PSHE

Wootton Community Primary School

Personal Development Learning: PSHE and RSE

 

Intent 

At Wootton Community Primary School, we believe that teaching personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and relationships and sex education (RSE) is integral to providing a broad and balanced curriculum. PSHE is woven throughout our school week and enables our children to become independent, responsible, healthy and confident members of society, as well as developing the whole child intellectually, morally, socially and spiritually.

Our PSHE programme of study – SCARF (Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship) is fully in line with the learning outcomes and core themes of the PSHE Association scheme of work and fulfils the requirements of the 2020 Statutory Relationship and Health Education which enables all pupils to build good, safe and healthy relationships now and in their future lives.

Our school values of Respect, Empowerment, Aspiration and Perseverance (REAP) are consolidated and reflected by our PSHE scheme content, assemblies, themed weeks, ‘Big Think’ sessions, and classroom circle times and discussions.  

Through the teaching of PSHE and RSE at Wootton Community Primary School, we aim to:

  • Ensure all children become independent, responsible, healthy and confident members of society
  • Provide children with a solid understanding of online risks and ways to reduce their impact
  • Enable children to form healthy and positive relationships with others and themselves
  • Develop children’s moral, social and spiritual growth as well as their intellectual and academic skills
  • Inform children about themselves, their families and their communities
  • Form a foundation of understanding around concepts such as value, respect, wellbeing and safety
  • Encourage our children to embrace diversity

 

Implementation
 

At Wootton Community Primary School, we have a clear and comprehensive PSHE programme of study through our Coram SCARF PSHE scheme. This is a high quality and inspiring curriculum, which enables pupils to develop essential life skills.  We teach this programme in thematic units, with a spiral approach, ensuring themes are revisited so pupils can build upon previous learning. This means children are exploring the underlying principles of PSHE education regularly at a depth that is appropriate for the age and stage of their education.  All lessons work towards building a rich bank of vocabulary to enable children to express themselves when discussing rights and responsibilities, relationships, safety, and more.

We aim to deliver our PSHE curriculum in a creative way by using strategies such as role-play, discussion, debate and partner/group work. These strategies enable pupils to build upon our school values and our desired learning behaviours such as confidence, perseverance, curiosity, and respect. Younger children learn, for example, about turn-taking when speaking and the importance of listening to the ideas of others. Older children learn to respect the differing views others may have and respond appropriately to their thoughts, shared experiences and personal morality.

PSHE is an important part of our school assemblies, where pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural curiosity is stimulated, challenged and nurtured. Our assemblies cover important themes through the year such as Black History Month, Safer Internet Week and religious festivals such as Holi and Ramadan.

 

At present, pupil work during PSHE/RSE sessions is recorded in a mixture of individual exercise books and class floor books, as we transition towards floor book use across the school. Floor books are an efficient way of recording what has been discussed and debated by the class, with opportunities to include photos, group work, post-its and other contributions from the children.

 

Assessment for learning opportunities are built into each unit, which enables self-evaluation and reflective learning, allowing teachers to evaluate and assess progress.

 

RSE sessions are included in our SCARF programme and includes statutory content around the way humans grow and change and the correct terminology for body parts. Normalising biological vocabulary is important, supports safeguarding, and higher up the school it prepares children for secondary school biology content. These words are not used in isolation, but always in appropriate context – which ensures children know how to name their body parts accurately, but also understand these are private parts of their bodies. We believe that age-appropriate knowledge empowers and protects children, as well as preparing them for secondary education.

 

In addition to our weekly PSHE sessions, Key Stage Two pupils go each Friday to mixed-age groups where they take part in a ‘Big Think’ question of the week (which is also shared in our newsletter so that parents and carers can continue the discussion at home). Big Think questions include philosophical enquiries that allow young people to consider different sides of an issue and come to their own conclusion. Teachers may use video clips, songs, creative activities and discussion to facilitate this, and each week one group is chosen to share their thoughts with the rest of the school during an assembly – supporting speaking and listening skills. That group’s work is then displayed for the week to come. Enquiries include issues surrounding many different areas, including different aspects of the wider curriculum (such as French and art) that tie into children’s learning.

 

Impact 

The expected impact of our teaching of PSHE and RSE at Wootton Community Primary School is that by the time they leave, children will:

 

  • develop the vocabulary, confidence and resilience to clearly articulate their thoughts and feelings within an environment that encourage openness, trust and respect
  • know when and how they can seek the support of others
  • apply their understanding of society to their everyday interactions, from the classroom and the school to the wider community
  • appreciate the diverse needs and experiences of other people
  • evaluate their own wellbeing needs, practice self-care and contribute positively to the wellbeing of those around them

In our school, we use SCARF as a tool to promote wellbeing, safeguarding and SMSC outcomes. We believe that through the effective delivery of the SCARF curriculum we enable pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to succeed at school and in the wider world.