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Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education

Intent

At Birchwood, we value PSHE as an important and necessary part of our children’s education. Through the teaching of PSHE and the discussions that follow, children and young people at Birchwood are encouraged to reach their potential by providing them with the tools and the skills they need to become emotionally healthy individuals. PSHE education provides scope to help and support children to negotiate their lives in an increasingly complex world, both online and offline, and they can apply the knowledge that they learn now and in the future.

The PSHE curriculum ensure that the PSHE statutory framework is met including the Relationships and Sex Education guidance. The curriculum is organised into the substantive knowledge, disciplinary knowledge and vocabulary.  

 PSHE provides a framework to support young people to develop resilience, to know how and when to ask for help, and to know where they can access support. Attributes gained will support their own and others’ wellbeing and attainment and will help children to become successful and happy, and make a meaningful contribution to their community and society.

Implementation

Our children are taught the importance of: maintaining health and wellbeing; healthy and safe relationships; and living in the wider world. At Birchwood, we teach PSHE in a variety of ways – this can be throughout cross-curricular activities, within computing lessons (staying safe online) alongside weekly assembly themes and regular class discussions. These are delivered together with and compliment discrete PSHE lessons. PSHE is part of our wider curriculum and is thread throughout all of the themes taught in school. It is the building block to much of our practice and approaches in school.

Through the Protective Behaviours programme, children are taught how to keep themselves safe, how to understand their feelings (and that their feelings will differ to the feelings of others), their rights and responsibilities and the difference between safe and unsafe secrets. They also regularly review their network of trusted adults and recognise safe and unsafe feelings.

Alongside our planned PSHE curriculum, which is covered from the day that children start at Birchwood until the moment that they leave, we place importance of making valuable contributions to society by choosing an annual charity to support within school. We also participate in a range of national events that support our PSHE curriculum, including Safer Internet Day, Red Nose Day, Children in Need and NSPCC Number Day.

At Birchwood, the context of PSHE delivery has been adapted to fit the needs of our school community. We use PSHE to support cultural diversity, mutual respect, acceptance and appreciation of others and their differences. 

Impact

Through the teaching of all aspects of PSHE (both in discrete lessons and through the wider curriculum), our aim is for children to leave Birchwood with the knowledge and skills to lead a healthy lifestyle (both physically and mentally); form and maintain healthy relationships; and know how to contribute and be a responsible member of society.

Children at Birchwood are well-mannered, respectful and considerate of others. Relationships throughout school are strong and built upon the mutual respect through all stakeholders. We equip children with the language to express their emotions and feelings and provide them with a safe space and responsible adults who they can speak to confidently and with trust.