Personal Social Health Education (PSHE)

Education that prepares for life today, and tomorrow.

Intent

In PSHE, children are given the tools with which to build lasting and meaningful relationships for life, to stay safe and also to make good decisions about their health and wellbeing. Our school vision and values form the basis of our entire curriculum at St. Anne’s which means that the personal development of our pupils’ is a clear strength of our school.

Our PSHE lessons inspire our pupils. Throughout their learning children are encouraged to be inquisitive and ask their own questions.
We empower our children with the knowledge and vocabulary they need to stay safe and maintain life-long personal boundaries, and the understanding to respect the boundaries of others.
In PSHE we expose children to potential careers and future hobbies. We want our children to leave with clear aspirations for their future and confident in the practical life skills they have learned.
We provide a variety of enrichment activities in PSHE – including visitors, experience days and residentials.

PSHE provides children with practical opportunities to apply the St Anne’s Learning Powers (Resilience, Perseverance, Resourcefulness and Co-operation) and adopt a positive mindset.
Through the teaching of subject specific technical vocabulary and opportunities to debate, children are able to articulate their knowledge and understanding of a range of concepts.
Many lessons have an oracy focus and are conducted with talk in mind. The children are often given sentence stems so they can communicate their ideas clearly. Children are encouraged to respectfully challenge other’s views through whole class debates.

Children are inspired to make a difference within their own school and learn the importance of democracy when standing for positions within school. We challenge children to make care and make a difference within their local community and beyond as courageous advocates.
Children learn that care and respect being central to loving, healthy relationships. Children learn how to make and maintain caring friendships whilst learning about setting boundaries, both physical and personal, with others, how to identify and articulate feelings of unsafety around peers and adults. Children learn the importance of respecting and caring for others, the negative impact of stereotypes and how to identify and prevent different types of bullying.

Children will learn respect their own mental wellbeing (and the wellbeing of others). They learn to identify and discuss their emotions and how to judge whether their reactions are appropriate and proportionate. They learn self-care and self-regulation techniques and identify places they can seek support.
Children will learn to care for their physical wellbeing so they can lead health lives.
Our children learn how to become stewards of God’s earth.
Our PSHE curriculum is accessible to all our pupils due to the adaptations that we make (including targeted interventions). We celebrate our similarities and differences, including the different ways we learn and communicate with each other.

Implementation

Our scheme of work for Key Stage One and Key Stage Two, Jigsaw, is carefully planned to ensure progression through six main units (Being Me in My World; Celebrating Differences; Dreams and Goals; Healthy Me; Relationships and Changing Me) building upon the knowledge and skills gained in the previous year group and preparing for the next year.

In EYFS, PSHE is taught as part of their personal, social and emotional development (a prime area of learning). Our children follow the scheme ‘Think Equal’. Think Equal is a curriculum-based programme that support social and emotional development in the early years. It is rooted in mental health and social justice and aims to build a strong foundation for individual and societal progress. The programme is fully aligned with the early years foundation stage (EYFS) curriculum and teaches 25 skills and competencies to help children through their Early Childhood Education.

Our pupils are given opportunities in PSHE lessons (Jigsaw) and wider planned opportunities (e.g. Collective Worship, Zones of Regulation, Young Leaders Awards) to develop confidence, self-motivation, social skills and an understanding of their rights and responsibilities within our diverse society.

We encourage all our pupils to play a positive role in contributing to school life through our Pupil Parliament, Ethos Committee, STEM Ambassadors, Anti-Bullying Ambassadors and Eco Committee are elected yearly. This helps to ensure the voice of our children is heard.

We also teach PSHE through other subjects (such as: Computing, RE, History, Geography and Science) and through our school culture: our vision and values; St. Anne’s learning powers and our family environment. Children are taught how to be safe online and parents are supported to help their children remain safe online.

We engage with outside agencies and visitors to further develop our pupil’s life skills; for example, Year 6 attend crucial crew sessions and complete Bikeability, Year 1 and 2 have visits from the fire brigade and we have worked with organisations such as the NSPCC; Trussell Trust Food Bank.

The PSHE leader supports teachers and monitors standards by reviewing planning of units, talking to children with the PSHE floor books, staff feedback and observing lessons.

Impact

Our Eco Warriors achieved the Green Flag Award in Summer 2022 and Summer 2023 – Living out our value of caring for God’s world.

A number of cohorts have now successfully completed the Young Leaders’ Award – demonstrating the impact that their work has within their local community.

Children at St. Anne’s make good behaviour choices and are kind and empathetic to their peers. They respect each other’s differences and can articulate what makes them unique.

Children can talk confidently about their emotions.

Children feel safe in school and know where they can seek help.

Children can identify ways to stay healthy, including around food choices, physical fitness and mental wellbeing.

Children are responsible when using the internet and know how to keep safe.