PSHE

Teaching PSHE (including RSE) provides 'the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships' which at Gray's Farm, we believe are lifelong skills.

Our whole school overview is planned around a whole school thematic approach so that different year groups will be working on similar themes at the same time throughout the year. This allows for cross-phase collaboration and enables us to link the PSHE curriculum to whole school assemblies and our Gray’s Farm Core Values. We have chosen to use core themes similar to those from the PSHE Association Programme of Study and learning objectives from the PSHE Association Primary Planning Toolkit as a basis for our curriculum framework.

Core Themes – School Terms:

Core Theme 1: Health and Wellbeing in the Wider World - Autumn Term One
Core Theme 2: Relationships - Spring Term One
Core Theme 3: Changing and Growing - Summer Term One

These titles have been developed from the PSHE Association Primary Planning Toolkit:

Core Theme 1: Health and Wellbeing – Healthy Lifestyles, Growing and Changing, Keeping Safe (Autumn Term)
Core Theme 2: Relationships – Feelings and Emotions, Healthy Relationships, Valuing Difference (Spring Term)
Core Theme 3: Living in the Wider World – Rights and Responsibilities, Environment, Money (Summer Term)

We will cover every learning opportunity from the Programme of Study at least once within the primary phase, and usually more than once, to help build a spiral programme of learning year on year. Appropriate year groups will address the learning opportunities and the corresponding learning objectives (from the Primary Toolkit) to reflect the context of our school and local community, and to address our pupils’ needs and stages of development.

The Curriculum framework whole school overview gives a brief summary or ‘at a glance view’ of what is taught under the core theme and topic title, in each term, for each year group, across the school. It also provides a quick and simple way to view the progression of learning throughout the primary phase. This is useful for SLT, our PSHE and curriculum leaders, teachers, parents and governors as it can help support discussions about what is included within the subject of PSHE education. It can also be used to decide which particular topic areas to collect assessment evidence or do a work scrutiny on, or gather pupil feedback on throughout the year.

The Curriculum framework long term planning grids are intended to support teachers’ long-term planning and set out the learning opportunities (from the Programme of Study), the topic title and the corresponding learning objective/s (from the Primary Planning Toolkit).

Our aim at Gray's Farm is to ensure that the children gain lifelong skills that will ensure they are equipped for the variety of life's experiences. Our PSHE curriculum teaches children about the features of healthy friendships, family relationships and other relationships which young children are likely to encounter therefore enabling them to understand the features of a relationship that will lead to happiness and security.

When learning about families, we ensure that our lessons are representing of our school community and our wider society, whilst remaining sensitive to the knowledge of our pupils and their circumstances. We know that families of many forms (including for example, single parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents and carers amongst other structures) provide a nurturing environment for children. Therefore when learning about families, we take care to ensure that conversation is sensitive to the fact that some children may have a different structure of support around them and that there is no discrimination surrounding it.

Not only are our children taught the basis of what a relationship is, what friendship is, what family means and who the people are who can support them but they are also guided in cultivating positive personal attributes. These include things from how to take turns; how to treat each other with kindness, consideration and respect to the importance of honesty and truthfulness, permission seeking and giving, as well as respect; including the concept of personal privacy.

An ever-increasing feature of our children's lives is technology and it is therefore important that our teaching reflects this. Lessons are tailored and relevant to the lives of the younger generation and therefore include online safety and appropriate behaviour, including content on how information and data can be shared and used in all contexts.

Wellbeing is at the heart of our school community and features heavily within our PSHE curriculum. We host Wellbeing days throughout the year that are dedicated to children learning about wellness, as well as lessons during the year exploring positive emotional and mental wellbeing, including how friendships can support mental wellbeing. Children are also taught how to seek support when they feel that things are wrong.

Jigsaw

In addition to the statutory teaching about relationships and health, we also opt to teach children basic age-appropriate sex education as a part of our education at Gray's Farm. To do this, we use resources from the PSHE Association or a scheme called Jigsaw which both provide age-appropriate information about the life cycle. For example, this ranges from exploring the life cycles of animals in EYFS, where we hatch baby ducklings to exploring the stages of human growth in key stage one, then later learning about body changes during puberty in upper key stage two. Unlike the relationship and health elements of our PSHE / RSE curriculum that are compulsory, where these sessions do not form part of the science curriculum, they are not compulsory.

An overview detailing our PHSE/RSE coverage for each year group from Reception to Year 6 can be found here. Whole school curriculum can be found here.

PSHE

Learning