P.S.H.E at Shakespeare Infant School

Intent

Through participation in the PSHE curriculum at Shakespeare Infant School we intend for all children to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding to grow and develop into healthy, independent and responsible members of society. We take a holistic approach to the children’s development throughout Shakespeare Infant school and recognise the importance of not only how they develop intellectually but also spiritually, morally and socially. This is underpinned across the whole school with our Learning Values – independence, thinking, collaboration, spirituality, emotional intelligence and creativity. These are threaded throughout the curriculum which allows the children to develop the cultural capital they need to succeed in their lives. Staff and children refer to these learning values when reflecting upon learning and experiences.

We recognise that children are growing up in an ever changing world and we help the children establish a strong understanding of diversity and awareness of others. We encourage children to take an active role in our school community to support their understanding the roles and responsibilities they will encounter later in life.

The intent of our PSHE curriculum is to be inclusive and accessible to allow all children to maximise their opportunities to know more, remember more and understand more. We intend to have a flexible curriculum that supports all children throughout the school. We understand that each child and group of children have different experiences so we adapt our approach to different aspects of the curriculum depending on the children and these experiences.

To ensure that children get a broad and balanced curriculum we believe that PSHE must be taught weekly but also be integrated where appropriate into other areas of school life such as assemblies and manners and behaviours around school. All teachers follow a PSHE structure but have the freedom to address issues and questions that may arise in their individual class. Weaved throughout our PSHE learning is the statutory SRE (Sex and relationships education) taught at an age appropriate level. We place high importance on the children’s understanding of relationships and how they interact with others to enable the children to have healthy relationships in their lives.

When they leave Shakespeare Infant School we intend that our children will take their developing knowledge, skills and understanding with them so that they make the most of their futures.

Implementation

At Shakespeare Infant school we implement PSHE learning by building on and developing the children’s experiences and understanding. We use discussion and group work to allow all children to participate fully in the PSHE learning process. To stimulate children’s thoughts and feelings across all areas of PSHE we use visual stimuli such as photographs and video clips. In each PSHE learning project we use texts to support the children’s learning and understanding of the taught concepts.

PSHE is taught at least once a week as a discrete subject but when appropriate it is integrated with our projects such as at the start of the year and developing relationships with their new class. Each day, when required, staff will help address issues and questions that may arise on a daily basis with their specific class or children.

The PSHE curriculum is split into three core themes of:  Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World.  The children will meet these themes throughout the course of the year and the themes are built upon as the children move through school. We place high importance on the children’s development in relationships education by giving them a variety of opportunities to explore similarities and differences between people to build on their tolerance and respect of others.

The children take part in daily discussions and reflections through a range of activities including celebration assemblies, collective worship and ‘We CARE time’. Our ethos is ‘We Care’ and during ‘We CARE time’ the children are able to discuss and think about a relevant focus for the week for example, understanding about the importance of democracy whilst voting happens either nationally or locally.

At Shakespeare Infant School we recognise and value the children’s thoughts, feelings and viewpoints. Each class has a representative who takes part in regular children’s voice meetings to discuss school community matters and share their class’s viewpoints, they then feed back to the rest of the class.

All staff actively promote Shakespeare Infant School’s learning values that underpin our curriculum. Staff look for and praise children on specific activities relevant to a learning value, for example a child who works well in a team to achieve an end goal will be awarded with a Horis Hedgehog sticker/certificate explaining that they have worked well collaboratively.