Our PSHE Curriculum
What is PSHE?
PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) is about teaching children to form effective relationships, stay safe and healthy and prepare them for life’s challenges and opportunities in modern Britain.
At our school, PSHE encompasses PSED, SMSC, RSHE and Fundamental British Values. It is taught every week in school, but goes much deeper than this. It is a key aspect of life at our school and is deeply rooted in our vision, values, ethos and daily practice.
Who leads PSHE at Scarcliffe and what is their vision?
PSHE is led by Sarah Bannister - who is also the teacher in Class 2 - and Stef Mathison - who is a higher level teaching assistant. For further information about the PSHE curriculum, or for other support, Miss Bannister can be contacted via email. sbannister2@scarcliffe.derbyshire.sch.uk
The subject leaders' vision for PSHE is to help children and young people to achieve their potential by supporting their well-being and tackling issues that can affect their ability to learn, such as anxiety and unhealthy relationships. All stakeholders agree that primary school is about teaching children to be kind, caring and thoughtful to others. PSHE helps children to be the best versions of themselves possible. It can teach resilience and develop self-esteem which are crucial life skills in our modern world. When taught properly it helps them to achieve their full potential across the curriculum. Ultimately, if we teach PSHE effectively, we believe the children will be equipped with the necessary skills to be successful when they leave our school.
PSHE Curriculum Intent and Progression
We use PSHE Matters (a locally produced PSHE curriculum) to plan our PSHE sessions. PSHE matters highlights the key knowledge children should have at key points of their education. The progression document below highlights what we teach - and expect children to understand - throughout school.
How PSHE is implemented at Scarcliffe (including use of schemes)
As mentioned above, we follow the Derbyshire PSHE Matters scheme of work. Long term overviews are in place and there is a whole school theme that is delivered across school at the same time which is well thought out to cover all the objectives in the National Curriculum over a two-year cycle. These themes last for a term.
Every class has a stand alone lesson each week. Outside of dedicated PSHE lessons, staff embed and revisit PSHE learning through activities in other areas of the curriculum. Examples of this include learning about equality during the topic about Africa and learning to share and listen to others during group or paired work. Whole class stories are also a great way for staff to have discussions which can further develop children's sense of what is right. Some PSHE is also delivered through outside agencies such as NSPCC, P4YP and the Changing Lives team.
Reminders about what PSHE is are shared with the children regularly and discussions are held about why the subject is important. When planning a unit, staff look at the scheme of work and select the activities based on the needs of the class (considering their starting points) and current local and national issues. Consideration is given to the protected characteristics when illustrating examples – such as selecting people with disabilities. Baseline and summative tasks are used to capture progress when staff deem them to be useful for the unit.
Children's learning can be shown through their PSHE books, groups discussions, Bubble Time, assemblies and day to day activities.
We further develop PSHE by giving children a range of roles and responsibilities in school. This includes having monitors in classes for specific roles, having an active school council, play leaders, anti-bullying ambassadors, librarians and iVengers.
Our Curriculum Overview for PSHE
Links to our core abilities
We have identified seven core abilities that we hope to develop through our curriculum offer.
- Questioning and curiosity
- Critical thinking and open-mindedness
- Perseverance and resilience
- Communication
- Independence
- Team work
- Creativity
We can develop all of these core abilities through effective PSHE teaching but we have a particualar focus on questioning and curiosity, critical thinking and open-mindedness, independence and team work.
Knowledge Organisers and Learning Journeys
In PSHE, we currently have a Knowledge Organiser where children record what they have learnt about the topics at the end of each term. This is added to and recapped throughout the year.
We do not create learning journeys for PSHE lessons. Instead, we use the PSHE Matters scheme to plan the most effective lessons for the school.
Monitoring the impact of teaching in PSHE
We understand the importance of teaching high quality PSHE lessons to all children and leaders monitor the impact of teaching in a variety of ways.
Importantly, the subject leader spends time in classes - seeing what the children are learning, talking to pupils about their understanding and views about PSHE and talking to staff about the learning sequence they are following in PSHE. The subject leader likes to carry out book looks alongside pupils to gather information about their learning. PSHE is unique in that it can be monitored each day by seeing how the children interact with each other and how they conduct themselves around school. Leaders are active in identifying any particular issues - such as messy cloakrooms - and addressing this so children are quickly reminded about the importance of respecting the property of others.
Key findings about the impact of the PSHE curriculum are shared and discussed with staff - the information is based on the strengths identified as well as any areas for development.
Assessment Data
Staff assess children against the curriculum intent statements each year. Information is centered around determining which children are not yet at the expected standard and who are very secure within the expected standard. This provides us with information to inform our future teaching.
Useful Weblinks
Here are some great websites to support learning in PSHE:
nspcc - great for safeguarding information.
sja - St. John's Ambulance- information about basic First Aid.
Compass - Changing Lives Team.
think.gov - Information for Road Safety.
hectors-world - Information about Bullying.
natwest- Information regarding money.
childline - Safeguarding information.
bbc.co.uk/bitesize - General PSHE information.
For safeguarding links, please see the homepage.
PSHE at home
While we don't specifically set homework, children's development in PSHE is best when it is in partnership between home and school. Through school newsletters, we make parents and carers aware of the topic titles for PSHE. This enables parents and carers to have conversations with their children about their learning. Ultimately, PSHE is about teaching children to have the skills and knowledge to thrive in the real world and the more that can be done at home to support their development in this area, the more chance they have to succeed in life.
Examples of pupil work
Trips and visitors to school
Trips out of school and having visitors in to school provides a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to showcase their skills in relation to PSHE. Whenever we leave the school site, we set clear expectations about behaviour.
We are extremely proud of how respectful our pupils are and we very proud of how they conduct themselves.
