PSHE and RSE
At Colne Engaine, our PSHE curriculum positively promotes children’s personal, social and health development and helps them to grow as individuals and as members of families and communities in an ever-changing world, preparing themto be good citizens.
Our core Christian values underpin all that we do – and PSHE is an area where these can be explored more explicitly.
Embedded within our curriculum – and explicitly in PSHE – we support our children to develop emotional intelligence and the ability to articulate their feelings in order to maintain good mental health as well as understanding the importance of their physical health and being healthy. Using a growth mindset strategy, the children become resilient, flexible learners. We believe our PSHE education helps pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to manage life’s challenges and make the most of life’s opportunities.
Through engaging and carefully sequenced and lessons, we equip our children with knowledge and practical skills to live healthy, safe, fulfilled and responsible lives, both now and in the future. Through the explicit teaching of mental wellbeing and emotional health, we promote children’s understanding of their own and others’ emotions and the development of healthy coping strategies. It also contributes to safeguarding, providing pupils with knowledge, understanding and strategies to keep themselves healthy and safe, as well as equipping them to support others who are facing challenges. PSHE also enables them to reflect on British values and to clarify their own set of values, exploring the complex and sometimes conflicting range of attitudes and values they encounter now and in the future.
At Colne Enagine, we use the PSHE association curriculum. Through its three core themes (Health and Wellbeing, Relationships, and Living in the Wider World) the Programme of Study provides lessons which matches our pupils’ needs. It takes into account progression and development of pupils’ understanding of the overarching concepts and development of essential skills. Topic areas are arranged into half-term focuses, which have been adapted to fit in with our wider curriculum too. Our PSHE curriculum will revisit themes, gradually extending thinking, expanding knowledge and developing skills.
PSHE lessons are each week and at appropriate times in the year, there are themed weeks eg British Values. PSHE is an important part of school assemblies and embedded throughout our curriculum.
EYFS
In the Foundation Stage, PSHE and citizenship is taught as an integral part of topic work and is embedded throughout the curriculum. The objectives taught are the Personal, Social and Emotional Development statements from ‘Development Matters in the EYFS’. Where possible, EYFS follow the whole-school topics. They assess using the PSED Early Learning Goals at the end of the year.
PSHE supports many of the principles of safeguarding and includes many strands of SMSC learning and British Values.
Children are provided with learning opportunities across and beyond the curriculum, in specific lessons, circle time, special school projects, awareness days and other activities that enrich pupils’ experiences. There may be occasions where teachers teach PSHE as a result of an issue which has arisen in class. It is also taught through our assemblies and Christian values: Respect, Responsibility, Empathy, Integrity and compassion.
We believe that focusing on developing a ‘Growth Mindset’ in our children will help them to build resilience, independence and confidence; embrace challenge; foster a love of learning; and increase their level of happiness. We do this through the language we use in class, praising children for their efforts, and using language to encourage children to change their way of thinking. This supports both our school and PSHE aims and values, and we focus on Growth Mindsets in all aspects of school life.
RSE
The Education Act 2002 sets out the statutory duties which all schools, including academies, are required to meet: ‘Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which:– promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society -prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’
The DfE released statutory guidance under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which became mandatory in September 2020.Within this guidance, Relationships Education and Health Education is compulsory in all primary schools and the DfE recommends that all primary schools have a sex education programme. Sex Education (apart from aspects of the science curriculum) is not compulsory in primary schools and under current legislation, children can be withdrawn from the part of RSE that falls outside the compulsory elements contained in the Science element of the National Curriculum.
We hope that parents and carers will be confident of the care and consideration that has gone into the RSE developed in our school and will therefore support our programme, but invite anyone who wishes to exercise the right to withdraw to make an appointment to come in to discuss it further, when we can explore any concerns that you have.
Staff and governors have worked together to develop the RSE programme that we deliver to learners across the school. Our RSE policy is available for viewing on our website. At Colne Engaine, we use the very successful Christopher Winters Project to underpin our RSE learning in school. in the link below is an overview of the scheme of work across the school and then a further breakdown by year group. Content is then tailored for each year group within our classes. We want to ensure that all parents and carers are fully and properly informed and we are happy to answer any questions and to share any of the materials that we use.
