“A healthy attitude is contagious, but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.”

Tom Stoppard

Intent

At Lordswood School, with our proud traditions, wide horizons and high achievement, we believe that PSHE is a vital part of all children’s education. Our intent is to promote personal development and an understanding of the world and its people through an engaging and value-based curriculum within our school. This allows our children to expand their knowledge, understanding and attitudes to improve their life chances. Developing a sense of self-worth by encouraging them to play a positive role within the school environment and contributing to school life is of paramount importance to us and we aim to give the children opportunities to support each other and those in our community. Our curriculum covers a wide range of topics relating to physical and mental health, wellbeing, safeguarding and healthy relationships and exposes children to the emotional and social aspects of growing up. We believe that encouraging pupils to be open and honest, as well as supporting them to be empathetic to others empowers them to have positive relationships, built on trust and understanding. Through the skills they develop through our carefully implemented curriculum, we give them the tools to become independent, responsible members of society, with a strong understanding of our diverse and ever-changing environment and the ability to recognise and nurture their own mental and physical wellbeing.

Implementation

At Lordswood School, we have adopted the Jigsaw scheme of work, which allows a whole school focus on six individual topics (one per term), adapted and made appropriate for each year group, from EYFS to Year 6. The scheme emphasises emotional literacy, building resilience and nurturing mental and physical health.  The six key topics are as follows:

• Being Me in My World
• Celebrating Difference (including anti-bullying)
• Dreams and Goals
• Healthy Me
• Relationships
• Changing Me (including Sex and Relationship Education)

Each session is planned in accordance with children’s mental, physical and social development and includes mindfulness, giving children the chance to advance their emotional awareness, concentration and focus. New links to metacognition means that lessons are adapted with opportunities for children to recognise and develop their own thinking, deepening their understanding of concepts and giving them the opportunity to be creative and ask questions.

Links to our school wide positive behaviour approach enable the teaching and understanding of our key values of respect, perseverance and honesty throughout the school.

In addition, our PSHE curriculum links closely with the various events we engage in throughout the year, celebrating diversity in society, including Anti-Bullying Week, Black History Month and Pride. These events allow the children to explore topical issues and make links to British Values. Oral Health and the Rethink Periods programs have outside agencies involvement that supply appropriate resources and plans to use when teaching delicate subjects.

Furthermore, the children are given the opportunity to explore relationships and their emotional and social development through the teaching of the Power of Reading texts. The texts chosen offer a variety of storylines and scenarios, which children are able to discuss in depth and empathise with characters.

As a school, children are encouraged to adopt our ‘Habits of Mind’ in order to be: independent, courageous, respectful, have a persevering mindset and be proud of achievements. PSHE lessons provide opportunities for the children to develop this further and put into practice our value of the month.

Self-assessment within discrete lessons allows children to recognise their own progress and builds on their skills and knowledge over time. Learning objectives linked closely to our skills progression statements allow teachers to be mindful of assessment within lessons and help with planning to build on prior learning through the use of a Learning Journey. In order to be confident in the impact of PSHE across the whole school community, regular evaluations ensure coverage of skills and evidence gathering through written activities and pupil voice.

PSHE is delivered through our immersive curriculum with the addition of skills being revisited through other curriculum areas and our class reading text.  We take pride in our skills-based curriculum and this is assessed at the end of each unit and recorded on Target Tracker. Children’s understanding is gathered through pupil voice and the PSHE drive team.  The school ministries have regular meetings to organise and run special events throughout the year. We celebrate achievements by posting work on our social media sites and updating the PSHE display. The PSHE board shows a range of career fields for future employment as well as links to our metacognition scheme by having a thinking frame to enable pupils to comment on their own learning.

Impact

Before the children leave Lordswood School they will:

• Understand and demonstrate all our school values
• Show kindness and respect to themselves and others
• Be courageous in their learning and challenge themselves to try new things
• Persevere when tasks are difficult both inside and outside of the classroom
• Take responsibility for their actions
• Have a good understanding of how to nurture their physical and mental health and develop good strategies for staying safe and well
• Be able to build and maintain positive relationships with others based on trust and understanding
• Appreciate what it means to be a positive member of a diverse, multicultural society
• Demonstrate and apply the British Values of Democracy, Tolerance, Mutual Respect, Rule of Law and Liberty
• Be equipped to learn without limits
• Be empowered to have the confidence to lead aspects of our school life.