Personal, Social, Health and Relationships Education (PSHRE)
The aims for our PSHRE curriculum taken from the PSHE Association in KS1 and 2, and Development Matters and SEAL in the Early Years
At Russell Lower School, we believe that our PSHRE curriculum enables our children to become healthy, safe, independent and responsible members of society. This includes building attributes such as resilience, self-esteem, risk management, team working and critical thinking in the context of three themes: Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World. 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. Relationships education teaches the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, with particular reference to friendships, family relationships and relationships with other peers and adults.
It is our intention to offer a broad, balanced and progressive curriculum for every child from the Early Years to Year 4 through the use of Development Matters and the Early Learning Goals in Early Years (focusing on Personal, Social and Emotional Development and the Characteristics of effective learners) and then progressing onto the National Curriculum aims for years 1 to 4.
Our PSHRE curriculum and teaching underpins our school vision: challenge, enjoy, respect and succeed, making it integral to the success and ethos of the whole school. Children are equipped with the skills they need for a changing world, building resilience and self-esteem to enable them to challenge themselves confidently and independently within the classroom. Through our whole school approach we promote a safe and nurturing environment where children are happy and enjoy their education. Children understand how to be good citizens, who show respect and have well-developed values. We enable children to succeed by developing their self-esteem and looking at and setting goals for them to work towards.
Through a progressive framework that is consolidated and built upon within each year group, children are given the appropriate vocabulary to be able to articulate their feelings clearly. Relationships education teaches the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships, with particular reference to friendships, family relationships and relationships with peers and adults.
PSHRE is taught as both explicit lessons, using the PSHE association programme of study; but it is also embedded in other areas of the curriculum and day-to-day life of the school.
We encourage our children to take part in a range of practical roles and activities that promote active citizenship. Examples include being a school councillor, a sports leader or helping with fundraising and engaging in school and local events. Children also have opportunities to meet and work with members of the community, such as: firefighters, police officers, librarians, sports coaches, artists, authors, and representatives from the local church. Additionally, we as a school participate in and promote National events such as: Children’s Mental Health Week, Anti-Bullying Week, Speak Out initiatives and Road Safety Week. Children’s experiences are enhanced through visitors who come into our school to deliver assemblies and workshops with children, from Mike Mullen, a BMX rider who spoke about resilience and perseverance with the children, to the NSPCC speak out stay safe assembly.
Implementation
Our PSHRE curriculum has been carefully redesigned focusing on curriculum sequencing to ensure skill progression from lesson to lesson and year to year with a focus on deepening and embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. Year group milestone documents have been created in order to support the above and assessment within the subject in KS1 and 2, and Development Matters is used in Early Years alongside SEAL unit plans.
Within PSHRE we focus our teaching on the subject content outlined within the PSHE Association; Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World and the Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education Guidance 2020/21, Development Matters and the SEAL units of work.
We have developed year group and subject specific curriculum plans which identify when the different themes will be taught across the academic year. Pupils participate in at least one discreet high quality PSHRE lesson a week. Staff also make meaningful links across many subject areas. For example: the use of key texts within English lessons to draw on PSHRE elements around relationships, links to E-safety within Computing, looking after the environment within Science and leading healthy and active lives through PE. Therefore, flexibility in the timetable needs to be accounted for as objectives for PSHRE education will be met outside of the allocated timetable slot.
Within all lessons we are working towards Rosenshine’s 17 Principles of Effective Instruction and use of the Great Teaching Toolkit. Short-term plans set out the learning objectives and success criteria for each lesson, identifying engaging activities and resources which will be used to achieve them. Within our PSHRE lessons pupils develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future. It helps children and young people to stay healthy and safe, while preparing them to make the most of life and work.
Within each lesson there is a very clear and concise LO/WALT such as ‘To recognise different times when I may need help with managing my feelings’ with strategies and resources discussed and shared within the lesson and beyond the classroom in order to deepen and strengthen knowledge and understanding and equip children with life-long skills.
Within the lessons and more widely across the school (such as through assemblies) the main areas of learning are consolidated through re-cap and reinforcement year on year where pupils progressively build their skills and knowledge and can link prior skills and knowledge to new learning to deepen their learning. This is achieved by covering the three core themes of the Programme of Study over each school year. This approach allows different year groups to work on similar themes at the same time, building a spiral programme year on year, whilst offering flexibility with planning.
Questioning, modelling and feedback are used to support the teaching and learning process, ensure progression within every lesson and aid assessment.
Our PSHRE curriculum is an integral part of our whole school education provision and is designed to meet the unique needs of pupils, not only through our PSHRE lessons but through our wider curriculum offer. As part of this we run a school council as a means in which pupils can voice their opinions and have their views considered in decisions which impact upon them.
