Intent

At St Leonard’s, PSHE is at the core of all that we do. It enables our children to become independent, confident, resilient, healthy and responsible members of society, as well as enabling the ‘whole child’ to flourish intellectually, morally, socially and spiritually.  Our intention is that when children leave St Leonard’s, they will do so with the knowledge, understanding and emotions to be able to play an active, positive and successful role in today’s diverse society. We provide opportunities for our children to learn about what it means to be a member of a diverse and multicultural society. We also encourage our children to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider school family.

Our bespoke PSHE curriculum is designed to meet the needs of all children at St Leonard’s and to equip them with relevant and meaningful content, which is supported through a strong emphasis on emotional literacy, building resilience and nurturing mental and physical health. Our Relationships and Sex Education enables our children to learn how to be safe and to understand and develop healthy relationships, both now and in their future lives.

Weaving through the heart of our PSHE teaching, is a commitment to enhancing and promoting our Christian Values. We nurture and inspire our children to be the best they can be, and ‘to love one another as the Lord has loved you’. (John 13:34). This is underpinned by our vision and is interwoven with the behaviour and ethos of the school. We therefore consider our PSHE curriculum as a curriculum for lifelong learning.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change”

Charles Darwin

Implementation

PSHE is taught weekly throughout the year. We currently follow the Jigsaw scheme of work.  One theme is covered each half term in every year group. These themes are Being me in my world, Celebrating difference, Dreams and Goals, Healthy me, Relationships and Changing me. During these lessons, the children have time to talk and discuss important aspects of their lives and ask questions.

In PSHE lessons, we focus on Relationships, this includes respecting ourselves and other families and friendships and we learn about what safe relationships are. We discuss what it means to live in the wider world and what being part of a diverse society means to us. We discuss what it feels like to belong to a community. We also focus on employment and why money matter. We learn about our physical and mental health and well-being, we learn how to keep ourselves and other safe. We also learn about how our bodies change and mature as we get older.

In Year 5 and 6, we have a visitor from SafeNet who comes in a delivers workshops specifically chosen to meet the needs of our children. The children have found these extremely beneficial. We also have visitors in Year 2 and 6 discussing Fire and Road safety.

Picture News is shared both in class and with parents. This broadens the children’s understanding of the world in which they live and supports our work around British Values.

From January 2023, we will be using the MyHappyMind resources to support our children’s mental health. This is in addition to our PSHE curriculum. It allows children time and space to journal and reflect on their thoughts and happiness. It also supports them with building life-long confidence and resilience.