Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE)
Click here to view our PHSE curriculum overview
Click here to view our RE curriculum overview
Intent
High quality PSHE supports pupils’ personal, social, health and economic development. It helps to give pupils the knowledge, skills, strategies and attributes to help them make informed choices and decisions about the different opportunities and challenges life presents.
At William Harding School, pupils will learn about relationships, health and wellbeing, keeping safe, managing their off and online lives, living in the wider world and financial education.
Providing high quality PSHE curriculum gives pupils opportunities to ask questions and explore issues that are real and relevant to them in a safe and managed environment.
Our PSHE provision at William Harding extends beyond the curriculum and includes focused learning days/ weeks, assemblies, debates, developing effective learning characteristics and fully supports our school’s ethos and values. PSHE is an integral part of William Harding’s broad and balanced curriculum supporting spiritual, moral, social and cultural education, equalities, British values and safeguarding. We ensure meaningful cross curricular links are made to enable our pupils to understand how these skills can be applied in everyday life.
Our PSHE provision has been designed to be age appropriate and progressive, whilst being sensitive to the needs of our whole school community to ensure PSHE provision gives our pupils an education which supports them now and prepares them for the future. Our PSHE provision is underpinned by the 2010 Equalities duty and provides an inclusive curriculum that promotes understanding and mutual respect for all.
Implementation
At William Harding School, statutory units of relationships education, health education and economic education are taught through specific PSHE lessons as well as focused learning days, assemblies and our personal development curriculum. We also teach relevant themes to support our pupils to manage their lives both now and in the future.
Teaching PSHE within school
At William Harding School PSHE is timetabled every other half term and supplemented with assemblies and other opportunities of learning. , (please see overview for specific details) and is delivered by class teachers or PPA cover teachers. The PSHE curriculum has been designed to help pupils develop their knowledge, vocabulary and skills over time, embedding learning and providing relevant education to support them in their lives now and in the future.
We strive to provide our children with first hand experiences to learn about the world we live in. We make meaningful links across the curriculum and provide the children with opportunities to learn from others.
At William Harding School we use Jigsaw as a basis to deliver PSHE. The Jigsaw program is adapted to provide a relevant and age appropriate curriculum for William Harding pupils. We also follow the William Harding way general lesson structure using metacognition, an ‘I do We do’ structure and vocabulary focus to provide a progressive curriculum to ensure pupils are taught key aspects of PSHE at a relevant and age appropriate level and in line with their continuing personal and social development. This is monitored and reviewed by the subject team as needed.
Relationships Education
Our PSHE curriculum covers statutory Relationships education (please see Relationships policy for further information). Relationships education at William Harding focuses on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive and healthy relationships, with particular reference to friendships, family relationships, and relationships with other children and adults both in person and online. By the end of their primary schooling, pupils will have been taught content on:
- Families and people who care for us,
- Caring friendships
- Respectful relationships
- Online relationships
- Being safe
- Healthy & unhealthy relationships
Sex Education
As part of our PSHE provision we teach sex education. This is an important and recommended aspect of the PSHE curriculum. As a non-statutory element of PSHE, parents and carers have the right to withdraw from designated sex education lessons in key stage 2. We encourage parents and carers to come and talk through any concerns they may have and make an informed choice about whether to exercise the right to withdraw their child. Please see our sex education policy for further information.
Health Education
We deliver statutory Health education through our PSHE curriculum. The aim of teaching pupils about physical and mental wellbeing is to give them the information that they need to make good decisions about their own health and wellbeing. It should enable them to recognise what is normal and what is an issue with regards to themselves and others and if an issue arises, know how to seek the right support as early as possible from a safe and trusted source.
By the end of their primary schooling, pupils at William Harding will have been taught content on:
- Mental wellbeing
- Internet safety and harms
- Physical health and fitness
- Healthy eating
- Facts and risks associates with drugs, alcohol and tobacco
- Health prevention
- Basic first aid and medicines
- Changing adolescent body*
*The changing adolescent body and puberty education is part of the statutory Health Education curriculum and is mandatory for all pupils. We teach the correct scientific names of all body parts from year 1 and a list of key vocabulary. Introducing the scientific names of genitalia is recommended by the NSPCC, the PSHE Association and is recognised good practice.
