PSHE
Intent:
At Cupernham Infant School, our Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) promotes our school values and ethos of ‘ready, respectful and safe.’ From the day they begin with us, we want our children to make the right choices, be sensitive to the needs of others, understand how to make sure they are ready to learn, be respectful and polite to others.
We strive to ensure that children have the opportunity to explore, learn and understand key skills and knowledge to lead confident, happy, healthy, independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens.
We use Jigsaw as the foundations of our PSHE learning. It is a whole-school approach that ensures there is consistency across the year groups, allowing for clear progression of the understanding of concepts and the skills taught. We make sure that our PSHE curriculum meets all the statutory RSHE requirements as well as developing children’s mental health through mindfulness opportunities and activities.
Aims:
At Cupernham Infant School our aim is for every child to:
- Recognise that they are a valued and unique individual
- Be aware of and understand the needs and differences amongst other people (abilities, religious, cultural, social diversity)
- Contribute to and are a member of many different communities (school, class, etc)
- Have dreams and aspirations and understand the steps they need to go through to achieve those goals.
- Understand what it means to live a healthy life and to ensure that they are aware of the choices that they have.
- Form suitable, healthy relationships with others (friends, families, clubs, etc)
- Understand the changes that they will go through during their initial school years and begin to think about potential changes that may be coming up in the future (this includes physical changes to them, their environment, their roles and responsibilities, etc).
Implementation:
At Cupernham Infant School, PSHE is taught in every class at least once a week. In addition to this, classes have regular circle times and chances to explore and discuss issues if and when they arise. Every week our assemblies commit to developing our PSHE skills. We have a ‘World Wide Wednesday’ which allows our children the opportunity to learn about and discuss worldwide topical issues and festivals as well as issues that relate to us in our school and local community. We recognise and celebrate children’s achievements based on being ready, respectful and safe on a weekly basis during our Friday Celebration assemblies.
We use the Jigsaw PSHE scheme and this is a whole school approach to PSHE that uses progressive plans. There are a total of 6 themes that are addressed across the school, one for every half term. This ensures that each theme is learnt about and explored in an age appropriate level and that there is clear progression of skills, vocabulary, understanding and knowledge when the same theme is explored again in subsequent years. All of the themes addressed every year tie into our school values of ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’ and these are referred to daily.
Due to the nature of the content of PSHE, every day provides us with multiple opportunities to develop their skills and understanding of personal, social and health education. The teachers at Cupernham Infant School are skilled at identifying potential learning opportunities and will embrace these!
Impact:
When children leave Cupernham Infant School, we ensure that children are equipped and ready with the skills needed as they continue their journey into their Junior School years and beyond. They will be prepared to encounter potential changes within their lives and are compassionate, understanding and polite members of the community.
We assess PSHE on a day to day basis, through observations of children during their daily activities, such as their social interactions and choices that they make throughout the day. We use these as learning opportunities frequently and will engage in conversations with individuals, groups or as a whole class to develop their resilience and ability to cope with particular situations.
Within PSHE lessons, teachers frequently question children to gauge their understanding of concepts through open ended questions. We encourage the children to join in with discussions and debates as well as engage with role playing scenarios. From our assessments, we are able to support those children that need it the most through our interventions and skilled members of staff that can support the children.
PSHE Subject Overview: