PHSE Rationale

"PSHE lessons help me understand how to be a good friend and make the right choices."

"I like PSHE because we learn about feelings and how to help each other."

"PSHE teaches me how to stay safe and who I can talk to if I'm worried."

Intent | What and why do we teach what we teach?

At Hooe, we aim to provide an education that provides children with opportunities to explore and develop:

·  Their own values and beliefs

·  Spiritual awareness

·  High standards of personal behaviour

·  A positive and caring attitude towards other people

·  An understanding and respect for their and others social and cultural traditions

• An appreciation of the diversity and richness of cultures and the world around them.

We want our pupils to be happy and confident in their own skin. PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) education is a crucial part of a child’s education. It gives children access to critical information about themselves and the many facets of the diverse world around them.

At Hooe School we provide a specifically tailored curriculum that is both broad and balanced, and meets the unique context of our school. We aim to promote children’s knowledge, self-esteem, emotional wellbeing and resilience, to help them to form and maintain worthwhile and positive relationships.

Children will be taught to have respect for themselves, and for others, within our local, national and global communities. We aim to develop key character skills, including decision making, informed risk taking, good communication, and self-regulation strategies.

We encourage honesty and respect in all relationships, and nurture sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. We aim to enable children to develop a deepening knowledge of their health and wellbeing, including their mental and physical health. We aim to equip children and young people with information, skills and values to understand and to be able to cope with the physical and emotional changes that happen during puberty.

The information provided will be relevant and appropriate to the age and maturity of pupils. At Hooe, we aim to prepare pupils adequately for adult life: its decisions, responsibilities, experiences and opportunities, and to allow pupils to develop fully as emotionally mature human beings.

The Jigsaw Programme for PSHE provides all children, regardless of their background, with:

•Entitlement - All pupils have the right to learn what is in the Jigsaw Curriculum, and schools have a duty to ensure that all pupils are taught the whole of it.

•Coherence - Our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that powerful knowledge builds term by term and year by year. We make meaningful connections within subjects and between subjects.

•Mastery - We ensure that foundational knowledge, skills and concepts are secure before moving on. Pupils revisit prior learning and apply their understanding in new contexts.

•Adaptability - The core content – the ‘what’ – of the curriculum is stable, but we will bring it to life in our own local context, and the teachers will adapt lessons – the ‘how’ – to meet the needs of each class.

•Representation - All pupils see themselves in our curriculum, and our curriculum takes all pupils beyond their immediate experience.

•Education with character - Our curriculum - which includes the taught subject timetable as well as spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, our co-curricular provision and the ethos and ‘hidden curriculum’ of the school – is intended to spark curiosity and to nourish both the head and the heart.

Implementation | How and when do we teach what we teach?

At Hooe, teachers have a positive attitude towards the teaching of PSHE in their classrooms. Learning is never capped but reinforces an ethos that all children are capable of achieving high standards embedded in quality first teaching. 

At Hooe, we use the Jigsaw programme to structure our PSHE education scheme of work. Lessons are delivered weekly or as a block of lessons in some cases (Changing Me unit). This mindful approach to PSHE covers all statutory aspects of Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) along with Health Education. Whilst our two-year rolling programme identifies a broad range of important issues that pupils should learn about, we feel it is essential that our children’s experience of PSHE education is not simply a series of ‘one-off’, disconnected sessions each on a different topic and focusing only on factual content.  We therefore aim to provide a cohesive, progressive PSHE curriculum which prepares our children to become happy, well-rounded and successful citizens in today’s society.

PSHE lessons are taught in the classroom by each class’s teachers and teaching assistants. The lessons take place every week and are an important and celebrated part of the weekly timetable. These lessons are tailored and personalised to address specific needs within classes and supplement whole school events such as Anti-bullying Week, World Mental Health Day, Number Day, National Sports Week and E-safety Day etc..

