What does Personal, Social, Health Education & Sex and Relationships Education look like at South Wonston?

Intent

At South Wonston Primary School, we believe that a child's mental well-being is the foundation for a successful education. We are dedicated to creating a nurturing and supportive environment where every child feels secure, understood, and prepared to learn. Our goal is to equip our students with the skills and strategies they need to understand and manage their emotions, ensuring they are always at their brain best and ready to embrace new challenges.

We believe the PSHE curriculum is important to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and attributes they need to become a well-rounded, happy and considerate member of their communities. Our aim is for every staff member and child to strive for the personal best to make our community proud and PSHE teaching and learning supports this. We aim to provide strategies to help children be independent and responsible members of the school as well as develop their self-confidence and self-esteem. This is to ensure the children have the skills to make informed choices regarding personal and social issues, including keeping themselves safe and healthy. Through providing the children with PSHE lessons, we aim for them to be able to express and manage their feelings appropriately, socialise well with others and deal effectively with new challenges and situations.  

To ensure progression and a spiral curriculum, we use myHappymind, the mindful approach to PSHE, as our chosen teaching and learning programme and tailor it to the children’s needs. myHappymind is a whole-school progressive approach which explores children’s relationships, life skills, online safety, financial education and careers.

myHappymind also supports children with their positive mental wellbeing. It helps children understand how their brains work and creates a culture that helps to build children's resilience, confidence, and self-esteem. myHappymind also teaches the children how to self-regulate and manage their emotions in stressful times, allowing them to be their ‘brain best’!

The aim is to support children to feel a strong sense of belonging and community and in children’s lives outside of school. The myHappymind programme offers us a comprehensive, carefully thought-through scheme of work which brings consistency and progression to our children’s learning in this vital curriculum area.

Aims of the Personal, Social, Health Education & Sex and Relationships Education

The national curriculum for PSHE aims to ensure that schools teach a broad and balanced curriculum that:

• promotes the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school

• prepares pupils at school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life

• promotes British values.

myHappymind covers all areas of PSHE for the primary phase, including statutory Relationships and Health Education. See below the learning theme of each of the four units which are taught across the school; the learning deepens and broadens every year.

myHappyworld – exploring the world around them

myHappybody – teaching around staying healthy and looking after your body

myHappyrelationships – lessons around different relationships

myHappymind – teaching of the brain, their strengths and appreciating things and people around you.

Implementation

Whole School Approach

At South Wonston Primary School, PSHE is taught as a whole school approach, focusing on an identified theme each half-term. Lessons are taught twice-weekly, and each unit aims to activate and build upon prior learning, including EYFS, to ensure better cognition and retention.

Assemblies support the whole school approach by sharing key PSHE themes and celebrating other areas of the curriculum, which are explored in age-appropriate ways. At South Wonston Primary School, puberty is taught as a statutory requirement of Health Education and covered by our ‘Changing Me’ unit. We conclude that sex education refers to Human Reproduction, and therefore inform parents of their right to request their child be withdrawn from the PSHE lessons that explicitly teach this, i.e. the Changing Me unit, e.g. Year 4, Lesson 2 (Having a baby), Year 5, Lesson 4 (Conception) Year 6, Lesson 4 (Conception, birth).

Planning

Planning documents identify each element in the lesson, which allows the children to: discuss, reflect and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings.

A myHappymind lesson will include: 

1. Quiz time

2. Activity time

3. Time to Chat

4. Time to Journal

5. Time to Recap

Summative Assessment

Summative assessments provide teachers with a clear picture of each pupils understanding. Documents provided by the jigsaw website allow teachers to record assessments for each pupil. Each objective is divided into three levels of understanding;

• Working Towards
• Working At
• Working Beyond

A simple one-page assessment guide is included with every Puzzle (unit) to support teacher judgements and moderation of children’s learning.

Knowledge and Skills Progression

Accompanying each module is a Knowledge and Skills Progression document which contains key vocabulary, information about objectives covered within the unit and support questions for families to explore at home. 

Reading

In our PSHE curriculum we encourage pupils to access high quality texts to support their learning and develop their skills in accessing information. There are recommended texts to encourage discussions and extend understanding of new concepts. As well as recommended texts, myHappymind has created stories that support specific lesson aims.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary forms a key part of our wider curriculum. Each lesson identifies key vocabulary to be introduced and discussed within the session.

Oracy

PSHE sessions encourage children to express themselves verbally using full sentences. During whole class and small group discussions children share their thoughts, feelings and questions using appropriate vocabulary.

Writing

Opportunities for writing are incorporated into PSHE sessions, allowing children to show their understanding of discussion topics using full sentences. High levels of presentation are modelled by teachers, incorporating key features introduced in literacy sessions.

Resources

To ensure PSHE sessions are interactive and inclusive, all classes have a range of practical resources to support learning. Each phase is allocated a myHappymind friend which is used as the ‘talking object’ in circle discussions.

Continuous Professional Development

All staff have undergone training outlining the structure of a PSHE lesson and the objectives identified within each unit. A range of online training is also available to support staff with planning and delivering quality PSHE sessions. In addition, staff have access to online videos that demonstrate quality delivery of each aspect of a lesson.

Teachers are encouraged to develop their subject knowledge by accessing resources in school and online using the myHappymind website. Along with subject specific support to aid teaching of the curriculum, all teachers have access to the PSHE Association online platform. Online access to DfE training modules relating to statutory RSHE is also available to teachers.

Impact

Assessing Knowledge and Understanding

Teachers complete summative assessments to monitor each pupil’s progress against each lesson objective. The children are assessed against three levels of understanding; working toward, working at and working beyond.

Senior leaders and subject leaders regularly undertake book studies to monitor the effectiveness of teaching and learning. This includes sessions with small groups of pupils using questioning to check and ensure information and knowledge is acquired and understood with increasing confidence. Feedback is given to teaching staff to inform future planning.

Early Years Foundation Stage children take part in whole class circle time that develops speaking and listening skills. Adults support children when identifying feelings and discussing different ways we can express ourselves. A range of texts are also used to explore feelings and emotions. Main themes are explored daily through the use of interactive classroom displays.

Child-initiated learning opportunities are integral to developing children’s social skills. In reception, pupils use small world resources to acquire turn-taking skills. Listening to the thoughts and views of others and expressing themselves effectively.

Anti-bullying week is an important week for us at South Wonston Primary School as we believe it is important to ensure that all pupils feel heard and safe in our school. During anti-bullying week, pupils take part in a themed assembly, highlighting the importance of speaking up and being kind. During the week, the children show their support for anti-bullying by wearing odd socks to school. They also take part in various activities in class which emphasise the importance of this.