PSHE

Our Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) curriculum is woven through everything that we do in school. Through the PSHE curriculum, our pupils will learn how to become healthy, independent and responsible members of our society. Children will build a relationship with themselves, learn about their emotions and be taught how they can be conscientious members of our community.

Our PSHE curriculum will develop the ‘whole child’ by teaching them how to be both physically and mentally healthy, how to build positive relationships, how to self-regulate and how to respect our differences. This is also intrinsically linked to our Christian Values which underpin how we teach children to be a confident, contributing and kind member of their community. 

Our pupils are encouraged to be leaders from a young age, and through both our core curriculum and our wider focus on leadership, they are given many opportunities to share their voice with other pupils and school staff. We focus on three core PSHE Association themes: ‘Health and Wellbeing’, ‘Relationships’ and ‘Living in the Wider World’, which together ensure that all statutory requirements are met, including those for health and relationships education. Together, they encompass all areas of our PSHE curriculum and through our careful curriculum mapping, ensure that all essential knowledge is coherently and sequentially taught.

Our Early Years learning’s PSHE curriculum follows the ‘Personal Social, Emotional Development’ learning pathway of the national Development Matters guidance, meeting the requirements of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. Here, our pupils are encouraged to develop their personal confidence by taking calculated risks in the safe environment of the classroom and in continuous provision.

In Key Stage 1, the children learn about special people and their own identity, their emotions, the development and maintenance of friendships and strategies to recognise and deal with bullying. They begin to learn how to keep safe and where to go to for help. Pupils also learn about keeping clean and how to have a healthy lifestyle by taking regular exercise and eating healthily. Key Stage 1 pupils are taught about life in the wider world by developing an understanding of what it is like to live in a community, jobs and begin to develop an understanding of how to look after money.

In Lower Key Stage 2, our pupils learn about respectful, healthy and unhealthy relationships. They deepen their understanding of how to make the right choices for healthy eating, how to deal with injury, and continue to develop their awareness of bullying. Children set personal goals when learning about future careers and ways in which they can support their community.

By the time they reach Upper Key Stage 2, our pupils further explore their aspirations for the future, what skills they know they may need and how they will be resilient on their journey – even when they find things difficult. They also develop a deeper understanding of money management, respectful relationships and the consequences of discrimination. Pupils learn how take care of their body and mind, including building an understanding of the effect of harmful substances.

Our pupils also develop an understanding of all aspects of online safety, because we want to ensure that our children are fully equipped to negotiate the ever-changing digital world, both safely and responsibly. Here, we focus on themes such as privacy, online bullying and healthy relationships, developing and revisiting important aspects of online safety throughout the years.

Denby Free uses PSHE Matters as the basis of the lesson content and for progression, whilst adapting lessons to suit each class and cohort.