Personal, Social, Health and Economics Policy 2021

Our personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) programme promotes children’s personal, social and economic development, as well as their health and wellbeing.  It helps to give children the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy lives and to become informed, active, responsible citizens.

At Percy Main, children’s wellbeing, happiness and safety are our first priority, and PSHE is the key vehicle through which we share this with the children.  We regard PSHE as an important, integral component of the whole curriculum; it is central to our approach and at the core of our ethos.

Introduction

At Percy Main Primary School we are committed to the development of the whole child and as a consequence we place Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) at the heart of all that we do. We recognise that schools support pupils to develop in many diverse aspects of life, and the responsibility of preparing pupils for their adult lives is one that Percy Main Primary School takes pride in, and assumes with integrity and purpose.

This policy outlines the Intent, Implementation and Impact of how PSHE is taught using a spiral curriculum in our school. The PSHE Policy should be read in conjunction with the following policies: RSE, SEND and Safeguarding.

The Implementation of this policy is the responsibility of all teaching staff. The school policy for PSHE reflects the consensus of opinion of the whole teaching staff and has the full agreement of the Governing Body.

 

Statutory Framework

 

The Relationships, Sex Education and Health Education (RSHE) aspects of Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) are now compulsory within all schools. RSHE covers broad areas of particular relevance and concern to children and young people today - mental health and wellbeing, physical health (including healthy lifestyles and first aid) and learning about safe, healthy relationships, including understanding consent and negotiating life online. These new statutory requirements do not extend to sex education at KS1 and 2 (beyond the biological/reproductive aspects schools are already required to cover in science). Parents of UKS2 pupils will have the right to withdraw their child from sex education but not from statutory Relationships Education or Health Education.

 

In developing a PSHE scheme of work at Percy Main, we have taken objectives from the PSHE Association programme of study, as well as DfE guidance which can be found here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education

 

Intent

Through our curriculum, our school environment, our school ethos and the strength of our relationships, we strive to promote pupils’ self-esteem and emotional and physical well-being and help them to form and maintain worthwhile and satisfying relationships, based on RESPECT for themselves and for others, at home, at school, at work and in the community.

Through our curriculum we want our pupils to know and understand what constitutes a healthy lifestyle and develop a growing awareness of a broad range of safety issues.

Pupil voice lies at the heart of our school and the curriculum and opportunities we offer our pupils mean that pupils grow into independent, active and responsible members of our school community playing an active part in decision making.

In order to flourish, thrive and develop into happy adults who contribute effectively to society, pupils at Percy Main Primary School develop their personalities and behaviour through the specific focus on important values that enable them to reflect, learn, behave with integrity and work consistently well with others. With these skills, combined with the development of responsibility and resilience, pupils are then able to draw upon their understanding in order to engage and excel in the ever-changing world in which they live both now and in the future.

Implementation

Our PSHE and RSE curriculum (Appendix 1) is taught from Year 1 to Year 6, with EYFS following the Our PSHE and RSE curriculum (Appendix 1) is taught from Year 1 to Year 6, with EYFS following the EYFS curriculum which was designed using aspects of both Development Matters, Birth to 5 documents, alongside staff knowledge of the children’s starting points at PMPS.

PSHE and RSE is planned to create a coherent Why this? Why now? programme ensuring that cross curricular links can be made in each topic or term. Many topics will link with class texts and/or an end of term project, show or community event.

PSHE and RSE is taught under the following headings to ensure a broad and balanced coverage that has a progressive nature.

Health and Wellbeing – Children will be taught what constitutes a healthy lifestyle as well as how to maintain physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing.  They will be aware of safety issues, including how to respond to an emergency and they will know how to manage change, including puberty, transition and loss.  We work with a variety of external agencies to support our teaching in this strand including Nexus, RNLI, Commando Joes and My School Health.

