Subject Leader: Mrs Seager-Fleming

Governor Link: Dr. Digman

The curriculum teaches pupils how to stay safe. Pupils have an age-appropriate understanding of how to be safe online. They also know where to go to get help if they need it. Pupils understand about road safety, ‘stranger danger’ and fire safety. (Ofsted, 2021)

Statement of Intent

At St Joseph's we believe that PSHE education equips children to live healthy, safe, productive, capable, responsible and balanced lives. It encourages them to be enterprising and supports them in making effective transitions, positive learning and career choices and in achieving economic wellbeing. A critical component of PSHE education is providing opportunities for children and young people to reflect on and clarify their own values and attitudes and explore the complex and sometimes conflicting range of values and attitudes they encounter now and in the future.   At St Joseph's we believe in creating a safe space for children to talk and to be heard. 

Implementation
 PSHE education contributes to personal development by helping children to build their confidence, resilience and self-esteem, and to identify and manage risk, make informed choices and understand what influences their decisions. It enables them to recognise, accept and shape their identities, to understand and accommodate difference and change, to manage emotions and to communicate constructively in a variety of settings. Developing an understanding of themselves, empathy and the ability to work with others will help pupils to form and maintain good relationships, develop the essential skills for future employability and better enjoy and manage their lives.  

Life to the Full is a fully resourced Scheme of Work in Relationships and Health 

Education (RHE) for Catholic primary schools which embraces and fulfils new statutory curriculum. 

Taught with a spiral approach to learning in which pupils will revisit the same topics at an age-appropriate stage through their school life, the programme includes teaching about personal health, physical and emotional well-being, strong emotions, private parts of the body, personal relationships, family structures, trusted adults, growing bodies, puberty, periods, life cycles, the dangers of social media, where babies come from, an understanding of the Common Good and living in the wider world.

Disciplinary knowledge in PSHE is the social and emotional skills acquired, and the interpretation of themselves and how to support themselves and others through changes. This will include articulating feelings and emotions, listening and communicating, awareness of others and their beliefs and values, making choices and understanding consequences.

Substantive Knowledge in PSHE & RSE is threaded throughout each strand – the substantive knowledge for each strand is progressive and is designed to be delivered in a sequence that allows for connection-making across the topics. The knowledge becomes more complex and age-specific as the children progress through their year group and through school.  This will include subject specific and progressive vocabulary which encourages the children to articulate their learning and understanding. This includes, but is not limited to the ability to; form friendships and relationships; manage emotions within relationships; recognise the value of difference; learn to forgive and be forgiven; develop self-esteem and confidence and build resilience; be aware of online safety; know how to be mentally and physically healthy.

The entire teaching is underpinned with a Christian faith understanding that our deepest identity is as a child of God – created, chosen and loved by God. The programme is fully inclusive of all pupils and their families

As a Catholic school, our mission is to support the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all of our pupils, rooted in the wisdom and teaching of the Church. The education of children in human sexuality is an important, precious and privileged responsibility. The Church teaches us that this is very much a partnership with parents, in which parents are the ‘first educators’ of their children on these matters; ultimately, you confer on us the right to co-educate your children with you.

Life to the Full has been approved by our diocese. Furthermore, Ten Ten have entered into a partnership with the Catholic Education Service and the Department for Education to provide training for teachers in Catholic schools on the subject of the new statutory curriculum. Therefore, we are confident that this programme is a very good fit for our school.

Impact

At St. Joseph's our PSHE curriculum will offer our children accurate, balanced and relevant knowledge, the skills to live healthy, safe and responsible lives, opportunities to explore, clarify and if necessary challenge their own and others values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsiblilites, build confidence, resilience and self-esteem whilst developing their ability to manage feelings in a positive and effective way, identify and manage risk and build and maintain good relationships.  These are all vital skills for living in the wider world.

Equal opportunity:

Within PSHE, staff set high expectations. Each individual is ensured access to a full and varied programme of activities, with opportunities for all pupils to participate fully and effectively, including boys and girls, pupils with diverse additional educational needs, and pupils from all social and cultural backgrounds. Pupils are equally respected for who they are and for the contributions they make regardless of their background. Knowledge, skills and understanding are taught in ways that suit pupils’ current attainment level, and care is taken that all learning is appropriate so that pupils can make progress and show what they can achieve.

In order to provide access to learning and to meet pupils’ diverse needs, specific action will be taken by staff to:

•  create effective learning environments, providing for pupils who need additional support with communication, language, and literacy.
•  provide a multi-sensory approach using a variety of media.
•  provide equality of opportunity through teaching approaches and personalisation of tasks and materials as appropriate.
•  use appropriate summative and formative assessment approaches to inform future learning.
•  set targets for learning and behaviour including taking steps to help pupils manage their own emotions.