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PSHE at WJPS

                                               The PSHE Curriculum at West Jesmond

                                        Curiosity, Confidence, Creativity and Community

PSHE Curriculum Aims

The ultimate goal is for our children to become confident and knowledgeable in their understanding to lead healthy, independent lives now and in the future. We promote children’s personal and social development, including their health and well-being. This in turn will enable them to be creative, inquisitive, compassionate, and successful young people, though a curriculum that is rich, exciting, innovative and varied.

As our children progress through school, their understanding of the world is acquired by:

  • Knowing what constitutes a healthy lifestyle.
  • Demonstrating how to create effective relationships and caring attitudes towards others.
  • Promoting the respect of differences between people.
  • Catering for opportunities to develop confidence and self-awareness for making choices and decisions.
  • Enabling understanding of and the management of feelings through self-awareness.
  • Explaining how society works and the rights and responsibilities involved to encourage and support the development of social skills and social awareness.
  • Preparing children at West Jesmond with opportunities, responsibilities and experiences for later life.
  • Supporting children in becoming independent and responsible members of the school and wider community.

Our curriculum is accessible to all learners through lessons that match their ability and are scaffolded where necessary. This allows pupils to leave West Jesmond with the qualities and attributes needed to thrive and be confident to participate and take a lead role in society.

Implementation

The PSHE curriculum at West Jesmond follows the statutory guidance for Health and Relationships Education. Our West Jesmond Overviews have been carefully tailored (using PSHE Association’s Programme of Study) to set out learning opportunities for each year group. For example, in Year 1, a unit based on health, allows children to explore who helps us stay healthy and what constitutes to a varied and balanced diet. Our WJPS Overview is structured around an overarching question for each half-term based on the core themes – Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World. The suggested objectives and resources are provided to support teaching and learning. These themes are revisited by children throughout their school journey and teaching progresses according to the age and needs of pupils. For example, in KS1, children will learn what rules are, why they are needed and the different situations that require different rules. As they progress to KS2, they learn to recognise reasons for rules and laws and the consequences of not adhering to these. PSHE teaching is ongoing, which means that teachers are very proactive in seeking learning opportunities throughout the school day, as well as reactive to any issues that may arise and that require teaching/support for children. We also work in partnership with the Public Health Team to support and deliver a variety of health activities to supplement the teaching provision. At the end of each topic, children answer a Big Question and are challenged to reflect on how their learning has impacted on their thinking.

Learning in PSHE complements learning in a variety of areas of the curriculum, such as, R.E, Computing, Citizenship and Science. Teachers are encouraged to make links to PSHE when teaching relevant subjects as mentioned in their year group overview. PSHE values may also be introduced in and explored within both whole school and Key Stage assemblies. Beyond lessons, children are encouraged to take part in a range of practical activities to promote active citizenship, e.g. charity fund-raising; the planning of special events at school; making class rules; school council meetings; and by taking on roles of responsibility for themselves, for others and for the school. These will be dependent on core topics within each year and will be at the discretion of year groups.

 What you will see in a West Jesmond PSHE Lesson

  • Lessons are relevant to the children, their life and the wider world.
  • Teaching covers the breath of PSHE, including the statutory changes to Relationships Education.
  • Children’s prior learning and growing understanding is revisited and reinforced using their class floor book.
  • High-quality questioning to assess children’s prior knowledge, during and throughout a unit of work.
  • Lessons are well-structured, engaging and stimulating.
  • An emphasis on correct and ambitious vocabulary.
  • High-quality verbal feedback is provided throughout lessons – in line with the Year group overviews.
  • It is expected that during PSHE lessons, an emphasis will be placed on active learning through planned discussions, circle-time, investigations, stories, role-play activities, puppets, group-work and problem-solving.
  • Sequenced lessons which deepen understanding and are meaningful in their delivery and impact.
  • Opportunities for cross-curriculum links and enrichment activities.
  • Achievement and Inclusion for all: All activities are planned, scaffolded and adapted where needed to ensure every child at West Jesmond can achieve highly in PSHE. This may include adapted resources, adult support and awareness of physical/sensory needs.

Impact

Progress in our curriculum is measured by children knowing more and remembering more. In PSHE education, assessment is central to effective teaching and learning as it is in any other subject. A variety of activities may be used to assess children’s prior existing knowledge at the beginning of a unit of work in order to check understanding, attributes, skills, strategies, beliefs and attitudes, for example, questioning, mind maps, cards sort, hot seating etc. Often these activities are repeated at the end of a unit of work to demonstrate the progress children have made. Staff use assessment tools to understand where pupils’ learning is in relation to our key stage milestones. Class teachers will also gather evidence of any PSHE learning that takes place in a class floor book and this can be used by the PSHE lead to assist children in their discussions. Pupils have opportunities to reflect on their learning throughout the unit of work using the class floor book as a reference point. Our PSHE Leads monitor progress for all children through our West Jesmond Deep Dives and takes actions to ensure every child achieves highly in PSHE.