Our PSHRE curriculum also promotes opportunities to link British Values and Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural (SMSC) responsibilities. For example, through areas such as:
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moral and social discussions held within lessons and assemblies
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through links with our local community such as our local churches and celebrating dates and festivals from different religions
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the election of our school council members
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our weekly SMSC and values assemblies
More so than ever we provide flexibility within PSHRE lessons to meet children’s needs and understanding due to the ongoing impact of Covid 19. This flexibility is also important in enabling us to teach around local/national/global events that may occur. The distribution of lessons complements key campaigns throughout the year, such as; Anti-Bulling Week, Black History Month and Mental Health Week.
Teaching of PSHRE continued during the Lockdown periods with teachers making relevant adaptations such as in year 4 where they continued to focus more on relationships due to the loss in this area and the cohort’s particular needs. We also continued to provide values and SMSC assemblies via live and recorded videos which the children could access at home.
Post Lockdowns, we focussed on Barry Carpenter’s 5 levers; routine, structure, friendship, opportunity and freedom which resulted in various adaptations and restructuring of the curriculum over the last two years to ensure children are still accessing a well-rounded and rich PSHRE curriculum whilst tackling some of the above. This has meant an increased focus on, and frequency of, our PSHRE lessons in order to support mental health and wellbeing and give children increased opportunities to focus on relationships through the PSHRE curriculum. This year, post-pandemic, we will be focusing on building resilience across the whole community.
Russell Rights are embedded into the fabric of our school and its behaviour policy. These are: The Right to be Safe, The Right to Learn, The Right to be Included and The Right to be Happy. Through the use of Emotion Coaching, we are constantly revisiting and addressing themes from the PSHRE curriculum in everyday interactions at school.
- New Beginnings_SEAL.pdf
- Going for Goals_SEAL.pdf
- Changes_SEAL.pdf
- Relationships_SEAL.pdf
- Year 2 example milestones (1).pdf
Impact
In order to measure the impact of our PSHRE curriculum we use a range of formative and summative assessment in all lessons such as:
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Questioning
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Pupil, parent, staff voice/questionnaires
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Observations/learning walks/drop ins
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Analysis of our assessment tool linked to milestone documents/National Curriculum/ELGs for each year
Assessment information is collected frequently and analysed as part of our monitoring of teaching and learning cycles. This process provides an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the quality of education in PSHRE as well as indicating areas for development.
Academic outcomes and impact:
For this year we are aware of the following outcomes for PSHRE:
Early Years - Personal, Social and Emotional Development - 95.5% July 2023, 93% Expected (July 2022)
Self-Regulation - 94% July 2023, 93% Expected July 2022
Managing Self - 96% July 2023, 93% Expected July 2022
Building Relationships -97% July 2023, 98% July 2022
|
Year |
% Age related or more July 2023 |
|
1 |
98 |
|
2 |
96 |
|
3 |
92 |
|
4 |
94 |
The average of % assessed is currently 97%ARE+ which is 9% higher than the outcomes for July 2019, pre-Covid.
Other outcomes and impact:
PSHRE has continued to be a high priority over the last few years (perhaps more so than previously) due to the on-going impact of Covid 19.
All children now receive high quality, dedicated lessons over the course of the week as well as the PSHRE curriculum playing a vital role in our whole school curriculum through areas such as; our school vision (challenge, enjoy, respect, succeed), assemblies (SMSC, British values and school values), our Russell Rights and Rules, our behaviour policy and a wide range of other subject areas.
Our in school Pastoral provision has also had a huge impact over these years in enabling us to continue to focus on the physical and emotional welfare of our children. Our Pastoral Support Team have carried out a range of provisions such as Desty Education, Lego Therapy and 1:1 sessions with children from all years of the school. This provision continued during the Lockdown period and was of great value to many of our families who were struggling during these times.
Mindfulness time has now become embedded within many of the classes across the school ensuring that children have time within the school day to focus on their mental wellbeing.
We have 'Growth Mindset' displays in our classrooms in order to support children in developing resilience, independence and confidence. As part of this approach we also carefully consider the language and phrases used with children ensuring we praise effort and not just attainment. We encourage children to change their way of thinking to reflect a more positive outlook such as rather than saying ‘I can’t’ turning this round to ‘This is hard but I can still try my best.’
We use Emotion Coaching with the children which focuses on communication strategies which support young people to self-regulate and manage their stress responses. It is an effective way to nurture mental health and wellbeing in education settings.
We have continued to promote equality of opportunity and diversity effectively through supporting many charities and promoting various initiatives such as ‘5 to Thrive’, ‘Speak out – NSPCC’, ‘CHUMS Shine Bright’, Tokyo Challenge, Walk/Bike to school. These have enabled us to continue to focus on areas such as healthy eating, maintaining an active lifestyle, and keeping physically and mentally healthy.
Through our PSHRE curriculum we have continued to develop our children’s values equipping them to become a positive citizen in a forever changing community.
- Privates are private
- Always remember your body belongs to you
- No means no
- Talk about secrets that upset you
- Speak up, someone can help