PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)

We follow the Cambridgeshire PSHE Scheme of work. 
Cambridgeshire PSHE Service - Introduction

Our Intent

At Gladstone, we want our children to experience life in all its fullness and have a hope for their future. It is essential, therefore, that our children have a deep understanding of themselves, our shared values, their place and responsibilities within society and how best to navigate the challenges of the modern world. By studying PSHE, the children are able to explore each of these core concepts within the safety of a nurturing classroom environment. Our PSHE curriculum is designed to equip children with the skills to thrive under the pressures and demands they may face within their lives for we can only prepare our children for the road before them. In order to support our children with their development as a child and into their future, our PSHE curriculum encourages the children to respect and value themselves as special and unique; to appreciate and celebrate others and build healthy relationships with them and to respect the world and make positive change within it as a global citizen. Our curriculum ensures that children experience a relevant and engaging programme of study which allows the children to reflect upon their own experiences as well as explore and celebrate those of others. Our PSHE curriculum is planned and delivered to ignite the key skills of reciprocity, resourcefulness, resilience, curiosity and reflectiveness and teaches these skills intertwined with knowledge about the world which will ensure that our children go on to be independent, inquisitive citizens of the world who are able to use the skills and knowledge they have learnt within their learning journey at Gladstone, to positively impact upon the world.

Implementation

PSHE is at the heart of what we do at Gladstone—develop the whole child. Following the Gladstone school rules and learning behaviours, a safe, caring and positive classroom environment is established to allow for relationships to be modelled and nurtured. Within this respectful environment, the children are taught about relationships, healthy and safer lifestyles, citizenship and economic wellbeing using a carefully sequenced programme which allows children to make links between and build upon prior knowledge. Within their timetabled PSHE session, teachers ensure that the needs of their children are met by adapting the resources provided within the Cambridgeshire Personal Development Programme which we subscribe to.

To deepen the children’s understanding of key concepts such as ‘positive relationships’ children are facilitated to ask and answer questions about the concept and to discuss and debate their ideas using scenarios from school or from the wider world. This ensures that children understand the core purpose of PSHE— to give children the best chance to lead happy, healthy lives and to be responsible, active citizens.

Within PSHE, we make use of a range of high quality resources including resources from UNICEF in relation to the UN convention of the rights of the child. We ensure that our PSHE curriculum is taught in a way which creates global citizens who respect and support the rights of others. We encourage and organise for outside agencies, such as the NSPCC, Kick Ash and the Life Education Bus, to visit our school and deliver workshops.

Impact

We know that we have been successful in delivering upon our curriculum intent in PSHE, when children are able to articulate their understanding about themselves, their relationships and their rights and responsibilities both at school and in the wider world. We monitor our PSHE curriculum both in terms of learning outcomes and through the development of the whole child. We know that our PSHE curriculum has been successful when we know that children feel safe, valued and respected at school and demonstrate this through their words and actions.

Classroom practitioners monitor the children’s understanding of these concepts, their attitudes and their development of life skills through facilitating discussion and practical opportunities both within and outside the classroom. Practitioners monitor these discussions to understand and challenge the children’s depth of understanding and record their observations on a responsive planning document which enables them to track the children’s development.

At Gladstone, we recognise that it is through these concept exploration discussions, that deep learning occurs. We demonstrate the value that these discussions have upon the children’s learning journey in PSHE by recording these learning opportunities within our PSHE books. Children are able to use these books as a tool to reflect their learning journey. They can also access them to aid them in retrieval activities - one of the ways in which classroom practitioners reflect upon the success of the PSHE curriculum.

Practitioners use a range of formative assessment to evaluate the impact of the curriculum and address planning development needs accordingly.

EYFS Framework

Year 1 and 2 Framework

Year 3 and 4 Framework

Year 5 and 6 Framework

For information on Relationship Education and Health Education at Gladstone Primary Academy please click here