Intent

PSHE is about promoting children’s personal and social development including their health and wellbeing and so preparing them for adult life. PSHE at Compton aims to:

• Raise children’s self-esteem and help them develop the skills needed to establish and maintain healthy relationships, ensuring respect and dignity for all.
• Create a positive culture around issues of sexuality and relationships.
• Ensure children know the basic rules for keeping themselves and others safe in a variety of social, relational and online contexts.
• Help children reflect on experiences and understand how they are growing mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
• Encourage and facilitate children taking an active part in the life of school and the wider community.
• Promote children’s involvement in looking after their local and the wider environment.
• Ensure children have respect for others and that they value diverse lifestyles, cultures and beliefs.
• Help children to reflect the school’s core values (compassion, gratitude and honesty) in their personal development, as well as demonstrating the school’s learning behaviours (to be proactive, determined, inventive and reflective)

Implementation

How is this subject planned?

• In the Early Years the Foundation Stage Curriculum is taught, with some elements of the old SEAL curriculum to ensure children’s start to school life is smooth – for example ‘New Beginnings’ and ‘Changes’. They also have designated No Outsiders texts appropriate to the age group.
• Longs term plans have been updated to reflect the statutory inclusion of RSE. Units of work are taken from the PSHE Association Thematic Model and each has a ‘No Outsiders’ text to support/complement it.
• Teachers incorporate a focus on one of the school’s learning behaviours or values within their planning each term or half-term. These support the PSHE curriculum content.

How is this subject taught?

• PSHE is predominantly taught through half term units of work, in weekly sessions or blocked units
• Opportunities are taken to teach it through all areas of the curriculum, eg themed days/weeks, school trips and visits (including residential), sporting fixtures, church services, assemblies, school productions and local events.
• Circle time is established throughout the school and used to address PSHE themes. It is used for discussion and follows protocols with which the children become familiar and secure.
• Citizenship and social education is promoted through partnership with our twinned school, the Railway Primary School in Uganda. An Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) provides additional support for children in the afternoons.

Impact

How is this subject assessed?

• Formal assessments in PSHE are not carried out as this development is an ongoing process, although over the year the school puts together a PSHE scrapbook of work.
• Staff, parent and child questionnaires provide insight into the effectiveness of PSHE teaching and learning and help establish areas for further development.
• Verbal feedback from parents and visitors to the school is used to assess the effectiveness of elements of children’s PSHE development.
• Children’s personal and social development is reported verbally to parents via termly parents’ evenings and in writing through the annual end of-year report.

How is this subject monitored?

• This subject is in focus once every three years. When in focus there will be an action plan to develop the subject which will be monitored by governors on the curriculum committee and/or by foundation governors.
• The subject leader is responsible for monitoring the planning, teaching and assessment of the subject. This is achieved through book looks, pupil conferencing, questionnaires, discussions with teachers and liaison with governors.
• Feedback from parents and support staff about children’s personal and social development is also discussed at staff meetings and supports the monitoring of PSHE provision.