John 10:10 ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

This quote from John underpins the aims for our children – for them to live life to the full.

At Hoole St Michael we prepare our children to live life to the full through a bespoke and enriching PSHE curriculum that encompasses our Christian Values,      RE teaching and British Values. 

The PSHE Subject Leaders are Mrs Sarah Cookson 

Our Link Governor is Mrs Liz Bowland

How do we teach PSHE, SMSC, RSE and Emotional Wellbeing?

                                                             

Overall Intent of our School:

Achieving excellence within the light of God.

 

We encourage our children be bold and courageous in their learning, willing to take risks within a supportive, caring Christian ethos. Our Christian Values underpin everything we do at Hoole St Michael. Hoole St Michael children develop confidence, resilience and a thirst for knowledge to prepare them for the future. As a small Christian family, children build strong relationships, learn to work together and support each other through life’s celebrations and challenges. Growth Mindset and Sumo principles teach our children to approach all areas of learning positively. Our children are active learners who thrive when learning outdoors; we provide outdoor learning and Forest School sessions on a weekly basis. Although we are a village school we reach out to develop meaningful partnerships within the local community and wider world. We provide enrichment activities regularly for our children to broaden their experiences and love of learning.

Aims and Intent:

The overarching aim for PSHE education is to provide pupils with:

• Accurate and relevant knowledge.
• Opportunities to turn that knowledge into personal understanding.
• Opportunities to explore, clarify and if necessary, challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities.
• The skills and strategies they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced lives.

Our PSHE education, including statutory Relationships and Health education and non-statutory sex education as recommended by the DfE, provides a framework through which key skills, attributes and knowledge can be developed and applied. This promotes positive behaviour, good mental health and wellbeing, resilience and achievement, helping children to stay safe online, develop healthy and safe relationships, make sense of media messages, challenge extreme views and have the skills and attributes to negotiate and assert themselves now and in the future. At Hoole St Michael, we aim to create a safe and supportive environment where children become active, successful and confident learners. PSHE plays a central role, alongside our Christian Values in building this vision for our school.  As teachers, we recognise the importance of partnerships and reaching out to build strong relationships with others in our community to support our children. With this in mind, we have drawn together this policy in consultation with the views of parents, governors, the church and our children. This has allowed us to create a bespoke and enriching curriculum for our school that reflects the complex and ever-changing world our children will grow up in. It also aims to give our children the coping strategies they need to cope with an increasing range of influences. Building on and complementing the learning that has already started at home, our PSHE curriculum is designed that our children may live their lives to the full, armed with knowledge to guide and support them in making and sustaining successful relationships and keeping healthy.

PSHE education also makes a significant contribution to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development, their behaviour and safety and to their emotional wellbeing.  PSHE education contributes to personal development by helping pupils 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.  Children grow their understanding of themselves, learning how to empathise and work with others. This will help pupils to form and maintain good relationships, develop the essential skills for future employability, enabling them to enjoy and manage their lives.

Programme of Study:

We use the SCARF Coram Education curriculum to support teaching and learning in PSHE lessons and provide a comprehensive scheme of work to support health and wellbeing. It covers all of the DfE’s new statutory requirements for Relationships Education and Health Education, including non-statutory Sex Education, and the PSHE Association’s Programme of Study’s recommended learning opportunities, as well as contributing to different subject areas in the National Curriculum. We follow the six suggested half termly units and adapt the scheme of work where necessary to meet the local circumstances of our school, for example, we may use our local environment as the starting point for aspects of our work. Class teachers follow the suggested six half termly units provided by SCARF for each year. Lessons can be a weekly standalone PSHE lesson or be cross curricular. The lesson plans list the specific learning objectives for each lesson and provide support for how to teach the lessons; class teachers and our PSHE lead often discuss this on an informal basis. Where appropriate, Pupil Voice groups in school will be consulted to help inform future planning and to support the children in their learning.

British Values at Hoole St Michael:

Our British Values are integrated throughout our PSHE curriculum and are embedded into the ethos of our school. We cover our British Values through weekly worships, Picture News stories and during PSHE lessons. We also link our British Values to our Christian Values. Rewards for showing our Christian Values are given during Friday worships with WWJD awards.

The Early Years Foundation Stage

In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE education is about making connections; it’s strongly linked to child-led activities, including play. PSHE is taught through activities that are part of topics, as well as on an individual basis to develop personal skills such as dressing, feeding and toileting. Positive experiences are built through daily opportunities, to share and enjoy a range of different activities. Children are given the opportunity to engage in social activities, as members of a small group or occasionally during whole-school activities. Personal, social and emotional development (PSED) supports children to learn to get on with others and make friends, understand and talk about feelings, learn about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, develop independence and ultimately feel good about themselves.

