Intent

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." Marie Curie (1867-1934)

At St John’s we work to enable all children to achieve their full potential within our Christian family. We nurture individuality – providing challenge, developing self-esteem and promoting care and respect for each other and God’s world.  PSHE education at St John’s is underpinned by our gospel and British values. The overriding aim of our PSHE programme is to provide pupils with strong virtues and resilience to help cope with the challenges of daily life.

The PSHE curriculum aims to develop a positive attitude and mindset, leading to confidence, self-belief, motivation and engagement. This enables children to acquire the ‘tools’ to develop and maintain good physical and mental wellbeing, as well as being able to make informed choices in life and play a positive role in society.

The statutory requirements of RSHE are a core theme at St John’s, which are delivered through implicit and explicit learning experiences to:

• Foster self-esteem and respect for others as the cornerstone of good health education and therefore of good sex and relationship education
• Nurture a partnership between caring adults – governors, teachers, other staff and parents – to ensure sensitive support for children and young people as they grow and mature
• Ensure children have the ability to accept their own and others’ sexuality
• Encourage children to enjoy relationships based upon mutual trust and respect, free from any abuse
• Generate an atmosphere where questions and discussion on sexual matters can take place without embarrassment
• Avoid sexual stereotyping and sexual discrimination

Implementation

The PSHE Scheme of work follows The PSHE Association toolkit and PSHE Curriculum Framework which ensures teachers have an overview for the year, so they can see where and when different topic areas including RSHE are planned. This considers the needs of the pupils, the aims and ethos of the school, the local community and the local environment in which the school is situated.

Using Public Health data, specific issues can be identified that might affect the lives, health and wellbeing of the pupils and families in the local area (both now and in the future). Issues include increase in adolescent mental health diagnosis, increasing knife crime in local towns and County Lines.

This will provide a meaningful context for short term planning, helping ensure PSHE lessons are relevant and interesting for pupils.

Using the core themes of Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World (including economic education, climate change and environmental issues) set out in the PSHE Association Programme of Study, each year group decides which learning opportunities will be covered. The planning follows a ‘spiral curriculum’, meaning that the specific learning builds for pupils as they move through the school, gradually expanding and deepening their knowledge, skills and attributes. Learning in PSHE is not delivered as a one-off experience but one where learning opportunities covered in one-year group will be further developed in another.

Impact

Through quality PSHE lessons and teaching, children develop resilience, perspective taking and problem-solving skills. As a result, pupils will become self-managing, reflective, resilient, collaborative learners, who are able to be successful in school as well as in the wider community.