The concepts of each term are introduced to the whole school through a ‘Cultural Capital’ assembly, further promoting the importance of Jigsaw PSHE lessons to the whole school community. The scheme encapsulates Modern British Values education and builds progressively to prepare our children to be resilient in our ever-changing world. Speakers and organisations are frequently invited in to supplement the children’s experiences, e.g. road safety awareness, animal education workers, local police officers, CAP UK Project, to name but a few. At the forefront of our school development team is the School Council. Elected democratically by their peers, they meet regularly to discuss and drive forward change and improvements to the school and the curriculum.

At Hooe, due to mixed age classes, PSHE is taught each term as part of a two-year rolling programme. In Cycle A, Units from Years 1, 3 & 5 will be followed whilst in Cycle B, Units from Years 2, 4 & 6 will be taught. We have developed a progression of skills with each year group, which enables pupils to build on and develop their knowledge and skills each year. Cross-curricular links are planned for, with other subjects such as Maths, Science and Computing being incorporated into PSHE lessons and the curriculum.

A variety of new vocabulary are integral and are taught and developed throughout the children’s school career. Teachers ensure that they continually build upon these foundations. Questioning is always constructive and effective; helping children to question their everyday understanding of the relationships they experience and the communities to which they belong.

High quality collaborations with specialist visitors support the children’s PSHE learning which compliment, consolidate and extend the children’s knowledge.

PSHE education is provided to all children within our school. Children with SEND are supported to access health, relationships and sex education through high-quality, teacher-led quality first teaching, following the guidance of the SEND code of practice. Teaching is differentiated and personalised to suit their individual context, where required.

Impact | How do we assess the impact of what we teach via pupil outcomes?

The impact of a good PSHE education cannot be understated. Quite simply, it forms the preparation for adult life, enabling a child to understand and face the challenges, complexities and questions that arise in a diverse and ever-changing world. Impact can be measured in a variety of ways. At Hooe, we recognise and celebrate the importance of the child’s voice, and their individual experience of PSHE education. Pupil voice, book looks (floor books) and learning walks will form the heart of how we measure the impact of our teaching. The skills that children at Hooe will develop will include, but are not limited to:

• An understanding of their inherent, indivisible, inalienable unconditional and universal rights, and how these rights can and should be protected
• An understanding of our diverse and complex world, and an empathy and respect for the rights of all individuals
• Positive and constructive communication, with highly developed oracy skills
• Resilience and self-regulation, and a keen understanding of their own health and wellbeing, especially supporting their mental and emotional development
• Risk management and balanced decision making, within the context of a changing and challenging world These skills are transferable to all other areas of the curriculum, and will help children to understand these areas in new ways.

Additionally, these ‘soft skills’ form the basis of a child’s wider development and experience. The ability to recognise and develop positive relationships, the reinforcement of positive mental and physical health, understanding how their body will change and grow, the development of respect and tolerance for all, an understanding of society and the role of the individual in a community – these are the skills that will equip our children for life.

Within the context of PSHE, the following methods of assessment are used:

Assessment for learning is continuous throughout the planning, teaching and learning cycle underpinning teaching and learning in PSHE.  Planning identifies key vocabulary and assessment questions, these are continually revisited in order to build upon previous learning. Children are assessed on a regular basis across the school, using a variety of methods:

Explore and Question - pupils will be challenged to demonstrate an ability to use their knowledge through rich, varied questioning related to each unit of study. Pupils should be able to use an extensive vocabulary to communicate their ideas and raise questions for further exploration.

Recall knowledge: Pupils will demonstrate an ability to recall facts and information about the different learning studied. The assessment of pupils’ knowledge in these areas will be used to inform future lessons so that learning is proactive rather than reactive, in dealing with issues as they arise across the school. Those children requiring additional practice, pre-teaching or other forms of intervention will be identified and supported.

Communicate: Teachers will provide pupils with opportunities to articulate what they have learnt, express their own views, demonstrate their depth of understanding and make connections with other curriculum areas. Children’s outcomes can be found throughout Dojo (Early Years) and other Subject books, showing quality learning of PSHE in a wide variety of contexts. Children demonstrate mature collaborative skills to express and discuss their ideas with one another. Attainment is reported to parents in the child’s annual report.