This is grouped under the headings:

It’s My Body

Safety First

Think Positive

Aiming High

 

Relationships - Children will develop and maintain a variety of healthy relationships within a range of social and cultural contexts.  They will be taught how to recognise and manage emotions within a range of relationships and how to recognise risky or negative relationships, including all forms of bullying, abuse and coercive relationships, and how /who to ask for help.  Children are also taught how to respect equality and diversity in relationships.  We work with a variety of external agencies to support our teaching in this strand including NSPCC and My School Health.

The teaching is grouped under the headings:

Growing up

VIPs

Be Yourself

Team

Living in the Wider World – Children will learn the importance of responsible behaviours and actions.  They will learn to be responsible and independent members of the school community as well as positive and active members of a democratic society.  Children will know the importance of respecting and protecting the environment.  They will develop self-confidence and self-esteem and make informed choices regarding personal and social issues. They are taught and encouraged to develop good relationships with other members of the school and the wider community and have a good understanding of where money comes from, keeping it safe and the importance of managing it effectively.  We also introduce children to the basic of enterprise during the course of the year.

The teaching is grouped under the headings:

Respecting Rights

Britain

One World

Money Matters

 

Planning

PSHE is delivered within a school approach which includes:

Dedicated curriculum time

Teaching PSHE through and in other subjects / curriculum areas

Circle time

Specialised assemblies

Whole school curriculum themed days/weeks (Anti-Bullying, Internet Safety, World Mental Health Day, Well-Being Week)

Pastoral care and guidance

Visiting speakers

 

Impact

Children at Percy Main learn about themselves as growing and changing individuals with their own experiences and ideas, and as members of their communities. They become more mature, independent and self-confident.  They learn about the wider word and the interdependence of communities within it.  They develop their sense of social justice and moral responsibility and begin to understand that their own choices and behaviour can affect local, national or global issues and political and social institutions.  They learn how to take part more fully in school and community activities.  As they begin to develop into young adults, they face the changes of puberty and transfer to secondary school with support and encouragement from Percy Main.  They learn how to make more confident and informed choices about their health and environment; to take more responsibility, individually and as a group, for their own learning; and to resist bullying.

Assessment and Recording

There are a number of reasons why it is important that learning in PSHE education is assessed. It is important for pupils to have opportunities to reflect on their learning and assessment also increases pupils’ motivation and improves learning as their raised awareness of their development illustrates the value of their learning. It is important for teachers to feel confident that learning has taken place, to be able to demonstrate progress, and to identify future learning needs.

Children are informally assessed throughout every lesson using a baseline activity as a starting point. The nature of PSHE education is such that we cannot make any assumptions, based on a pupil’s age or year group, about their existing knowledge, understanding, attributes, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes. So to assess learning and progress effectively, it is vital that we carry out a baseline assessment before we teach anything new. As pupils’ learning in topics such as healthy eating, online safety, relationships and so on will come from a number of sources, we can only see whether they have made progress in their learning if we have established the knowledge, understanding, attributes, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes they had before any new teaching took place.

 

Essential skills and attributes are arguably the hardest aspect of learning to assess. It is difficult for teachers to accurately assess a pupil’s self-confidence or sense of their own identity and values. However, pupils themselves will be able to judge, for instance, whether they feel more confident, or have a firmer sense of their own beliefs and opinions than they did before a particular series of lessons. Such personal reflection in PSHE education lessons is essential, so ensuring pupils have time and space within the lessons to reflect on this, either privately or through discussion, is a vital part of the assessment process. Assessing learning in PSHE and RSE education must therefore use a combination of teacher assessment and pupil self- and peer assessment.

Recording of work will be in a form appropriate to the planned focus and will be shown in the teacher’s planning.  Evidence of PSHE/RSE will be in a variety of forms e.g. photographs as well as written work.  The very nature of PSHE/RSE means that careful consideration should be given to the best means of recording.  Written work may not always be appropriate and staff will use their professional judgement in this.

Data is recorded using the end of unit assessment document and this data is collated to see which children are working towards their year group and which children are working at or above.

In EYFS, we assess the children’s Understanding of the World according to the Relevant Early Learning Goals. This is very much assessed by the teacher. EY is very much child led and this helps teachers to assess throughout the year and in the moment.