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement
/ Y3
  • providing food for babies
  • what makes a healthy plate
  • taking exercise
  • body shape and size – being different

Year 4
  • recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things
  • identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions
/ Y4
  • physical dangers in the environment, being a risk taker, calculating risk, drug awareness
  • cleaning teeth, dental hygiene, going to the dentist

Year 5
  • describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal
  • describe the life processes of reproduction in some animals
  • describe the changes as humans develop to old age
/ Y5
  • human life cycle
  • puberty

Year 6
  • recognise the impact of diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle on the way their bodies function
recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents / Y6
  • drug misuse, body size and shape, healthy eating, body image
  • reproduction, being a parent

Assessment, Recording and Reporting

Assessment, recording and reporting will be in line with the school policies.All teachers, teaching assistants, midday staff and administrative staff are responsible for informing the teachers about notable points of personal and social development in individual pupils. It is the responsibility of individualteachers and the SEN Leader to identify pupils’ progress which is well above or below that which is expected.

The model of assessment we advocate is that for each new topic, module, or series of lessons, an initial activity is carried out that gauges pupils’ starting point in terms of their existing knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. This is used to inform the teacher’s planning for that module. Then, at the end of the topic, module, or lesson an activity is carried out which allows pupils to demonstrate the progress they’ve made since doing the baseline activity. For example, pupils do a ‘mind-map’ of everything they know, think or believe and questions they have about the new topic, then at the end of the module they take a different coloured pen and revisit their original mind-map, adding to it, correcting previous misconceptions, answering their original questions and so on. This will demonstrate the progress they have made and can also be used to measure attainment against a set of success criteria identified by the teacher.

There are various methods of assessment that can be used. If teachers ‘assess what they value’ rather than ‘value what they assess’ then the process will be much more effective in terms of improving teaching and learning.

It should be recognised that sensitive teachers understand that areas like self confidence and self esteem are not linear and are often influenced on a day to day basis by our life experiences. Judgements about self worth should be made by the individual and therefore self assessment is to be encouraged.

Opportunities for gathering evidence of personal and social development can come through:-

  • self assessment – the keeping of a diary, checklists or portfolio, pupils writing an end of term report on their own progress
  • peers – observations of working in a group or role play
  • whole group –feedback in reflection time at the end of lessons or a word wall of comments
  • teacher – written records, observations of activities such as role play, tests on knowledge and understanding
  • teacher and pupil – shared discussion about future targets and learning needs and setting personal goals for the future.

As with any other subject, assessment in PSHE education should focus on the learning. PSHE education alone is not, and cannot be, responsible for pupil’s future lifestyle choices. It is also important to make sure we are assessing learning which is specific to PSHE education and not other areas of the curriculum, such as literacy.

It is important to recognise that assessment in PSHE education is not about ‘passing or failing’, or about behavioural outcomes. Teachers and pupils both need to know that what has been taught, has been learned, and that learning is progressing.

Class teachers will collect evidence each academic year for their class in a ‘Class PSHE Diary’ .

How will we involve and consult pupils?

Consultation and involvement of pupils in PSHE is crucial if teaching is to meet their needs and address the issues they are facing. Without such engagement, teachers are left to 'guess' what is needed. Involvement of pupils also means that teachers can learn what pupils think of what is currently being taught.

Consultation and involvement of pupils will of course be different depending on their age and level or maturity. At Key Stage 1 and 2, it will be important to explore with children the prior learning they bring to the classroom; with older pupils, it will be possible for them to be fully engaged in a needs assessment and evaluating current provision.