Intent

The delivery of the PD & RSHE curriculum is taught following the guidelines provided by the DfE alongside the PD & RSHE Association.

At Hoyland Common Primary School, we are passionately committed to providing our pupils with the best possible start in life. We are driven to ensure that we support pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development and help them to become a resilient responsible and happy individual that will allow them to be able to adapt to the changing world in which we live in. Through teaching PD & RSHE, our pupils gain vital understanding of the world around them and learn how to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society. We believe that all children deserve to succeed, and our ultimate goal is to have nurture-articulate, well informed children and to help them prepare for life’s many opportunities and challenges.

Our Aims:

• To deliver a relevant and ambitious curriculum that supports our pupils to understand the world around them.
• To provide an inclusive/safe environment that equips all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, to unlock their full potential.
• To foster inquisitive minds, providing opportunities for all children to question, choose, evaluate and argue rationally.
• To adequately prepare children for the next stage of their educational journey.
• To maintain high expectations of our pupils’ behaviour and attitudes towards learning in school.
• To establish and maintain positive relationships between everybody in our school community including pupils, staff and parents.
• To maintain a culture of mutual respect and co-operation.

Scheme of work:

At Hoyland Common Primary School we use the ‘PSHE Association’ program of study. The PSHE Association is the national body for Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, leading the effort to ensure that every pupil receives high-quality provision.

Their scheme is split into 3 core themes with 3 topic areas:

Overarching concepts developed through the Programme of Study:

1. Identity (their personal qualities, attitudes, skills, attributes and achievements and privacy, including online)
2. Relationships (including different types and in different settings, including online)
3. A Healthy (including physically, emotionally and socially), balanced lifestyle (including within relationships, work-life, exercise and rest, spending and saving and lifestyle choices)
4. Risk (identification, assessment and how to manage risk, rather than simply the avoidance of risk of self and others) and safety (including behaviour and strategies to employ in different settings, including online and in an increasingly connected world)
5. Diversity and equality (in all its forms, with due regard to the protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act 2010)
6. Rights (including the notion of universal human rights), responsibilities (including fairness and justice) and consent (in different contexts)
7. Change (as something to be managed) and resilience (the skills, strategies and ‘inner resources’ we can draw on when faced with challenging change or circumstance)
8. Power (how it is used and encountered in a variety of contexts including online; how it manifests through behaviors’ including bullying, persuasion, coercion and how it can be challenged or managed through negotiation and ‘win-win’ outcomes)
9. Career (including enterprise, employability and economic understanding)

These will provide a relevant context for pupils to both broaden and deepen their understanding of the key concepts and to develop competence in the essential skills. It is important that out pupils can see how the skills acquired through looking at one issue can be transferrable to other contexts. Our world is rapidly changing and whilst the content of PD &RSHE is vitally important, it can quickly date and we cannot predict the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities that pupils may face in their future.

It is the overarching concepts and essential skills that will enable pupils to manage the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities they will now face in their future.

Planning:

Our PD & RSHE lessons follow the HCAT PD & RSHE curriculum. Through using this, we are able to impart knowledge that best reflects the needs of the children within our school and meets national requirements for personal development. This is based on information gained from the local authority data, class teacher judgement and government guidance on equality, curriculum and RSE. It is pitched in an age-appropriate way and the PD & RSHE knowledge is built upon using ideas that are more mature as our pupils move through school. As a result, the pupils have the awareness of scenarios they may face in daily life at a timely point.

Intent:

Our approach to the PD & RSHE (Relationship, Health & Sex Education) curriculum ensures that it is taught discretely to ensure depth and rigour. The PD & RSHE curriculum has been developed from the National Curriculum and statutory guidance for RSE in primary schools, which ensures it supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development and prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life. We feel it is important that it develops the qualities and attributes pupils need to thrive as individuals, family members and members of society.

At HCPS, the PD & RSHE Curriculum sets out learning opportunities for each key stage, in each core theme, organised under subheadings. These learning opportunities should be used flexibly to plan a programme according to pupils’ development, readiness and needs, and taking into account prior learning, experience and understanding.

Learning from one area may be related and relevant to others. Whilst this framework distinguishes three separate core themes, there will be extensive overlap, so when planning schemes of work, teachers may draw from more than one theme. For example, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) falls within both ‘Health and Wellbeing’ and ‘Relationships’, as sexual health should always be considered as an element of health education but also taught within the context of healthy relationships. Similarly, whilst they are specifically addressed where appropriate, assessing and managing risk and managing life online are integrated throughout all three core themes.

PD & RSHE education contributes to personal development by helping pupils to build their confidence, resilience and self-esteem, and to identify and manage risk, make informed choices and understand what influences their decisions. It enables them to recognise, accept and shape their identities, to understand and accommodate difference and change, to manage emotions and to communicate constructively in a variety of settings. Developing an understanding of themselves, empathy and the ability to work with others will help pupils to form and maintain good relationships, develop the essential skills for future employability and better enjoy and manage their lives.

Implementation

At HCPS, PD & RSHE education addresses both pupils’ current experiences and preparation for their future. The spiral curriculum design allows children to develop knowledge, skills and attributes, where prior learning is revisited, reinforced and extended year on year. This is grounded in the established evidence base for effective practice in PD & RSHE education.