Economic Education
Our PSHE curriculum covers economic education and life skills for living in the wider world. Pupils will learn about managing money, saving and enterprise skills through lessons and a range of experiences.
Personal Safety
In PSHE pupils learn about personal safety and the law. To enhance the children’s knowledge of British Values and the laws within the United Kingdom, the School Council pupils visit the Houses of Parliament to learn about the importance of democracy and their rights and responsibilities as a citizen and share this with their peers.
Should a pupil make a disclosure to a member of staff, this will be reported as per William Harding policy, to a designated safeguarding lead and followed up in accordance with our disclosure procedures. Please see our safeguarding policy on the school website for any further information.
Impact
Our high quality PSHE supports pupils’ personal, social, health and economic development. It helps to give pupils the knowledge, skills, strategies and attributes to help them make informed choices and decisions about the different opportunities and challenges life presents in order to become successful and considerate citizens of the world.
Our pupils will understand:
· PSHE provision provides pupils with well- chosen opportunities and contexts to embed new knowledge and skills that can be used confidently in real life situations.
· Pupils know how and when to ask for help and where to access support.
· Pupils are well informed and recognise the risks they may encounter both on and off line and are able to make safe choices.
· Pupils are enabled to take responsibility for their actions and understand the implications and consequences of their own decisions.
· Pupils are well prepared for the next stages of their lives.
· Pupils have the knowledge, skills and attributes to live healthy, happy lives.
Religious Education (RE)
Intent
We believe that it is important for all our pupils to learn from and about religion, so that they can understand the world around them. The aim of RE in our school is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of Christianity and the other principal religions represented in Great Britain; to appreciate the way that religious beliefs shape life and behaviour, develop the ability to make reasoned and informed judgements about religious and moral issues and enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Religious Education is taught throughout the school in such a way as to reflect the overall aims, values, and philosophy of the school including inclusion and respect.
At William Harding, we believe that RE is imperative because:
It helps pupils understand the world they live in by developing their religious literacy.
It helps them to develop skills in recognising, handling and analysing the big questions and concepts that arise from experience and help make sense of life.
It provides opportunities for and develops their ability to reflect on experience
It develops debating, reasoning, self-expression, relationships and self-understanding.
It helps with their literacy, creativity, personal development and critical thinking.
It helps their understanding of identity and their search for meaning, purpose and value.
It helps the school with their ethos and values.
It helps develop a sense of community and belonging.
It provides opportunities to build positive relationships for learning and behaviour.
It helps the children to explore meaning, truth and live by values.
It allows us to understand and respectfully challenge and be challenged by people of different lifestyles, beliefs and practices.
Implementation
At William Harding we follow the Buckinghamshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education. RE is timetabled every other half term and supplemented with assemblies and other opportunities of learning. This is supported by Jigsaw R.E. which adopts an enquiry based approach to teaching and learning. Christianity is taught in every year group, with Christmas and Easter given new treatment each year to develop learning in a progressive way. Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism are also covered. Humanist perspectives are added when appropriate. Each session has a learning objective which shows the learning over the enquiry and SMSC development opportunities are mapped throughout as is each contribution to the British Values agenda.
The Jigsaw R.E. syllabus has been created in a recurrent format to enable children to revisit and build on their prior knowledge of the different beliefs and practices taught across the school. The syllabus also allows for teachers to be flexible and adapt the term in which units are taught in their year group, to allow for cross-curricular links or involvement with parents and other members of the community.
Impact
At William Harding, we are committed to providing our children with an exciting and positive learning environment, in which they have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of religions.
We also seek to ensure that all pupils in our school are educated to develop spiritually, academically, emotionally and morally to enable them to better understand themselves and others and to cope with the opportunities, challenges and responsibilities of living in a rapidly changing, multicultural world. We strive to ensure we respect people in the wider community, including their beliefs, traditions, culture, language and history.