PSHE and RSE
Intent
We strive to ensure that we prepare our young people for the modern world as we would like for all of our children to be positive, healthy citizens who show acceptance and respect towards those around them. In order to do this, we teach a curriculum that develops our pupils’ skills and knowledge, thus enabling them to become equipped to make the right choices for themselves and learn how to form positive relationships, as part of a family or with other young people and adults. We intend to support our pupils to treat others with respect and be able to identify, both online or in person, whether they are in turn being treated respectfully and then equip them with the appropriate tools to take the right steps if they are not treated respectfully in a friendship or relationship. We intend to ensure that all of our pupils feel valued and recognise the positive contributions which they can make to their family, school, community and wider society. Our Relationships and Sex Education Curriculum is supported by our Christian Ethos.
Implementation
Our RSE programme will be delivered predominantly within our PSHCE (personal, social, health, citizenship and economic) lessons and through the National Curriculum for Science (2014), but should also be firmly embedded in all areas of the curriculum.
Relationships education focuses on teaching the fundamental building blocks and characteristics of positive relationships including:
- Families and friendships (including caring for others)
- Safe relationships (including online relationships)
- Respecting ourselves and others
These areas of learning are taught within the context of family life taking care to ensure that there is no stigmatisation of children based on their home circumstances (families can include single-parent families, LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive parents, foster parents/carers amongst other structures) along with reflecting sensitively that some children may have a different structure of support around them (for example: looked after children or young carers).
In line with the government guidance, we have implemented a graduated RSE age-appropriate programme to be taught from Foundation Stage (Rec) through to Year 6. We are using the lesson pack issued by the PSHE Association to support us with this.
Sex education focuses on external body parts and changing bodies. By the end of Key Stage 2, both boys and girls should understand how babies are conceived and born, how their bodies change during puberty, why males' voices break, what menstruation is and how it affects females, when these changes are likely to take place and what issues may cause anxiety, and how they can be dealt with.
Sex education sessions are delivered by the class teacher in mixed-gender classes. However, in upper Key Stage Two, there may be occasional single-sex lessons according to the need, subject matter and cohort. Single-sex lessons will only be additional and occasional (usually one-off) to ensure that children feel able to ask questions and to allow girls to explore different sanitary products.
The aspects of RSE, which are taught as part of the statutory science curriculum 2014, require children to:
Key Stage 1
- notice that animals, including humans, have offspring which grow into adults
- identify, name, draw and label the basic parts of the human body and say which part
of the body is associated with each sense
Key Stage 2
- describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird
- describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals
- describe the changes as humans develop to old age
- recognise that living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents.
Impact
Pupil talk, observations of discussions, recorded ideas and observed behaviour of pupils around the school will be the measures used to identify the success of our PSHE and RSE curriculum.
We would hope that we would observe our children:
using their voice
understanding their rights
demonstrating acceptance of others
showing a clear knowledge about how to keep themselves safe
using their tools in their toolbox to manage their emotions
forming healthy relationships
demonstrating a good understanding of their own body
taking responsibility for their actions
correctly identifying the British Values,