KS1 and KS2

The SCARF programme divides the year into 6 themed units:

1. Me and My Relationships: includes content on feelings, emotions, conflict resolution and friendships;
2. Valuing Difference: a focus on respectful relationships and British values;
3. Keeping Myself Safe: looking at keeping ourselves healthy and safe
4. Rights and Responsibilities: learning about money, living the wider world and the environment;
5. Being My Best: developing skills in keeping healthy, developing a growth mindset (resilience), goal-setting and achievement;
6. Growing and Changing: finding out about the human body, the changes that take place from birth to old age and being safe.

From September 2021, the school will have a powerful combination of a planned thematic PSHE program, built around a spiral curriculum of recurring themes, designed to:

1. Give pupils the knowledge and develop the self-esteem, confidence and self-awareness to make informed choices and decisions;
2. Encourage and support the development of social skills and social awareness;
3. Enable pupils to make sense of their own personal and social experiences;
4. Promote responsible attitudes towards the maintenance of good physical and mental health, supported by a safe and healthy lifestyle;
5. Enable effective interpersonal relationships and develop a caring attitude towards others;
6. Encourage a caring attitude towards and responsibility for the environment;
7. Help our pupils understand and manage their feelings, build resilience and be independent, curious problem solvers;
8. Understand how society works and the laws, rights and responsibilities involved.

Children are encouraged to engage in activities that promote an understanding of themselves as growing and changing individuals, and as members of a wider community, based on their own first hand experiences. These activities also encourage pupils to understand how their choices and behaviours can affect others. They are encouraged to play and learn alongside – then collaboratively with – their peers. They may use their personal and social skills to develop or extend these activities. Children are also given the opportunity to make choices about their health and environment and are encouraged to develop a caring attitude towards others.

Statutory Changes from 2020:

Relationships Education:

Relationships Education teaches the fundamental building blocks of positive relationships, with particular reference to friendships, family relationships, and relationships with other children and adults. This area of the curriculum is regularly enriched and personalised with our Christian Values, daily worships and SUMO.

This includes taking turns, treating people with kindness and respect, the importance of honesty, truthfulness, permission seeking and giving, and the concept or personal privacy.

The Statutory guidance categorises these areas as

• Families and the people who care for me
• Caring Friendships
• Respectful relationships
• On-line relationships
• Being safe

Health Education:

This refers to both physical health and mental wellbeing.  This teaches children about the characteristics of good physical and mental health to enable them to make good decisions about their own health and well-being and see how these 2 areas are interlinked.

Health education promotes the development of strategies for self-regulation, confidence building, perseverance and resilience within a climate of openness.  Within this area Puberty including menstruation will be covered to ensure children are prepared for the changes that they and their peers will experience.

The statutory guidance categorises these areas as

• Mental wellbeing
• Internet safety and harm
• Physical health and fitness
• healthy eating
• Drug, Alcohol and Tobacco
• Health and prevention
• Basic first aid
• Changing Adolescent body

Emotional Wellbeing

At Hoole St Michael, we aim to promote positive mental health for every member of our school community including, staff, pupils and families.  We pursue this aim using both universal, whole school approaches and specialised, targeted approaches aimed at vulnerable pupils.  To support this we hold regular mental health awareness events such as Hello Yellow Day for Young Minds, Children’s Mental Health Week and run the Confident Me intervention program for targeted individuals. Every teacher has children that they check in with daily as they arrive in school. This is recorded using check in books. Events such as Fit Fortnight pull together ideas of health, fitness and mental wellbeing. Our whole school approach to Growth Mindset and Sumo principles also underpin our approach to mental health.

Dragonfly Mental Health Support:

Use this link to access resources for adults and children when supporting emotional health and wellbeing. You can sign up to weekly newsletters which have a different focus each week to support various areas of need. Better still, it is all free!

www.dragonflyimpact.com/link-tree

My Happy Mind:

We are currently working to become a My Happy Mind School, achieving our Bronze Award. Throughout our school, the children complete journals that teach them about how to cope with life’s challenges and overcome them through a knowledge of how the brain works. The children complete the following modules across the year:

Meet Your Brain

Celebrate

Appreciate

Relate

Engage

Year 6’s journal focuses on using all these skills for transition to high school. My Happy Mind also teaches the children Happy Breathing, to control times of anxiety and nerves.

Key Charity:

Year 5 and 6 work annually with Key Charity, who focus on healthy, balanced relationships. The content of their sessions moves from friendship, to more committed adult relationships, boundaries, gender stereotypes and internet safety.

Action for Happiness:

https://actionforhappiness.org/

Every week, each class focus on one area of this month’s calendar. Each month has a theme that allows children to explore and appreciate different aspects of their life. The overall theme is to appreciate all the small, simple pleasures that life can give us.