During Key Stages 1 and 2, our PD & RSHE curriculum offers both explicit and implicit learning opportunities and experiences which reflect pupils’ increasing independence and physical and social awareness, as they move through the primary phase. It builds on the skills that pupils started to acquire during the Early Years Foundation stage (EYFS) to develop effective relationships, assume greater personal responsibility and manage personal safety, including online. PD & RSHE education helps pupils to manage the physical and emotional changes at puberty, introduces them to a wider world and enables them to make an active contribution to their communities.

The Accelerated Learning Cycle, based on the work of Alastair Smith, is applied in all lessons. It stems from the idea of a supportive and challenging learning environment. The cycle has active engagement through multi-sensory learning, encourages the demonstrating understanding of learning in a variety of ways and the consolidation of knowing.

We ensure we provide opportunities for children to personally develop by immersing themselves in our three core themes that are at the heart of the our PD & RSHE curriculum offer and a revisited within a spiral curriculum throughout the year:

We provide to the children through developing their understanding of the fundamental British values of: democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance in order to develop responsible, respectful and active citizens who are able to play their part and become actively involved in public life as adults in the 21st Century.

We take particular pride in approaches we utilise with our children, drawing on insights from recent advances in neuroscience, attachment theory and child development to provide a powerful way of working with children and young people that supports optimal social and emotional development. We ensure staff are able to access CPD and we provide support and interventions to children to promote the personal development of all children, particularly those with additional social and emotional needs.

Adaptations:

The teaching and learning of PD & RSHE should appeal to both boys and girls and those of all cultural backgrounds and abilities. Children at our school with special educational needs (SEND) have access to the same PD & RSHE experiences as others. Activities are planned in an age-appropriate way with visual resources, discussion-based lessons and written reflections. This range of teaching approaches enables all children to access PD & RSHE and does not alienate any group in particular. All pupils are encouraged to voice their opinions and ideas when approaching a PD or RSHE topic but have the means through support of staff or the schools worry monster if they are unable to do so. As with all other subjects, the children are supported and challenged in the classroom. At HCPS our curriculum is ambitious for all pupils, including those children with SEND. Curriculum designers and teachers have high expectations of what SEND pupils can achieve and the curriculum is not diluted or unnecessarily reduced for SEND pupils. Every pupil is different and so what works for each pupil varies. Pupil’s individual needs are considered and adaptations are planned to ensure the success of pupils in all subjects. The way that our curriculum is designed ensures that chunks of learning are sequenced in a coherent way to enable all pupils, including those with SEND, to build on prior knowledge. Too much information at once can be a barrier to learning which is one of the reason why we have chosen half termly curriculum drivers. Where pupils are identified with having complex needs it may be appropriate to provide a personalised curriculum which will be based on individual needs and will retain ambition for the pupil. Where working memory is an issue for pupils, including those with SEND, we look to reduce extraneous load as much as possible as well as identifying key information when teaching. This helps pupils to pay attention to the content which they are expected to learn. Adaptations to support individual pupils will be recorded on personal school support plans.

At HCPS we do not assume that pupils with SEND learn content better through practical work as this can cause distraction and cognitive overload rather than increase clarity or accessibility. The curriculum is not narrowed for any pupils. Knowledge is taught and then pupils are provided with opportunities for scientific enquiry to test and investigate the knowledge taught. Pupils specific needs determine the types of adaptations which are required. These adaptations are in how the subject is taught rather than the content pupils are expected to learn. Where appropriate, learning will be chunked into smaller steps and pre learning and consolidation time in planned in to support need. Time is also planned to ensure pupils with SEND are pre taught vocabulary to support their understanding. Adaptations may include supporting pupils to pay attention to key aspects as well as reducing excessive or unhelpful demands on working memory.

Impact

PD & RSHE is largely assessed formatively by the class teacher. By knowing the class well and establishing ground rules early on, the class teacher creates close, positive relationships with the children in which they are able to assess the understanding of the children during each topic. As our lessons are mainly discussion based, reflection questions are completed after a lesson to show progress throughout KS1 and KS2. Teachers will provide written and verbal feedback based on reflections of the children to challenge their thinking and extend them further. In Early Years Foundation Stage, we assess children’s knowledge and understanding according to the relevant aspects of the Development Matters. The information gathered will inform subsequent teaching and learning.

PD & RSHE Knowledge:

It is imperative that the children of Hoyland Common Primary School know how to handle various situations they may encounter through daily life in order for them to grow into responsible, healthy adults who know how to keep themselves safe. As they make their way through school, pupils will build upon knowledge that is appropriate to their age using scenario-based teaching, to help them gain a sense if independence. By the end of KS2, pupils will have been taught a wide range of scenarios, which if encountered, can be handled appropriately alongside the skills they have acquired after identifying the scenario accurately.

PD & RSHE Skills:

PD & RSHE skills are taught from the moment children are born and this continues as they progress through Hoyland Common Primary School. The children learn to develop their ability to assess as well as empathise, which creates a set of skills that can be applied to new knowledge matched to their age. By building upon these skills, our pupils are able to face increasingly challenging scenarios in a variety of settings with maturity, resilience and good judgement.