PSHE and Citizernship (RSE with Health)

Intent

At St Robert Southwell, PSHE consists of a comprehensive and spiral developmental programme of teaching and learning, which is delivered in the context of a Healthy School, where the health and wellbeing of pupils and of the whole school community are actively promoted. Our PSHE programme has a positive influence on the ethos, learning and relationships throughout the school. It is central to our values and to achieving our school’s stated aims and objectives, and embraces and fulfils the new statutory curriculum, Relationship Health Education (RHE), from September 2020.

Following consultation with parents our Relationship and Sex Education with Health (RSE) policy has been created to include one teaching session that discusses sexual intimacy. This lesson upholds and supports the teaching of the Catholic Church on sex and marriage, while also discussing other types of relationships. Parents are given notice of the teaching of this lesson and have the option to remove their child from the lesson.

The entire teaching of PSHE is underpinned with a religious understanding that our deepest identity is as a child of God – created, chosen and loved by God.  The programme is fully inclusive of pupils and their families.

At St Robert Southwell, our PSHE programme helps pupils to develop the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes they need to live confident, healthy, independent lives now and in the future, as individuals, parents/carers, workers and members of society. It is embedded within the wider learning offered by the school to ensure that pupils experience positive relationships with adults and with each other and feel valued, and that those who are most vulnerable are identified and supported. Pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum, contributing fully to the life of our school and community.

St Robert Southwell’s overarching aim for PSHE education is to provide pupils with:

  • accurate and relevant knowledge
  • opportunities to turn that knowledge into personal understanding
  • opportunities to explore, clarify, and if necessary, challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities
  • the skills, language and strategies they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced lives

Within this, St Robert Southwell aims to develop pupils’ understanding of:

  • identity, including personal qualities, attitudes, skills, attributes and achievements and what influences these
  • relationships, including different types and in different settings, a healthy lifestyle, including physically, emotionally and socially
  • a balanced lifestyle, including within relationships, work-life, exercise and rest, spending and saving and diet
  • risk, including identification, assessment and how to manage risk rather than simply the avoidance of risk for self and others
  • safety, including behaviour and strategies to employ in different settings
  • diversity and equality, in all its forms
  • rights, including the notion of universal human rights, responsibilities, including fairness and justice and consent in different contexts
  • change and resilience, the skills, strategies and ‘inner resources’ we can draw on when faced with challenging change or circumstance
  • power in a variety of contexts including persuasion, bullying, negotiation and ‘win-win’ outcomes
  • career, including enterprise, employability and economic understanding

Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in PSHE, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the school. A comprehensive, whole-school planning approach ensures that full coverage of ‘The National Curriculum programmes of study for PSHE’ and ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage is given.

Wherever possible, PSHE is linked to class topics. At the start of each topic, teachers take time to find out what our children already understand and want to find out. Our teachers use this to adapt and extend the curriculum to match children’s interests and needs, referencing current events and developments where appropriate. We include the use of technology, wherever possible, to aid teaching and learning. Through teacher modelling and planned questioning, we want our children to wonder about, be fascinated by and involved in the world around them.

At St Robert Southwell we follow the scheme of work created by TenTen (www.tentenresources.co.uk). The programme ‘Life to the Full’ is rooted in Christian understanding of the human person, based on “A Model Catholic RSE Curriculum” provided by the Catholic Education Service.

The TenTen Programme Structure has 3 Modules:

1.Created and loved by God

Units: Religious Understanding, Me, my body, my health, Emotional Well-being, Life cycles

2.Created to love one another

Units: Religious Understanding, Personal Relationships, Keeping Safe

3.Created to live in Community

Units: Religious Understanding, Living in the Wider World

Parents are provided with access to a parent portal: www.tentenresources.co.uk/parent-portal/

To have access to the portal please contact the school office.

Children are provided with ‘PSHE Knowledge Organisers’, which give individual topic overviews for each topic studied within each year group.  These include key skills, knowledge, vocabulary and diagrams.

Key language is modelled throughout lessons, enabling our children to be familiar with and use vocabulary accurately. Teachers are also encouraged to include trips and visitors in their planning to enhance our children’s learning experience.

At St Robert Southwell, we aspire to promote children’s independence and for all children to take responsibility for their own learning.

Impact

Pupils mark against their own targets how they feel about their learning in a topic; attainment is tracked through online pupil target trackers against National Curriculum expectations, and the Foundation Stage against the ‘Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

In addition, impact is monitored through regular ‘book-looks’, in-class displays, lesson learning-walks, a quiz at the end of a topic, discussions with teaching staff and ‘Parents and Pupil Voice’.