Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education and SRE
PSHE
Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) helps to give pupils the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy, independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens. Pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum, contributing fully to the life of our school and our community. In doing so, they learn to recognise their own worth, to work well with others and become increasingly responsible for their own learning. They reflect on their experiences and understand how they are developing personally and socially. The curriculum also helps to promote our children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development as they grow through each year of our School.
At Finstall First School, we follow the ‘Jigsaw’ programme. Children learn through a spiral curriculum with six half-termly 'puzzles' (topics). This allows for progression and continuity in learning. The topics are ‘Being Me In My World’, ‘Celebrating Difference’, ‘Dreams and Goals’, ‘Healthy Me’, ‘Relationships’ and ‘Changing Me’.
RELATIONSHIPS and SEX EDUCATION
RSE is lifelong learning that contributes to children’s physical, moral and emotional development. It develops children’s understanding of the importance of stable, loving and caring relationships, the importance of marriage, of family life, respect, love and care. Our programme is taught within the PSHE and Science curriculum. Pupils receive much of their sex education in the wider context of relationships to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. Other aspects of sex education are taught more explicitly towards the end of Year 4 and, currently, parents have the right to withdraw their children from these lessons.
Prior to the delivery of RSE lessons, parents are provided with detailed information regarding the content and organisation of these lessons. Parents are also consulted annually with regard to the School’s PSHE inc SRE Policy. The main resource for Sex Education is a Year 4 unit of work from the Jigsaw Scheme of Work for PSHE entitled, ‘Changing Me’.
During this week, children took part in games and creative work which encouraged them to share their ideas, say what matters to them, be proud of themselves and also listen carefully listening to others. We hope this developed self-confidence, self-esteem and positively affected their mental health and wellbeing.
Listening games were played to highlight the importance of listening to each other’s voices and views. We talked about feeling ‘empowered’ by using our own voices and sharing what matters to us! Children individually created a spiral drawing to show all of the things that matter to them, from the day to day, such as their family and friends, to within the wider world, e.g. protecting the environment.
We ended the week with a dress up day to 'Express Yourself', celebrating our individuality and what makes us unique. There were lots of favourite colours, patterns, sports teams and clubs such as Brownies and Scouts celebrated on that day!