PSHE & Relationships
Learning Journey
3 i Statement
Intent
At Wynstream, personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education is an embedded part of our broad and balanced curriculum. Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural (SMSC) development is at the heart of our school ethos. The intent of our PSHE curriculum is to deliver a curriculum which is bespoke to our school and community, accessible to all and that will support progress across all subject areas. Our PSHE curriculum enables our children to become healthy, independent, and responsible members of a society. It aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social, and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and to appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society.
Our Relationships and Sex Education policy teaches our pupils how to be safe and supports the development of healthy, positive relationships. Wynstream’s PSHE curriculum meets and exceeds the requirements of the National Curriculum by equipping our pupils ‘with a sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions.’
Implementation
PSHE is implemented through a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum. 1decision provides an interactive bank of resources which supports PSHE, RSE, Health education, SMSC development, and safeguarding. It is mapped to the PSHE Association’s Programme of Study ensuring full coverage of the statutory elements for Relationship Education and Health Education.
In the Early Years, PSED (Managing Self/Building Relationships), is a prime area of learning and development as it is crucial that our children are happy and possess a positive sense of their unique self and possess the confidence to rise to the challenges of each step of their learning and development. Children are taught to understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle; how to manage and understand their emotions; how to set goals as well as how to be a good friend and citizen, both locally and globally. Our pupils are able to articulate and provide examples of how they demonstrate Wynstream’s School Values, both in and out of school.
Alongside the 1Decision EYFS PSED programme, nurturing relationships with key adults, books, dolls, puppets, small world play and real-life experiences all support the children in thinking about half termly key questions such as: What makes me unique? How do I stay healthy? Why do I clean my teeth every day (children also participate in a daily supervised NHS tooth brushing programme)? What emotions do we feel and why? How do we stay safe in school/online? How do we look after our friends and family? What makes a good friend? Each half term we engage with a school value through stories and role play. Families are invited to share photos of children demonstrating school values at home, this is celebrated in school. Children earn Class Dojo points linked to school values.
In KS1 and KS2, in order to meet the needs of our school community, we have prioritised two (of 8) modules. These are Relationships/Growing and Changing and Feelings. Additional time has been allotted for wider and deeper coverage of these strands. The two prioritised modules are revisited in each term (except in years 5 and 6 whereby Growing and Changing is not covered until the final term to allow our children more time to develop emotionally). The remaining 6 modules are given equal coverage as blocked units spread across the year. While subject leaders have distributed the learning across the year, teachers have the freedom and flexibility to use this scheme to address specific needs or situations in each classroom as required.
These lessons complement key campaigns throughout the year such as Anti-bullying Week, children’s mental health week etc, as well as receiving visitors such as emergency services and the NSPCC to offer additional learning. Assemblies are also planned to cover any additional sessions that would benefit the whole school. Traditional British Values, as well as our school’s values of Resilience, Curiosity, Aspiration, Integrity and Responsibility, are embedded in our PSHE curriculum as well as in other subject areas.
Impact
At Wynstream, we firmly believe that a meaningful PSHE curriculum is a key to children becoming confident, tolerant, empathetic members of society who have the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions.
We use a variety of strategies to measure the impact of our curriculum. Pupil voice is routinely monitored to measure whether the pupils themselves feel confident or have a firmer sense of their own beliefs and opinions. Baseline assessment is also used. Ultimately, the effectiveness of our PSHE curriculum is judged based upon its impact on the culture of a classroom and our school as a whole
