PSHE at Firs

Ready For Learning and Ready For Life.

Firs Primary School is committed to ensuring all children are able to access a knowledge-rich, broad and balanced curriculum with teaching and learning being at the heart of the delivery of the curriculum. It aims to be bold, free thinking and rigorous; underpinned by a commitment to the school values, ensuring equity, learner empowerment and encouraging social mobility.  An essential element of our knowledge rich curriculum is the development of a broad and rich vocabulary, and the ambitious and explicit teaching of this.  A renewed focus on speech and language is a key driver of the revised curriculum and this is supported by the Voice21 scheme to develop Oracy in the classroom.

PSHE

Live: Children will have the knowledge and understanding to go into their next stage of life developing the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future.

Love: Children will develop a love for being healthy and in respectful relationships that will last a lifetime.

Learn: Children will learn how to stay healthy, safe and prepared for life and work.

Aims of the PSHE curriculum:

At Firs Primary School, we use the PSHE Association programmes of study which covers the statutory guidance across three core themes; Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World. The aim of the PSHE curriculum is to provide learning opportunities for each key stage across the 3 core themes. It addresses their current experiences and provides preparation for their future.

Progression in the PSHE curriculum:

The programmes of study provide a spiral curriculum to develop knowledge, skills and attributes, revisiting, reinforcing and extending prior learning year on year. It builds on skills developed during EYFS, to develop effective relationships, take on greater personal responsibility and manage personal safety, including online. It introduces them to the wider world and how they can contribute to their communities.

Explicit knowledge in the PSHE curriculum:

At Firs we use the PSHE Association Programme builders to support out curriculum. These suggest content to be covered for each year group for each half term. Each term or half term there is an overarching question to lead the study.

In Key stage 1 they begin with ‘What?’ and ‘Who?’ questions building throughout Key stage 2 into ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ questions.

The three core themes Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World are fully covered and colour coded throughout the key stages. The teaching builds according to age and needs of the pupils with developmentally appropriate learning objectives linked to each key question.

By the end of primary school pupils should know about:

Physical Health and Mental Wellbeing

• Mental wellbeing
• Internet safety and harms
• Physical health and fitness
• Healthy eating
• Drugs, alcohol and tobacco
• Health and prevention
• Basic first aid
• Changing adolescent body

Relationships

• Families and people who care for me
• Caring friendships
• Respectful relationships
• Online relationships
• Being safe

Living in the Wider World

• Shared responsibilities
• Communities
• Media literacy and  Digital resilience
• Economic wellbeing – Money
• Economic wellbeing- Aspirations. Work and careers

Relationships and Health Education, sometimes referred to as RSE, was subject to a lenghty parent consultation in September 2020. Each year, we deliver an explanatory presentation to parents. You can find a copy of the presentation at the bottom of this page.

Curriculum organisation of the PSHE curriculum:

PSHE is taught once a week (an hour) in Key stage 1 and Key stage 2.  PSHE education is not a discrete curriculum subject within the statutory EYFS framework, but children explore the foundations of PSHE through the EYFS framework areas of Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional development and Understanding the World. Learning opportunities across these areas are made through daily play based activities, role play and reflective discussion.

Reading, writing and talking in the PSHE curriculum:

The question based model exposes the children to a range of experiences and leads to extensive discussions.

Each unit exposes children to a wide range of ambitious, subject-specific vocabulary. Vocabulary is introduced, revisited and reinforced over time, so that children become confident and articulate as they progress throughout the curriculum.

The children are encouraged to use speaking listening and writing skills to explore and share their knowledge. Role play scenarios encourage children to explore their understanding and thinking, develop their confidence and use of language.

Delivery of the PSHE curriculum:

At Firs our vision for Teaching and Learning is rooted in high expectations and an unconditional belief that every child can achieve and succeed according to their unique abilities. We believe in challenge, engagement and keep learning (mastery). This is promoted through careful curriculum planning, modelled examples of practice and the use of responsive teaching through planned and purposeful checking for understanding. A positive and stimulating learning environment ensure behaviour for learning is central to our vision, as we strive for a warm and productive classroom climate. We carefully plan assessment to ensure we develop retrieval and schema to build on learning and make connections between subjects. Finally, we explicitly plan for the delivery of Reading, Talking and Vocabulary in all subjects and this underpins our approach to teaching and learning at Firs.

Firs Foundation of Effective Practice ensures we have a whole school approach to delivering our curriculum vision. The six Foundations provide staff with a learning model to ensure we deliver lessons based on research evidence, the six Foundations we model our Teaching and Learning on:

Foundation 1: Culture and Climate.

Foundation 2: Checking For Understanding.

Foundation 3: Explaining and Modelling.

Foundation 4: Reading, Talking and Vocabulary.

Foundation 5: Curriculum Planning.

Foundation 6: Retrieval and Schema building.

In summary the impact of a powerful knowledge PSHE curriculum at Firs will have the following features:

• Subject driven.
• Knowledge-rich.
• Systematic.
• Progressive.
• Imaginative and engaging.
• Provides pupils with knowledge that is outside of their lived experience.
• Ensure children are Ready For Learning and Ready For Life.