PSHE  Curriculum Statement

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." -Benjamin Franklin

Pupils learn best in PSHE when the subject area is relevant to them. We use active, inclusive, needs led and inspiring lessons to teach PSHE. Learning is led through the scheme ‘You, me and PSHE’ and a clearly planned series of school wide topic areas. These are underpinned by the development of knowledge, attributes, attitudes and skills.

• Each PSHE strand clearly sets out what knowledge, attributes, attitudes and skills pupils are expected to understand and know at the end of the unit of teaching. It also specifies vocabulary pupils must develop as closing the language gap is key to addressing the social disadvantage many of our children face. (“Vocabulary size is related to academic success and schooling is crucial for increasing the breadth of pupils’ vocabulary” Clive Davies OBE Focus Education)

• To ensure a broad and balanced curriculum, PSHE is a clearly planned, spiral curriculum which includes real life experiences to provide meaningful links wherever possible.

• Some PSHE lessons use texts to enhance the children’s understanding.

• Learning is underpinned by clear learning intentions.  Pupils will develop the essential knowledge and skills needed to be a responsible adult and human being as they move from Y1 to Y6.

• In order for PSHE learning to be meaningful and provide real experiences for children, we use a variety of visitors or school based events (R.N.L.I., NSPCC, St.John Ambulance, Hope drama group and D:Side). We also group children into vertical ‘coaching’ groups once a week in Phase 2 for specific mental health/PSHE/wider world based sessions.

• Each year group follows the PSHE statutory guidance as we are a DfE ‘Early Adopters’ school.

Personal Social Health Economic education at Grange Farm

At Grange Farm, we believe that PSHE is an all day every day subject. It underpins our whole school ethos and is embedded in everything we do as a class and as a whole school.

We study eight key areas in PSHE lessons:

Physical health and well being – including healthy eating and prevention of illnesses

Keeping safe and managing risk – including online safety

Identity, society and equality

Drug, alcohol and tobacco education

Mental health and well being

Financial capability and well being

Basic first aid

Relationships and Sex education – including changing adolescent bodies

Our whole school ethos covers personal attributes which we discuss regularly and reward explicitly  – for example verbally, by giving ethos tokens and in celebration assemblies. It is these attributes which make our children who they are and the adults they become.

Our PSHE lessons are needs led for the children we are teaching. Our planned curriculum is a spiral curriculum to allow children to revisit different areas and recap ideas on a frequent basis. Each area taught has a pre assessment – to see what the children already know – and a post assessment to see what the children have learnt. Each unit of work provides the children with real life experiences. For example, saying no to a cigarette, this is something that they may have to do. They may need to draw upon several strategies: avoidance, distraction, perseverance, strength.

Each unit covered must have parts for children to learn skills, knowledge and personal attributes.

A good PSHE lesson in our school is: inclusive, active, needs led, thinking is challenged, inspiring.

Coaching

Coaching takes place every week. It is a valuable time where the children are allocated small groups led by the different adults across school. This allows the children to have another trusted adult in their lives. The groups stay constant each week and over the years. As the children transition from one year group to the next, their group loses the older children who move to high school and gain younger children who move into the phase.

Each week the groups have a stimulus (video clip, question, piece of text, photograph) and discuss it in the secure setting of their group. This helps to embed our Social Emotional Areas of Learning as well as improve the children’s confidence spoken language and questioning skills. This is an incredibly positive and thoroughly enjoyable  time of the week for all!