What are the aims of teaching Personal, Social and Health Education?
At Bramley St Peter’s our curriculum provides skills for life with a focus on health, well-being, safety, self-worth, difference and social responsibility. These elements are woven into the curriculum and taught explicitly through PSHE. We believe that by providing a good PSHE education we equip children with the knowledge and skills to make well-informed decisions on health and wellbeing, empowering them to stay safe both now and in the future.
PSHE, including Sex Education and Drug Education, provides us with a whole school strategy for working in partnership with parents and carers to help our children to overcome the social pressures they face and the barriers to learning and achievement that they may experience.
We focus on wellbeing through our `Healthy: Inside and Out’ days, held on the first day of each half term. Lessons use the Mindmate curriculum and are enhanced by creative activities which promote positive mental health for children and staff. Through PSHE and Mindmate, we aim to provide the knowledge and skills our children need to be resilient, look after themselves and understand the support available to them. The PHSE curriculum complements our Growth Mindset characters: Professor Perseverance, Inspector Independence, Major Mistake and Captain Challenge.
At Bramley St Peter’s, we believe that the subject content of PSHE must be age and developmentally appropriate to our children. Lessons are taught sensitively and inclusively, with respect to the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils and parents, while always with the aim of providing pupils with the knowledge they need of the law. Included within the curriculum are biological aspects of animal growth and reproduction that are essential elements of National Curriculum Science. The guidance states that parents do not have the right to withdraw their child from any part of any subject which forms the National Curriculum.
What does PSHE look like at Bramley St Peter’s?
Teaching starts in the early years through the areas of Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development and Understanding the World. Our youngest children are taught through stories, circle time activities and adults modelling friendly and respectful relationships and behaviour.
In Key Stage 1 and 2, the curriculum is based on a scheme of work called You, Me, PSHE which is widely used across Leeds. This provides a spiral approach designed to allow for previous learning to be built upon in a way that develops key knowledge and skills and also allows this to be embedded to the children’s long-term memory. Work is divided into 7 strands allowing the children to revisit learning at an age-appropriate level (details of which are included in our PHSE policy). Pre and post assessments are used alongside pupil questionnaires and learning talks to assess pupil needs and ensure that our teaching is relevant to all children.
Relationship and Health Education (RHE) is taught across the whole school and Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) is taught in years 2, 4 and 6. Please note that the Government made Health and Relationship Education compulsory in all state funded primary schools from 2020.
You can find more information about what is taught in each year group on the class year group pages. Our PSHE and RSE policy and guidance also provide detailed information for parents and carers.
‘Life in all it’s fullness’ John 10:10
‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.’ Aristotle