Relationship, Sex and Health Education:

At Hoole St Michael we have had a comprehensive PSHE curriculum for many years. The Government have now stated that from September 2020 RSE (Relationships Education) and Health Education will be compulsory in all Primary schools. Parents will still have the opportunity to withdraw their child from any additional Sex Education lessons taught in PSHE if they wish to do so. At Hoole St Michael Primary School our definition of sex education is given below:

Our recent parental consultation that was conducted in October 2023, indicated that parents would like our children to begin talking about puberty and changes to the body at the end of Year 4. We have responded to this and added it to our curriculum for 2021. This will be reviewed again in the summer term of 2025. 

Our curriculum content goes beyond that of the science curriculum and our parent forum (2020) indicated strongly that this should be the case. Parents of Year 5 and 6 children are written to at least two weeks before the curriculum content is shared with the children to explain how each session will run, to share materials, to answer questions and explain the right to withdraw children from the sexual intercourse section of the lesson.

The Scheme of Work is based Coram Life Education SCARF programme which takes account of the Statutory guidance for SRE and PSHE as directed by the PSHE Association. The Scheme of Work is progressive and the content is intended to be age sensitive with the emphasis upon developing levels of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the age group.  Specific cross-curricular links are made with other subjects, with particular reference to the Science curriculum and PSHE framework. During SRE lessons correct scientific terminology for body parts will be used. The SRE programme is intended to be teacher-led with class teachers having responsibility for delivering the SRE curriculum.  Additional opportunities to develop relationships skills, knowledge and attitudes will be provided during the academic year through: cross-curricular links, circle time, external visitors such as the school nurse, themed weeks in school, classroom displays and whole school worships.

This link takes parents to the DFE website where the right to withdraw from sex education at primary school is explained. https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum/other-compulsory-subjects

Whole- School enrichment:

Beyond the planned programme for PSHE education, the curriculum provides children with a variety of experiences that have the potential to promote their personal, social development and economic education.  These include:

• Celebration Assembly
• WWJD awards given weekly to recognise Christian Values in action.
• Pupil Voice groups – School Council, Healthy Schools, Eco Council and 3Cs.
• Class projects linked to wider world projects.
• Circle time where appropriate.
• Sports clubs and participating in inter-school and county tournaments & competitions
• Drama and music activities and productions.
• TARDIS enrichment days – a chance to work with and compete against children from surrounding schools.
• Residential visits and day trips
• Clubs – a variety are held throughout the school year.
• Social and fund-raising events
• Theme days/events
• Mini enterprise projects linked to the economic curriculum.
• Charity events
• Leadership opportunities, for example Playground Leaders, representatives on our School Parliament, Eco-school Council and PE & Sports leaders.

Gallery:

See below for PSHE in action! Examples of caring friendships, respectful relationships, keeping safe and understanding about those who care for us.

Weekly Picture News:

Each week we study a news story from around the world. We link each story back to either our British Values or the United Nations Human Rights Laws. We consider what our opinions are, the views of others and how we would move the situation forward. We are Picture News Award Winners too, raising money for the Australian Bush Fires.

P.S.H.E Themed Days:

Our School Council, along with our Head Boy and Head Girl, help support PSHE events across our school.

We began the year by looking at a text called Flooded. We learnt that by keeping our worries to ourselves or not listening to others, they can quickly become big problems. We always need to share our problems with others and allow them to help us, if we want to chase those worries away.

Hello Yellow – Children’s Mental Health Day 10th October 2022

As the basis for our Hello Yellow celebrations, the School Council led a worship about letting worries overflow and take over how we feel. We all shared this story, of a boy who let his worry make him so afraid that he ran away. We discussed how we are all unique and no matter how we feel, it is important to understand ourselves and share it.

Endeavour  Class – working with Key Charity about boundaries

We have started a four -week unit of work all about the importance of healthy relationships and the personal boundaries that we need to keep our friendships safe.

Anti Bullying Week – we are all unique! Let’s reach out to each other.

Setting new goals for a new year

On our first three days back in school, we looked at setting ourselves new goals and challenges for the school year. We reminded ourselves of how important it was to have a Growth Mindset and use our SUMO approach to overcome new challenges we might meet. Endeavour Class also thought about what a positive classroom should look like.

October 2021 – Young Minds – SUMO Approach.

This year we changed our focus for Hello Yellow day to tie in with our SUMO principles. In worship, we reminded ourselves that it is ok to feel mad, sad or angry but it isn’t ok to stay that way for too long. On our Hello Yellow Day we explored ways to calm our thinking so that we can move on and overcome challenge or disappointment.

P.S.H.E. Teaching Theme of Friendship September 2o21:

 

 

Hello Yellow Day 9th October 2020

 

Anti Bullying Week 16th November 2020

   

1st February 2021 Mental Health Awareness Week

Safer Internet Day 9th February 2021 with a whole school Christian Value of Trust

World Book Day with a Happiness Theme 4th March 2021

Relationships Across the World – Multicultural Week 2021

Each class visited a different country or culture and we all shared the story of Cinderella. This varied from country to country.