Building on Meanwood’s vision and values and the National Curriculum for Relationships Education and Health Education (delivered through our school’s PSHE curriculum and wider personal development opportunities provided for our pupils), we aim to provide an exceptional PSHE education that embraces our school vision and equips pupils with the necessary life skills to approach a range of real-life situations and apply their knowledge, skills and attributes to help navigate themselves safely and successfully through modern life, which includes in the online world.
Open Hearts – We create a cooperative learning environment, encouraging children to work together, share and respect ideas and learn collaboratively.
Open Minds – We inspire our children to strive for excellence in PSHE, and to be open minded, to challenge stereotypes, teaching pupils to consider scenarios from a range of perspectives and to develop compassion and empathy. We celebrate diversity, difference and personal achievements and encourage all pupils to reach their full potential.
Open Arms – We promote an inclusive environment where all learners feel valued and supported in their personal development journey.
Intent
Our PSHE curriculum aims to enable children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society, who understand how they are developing personally and socially, and have the knowledge, understanding and skills to tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up and to support them in making choices, now and in the future, that have a positive impact upon their physical and mental health.
By integrating the school vision into our PSHE curriculum, we aim to create a learning environment that promotes collaboration, celebrates achievement and fosters empathy and respect. We aim to develop key character skills, including decision making, informed risk taking, good communication, and self-regulation strategies. We provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities, encourage the exploration of, and respect for, values held by different cultures and groups and promote the development of positive attitudes.
In alignment with the school vision, our PSHE curriculum encourages pupils to appreciate difference and diversity, to be aware of the protected characteristics, to challenge stereotypes, to be open-minded, to be socially and morally responsible and to appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society in an ever-changing world. Gaining an understanding of the diverse world around them will support our children in forming and maintaining worthwhile and positive relationships now and in their future roles as global citizens.
We encourage honesty and respect in all relationships and nurture sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. Both our school vision and PSHE curriculum place strong emphasis on developing emotional literacy, self-esteem and building resilience in our learners so that they can achieve their full potential. We want our children to have high aspirations, to seek challenge, believe in themselves and realise that anything is possible if they put their mind to it. Through our commitment to excellence, inclusivity and holistic development, we aim to empower our pupils to make a positive impact in their communities and the wider world.
Implementation
At Meanwood, we use the You, Me and PSHE and Mindmate schemes to support our long term planning (what we teach when) and use their key learning outcomes to create lessons. Furthermore, we use the Pol-Ed lessons (created by West Yorkshire Police) and resources to further enhance learning and the development of life skills for our pupils, that are driven by current issues affecting young people specifically in Leeds. The content of these lessons are continually being updated, so half termly, the PSHE Lead will review the Pol-Ed resources and match them up to relevant PSHE topics that are being taught in the following half term. One Mindmate lesson per half term is taught for all classes.
Both the You, Me and PSHE and Mindmate schemes are spiral based and progressive, that build upon prior knowledge and skills. Teachers assess the children’s recall of prior learning, then build the current teaching upon that. We ensure coverage of the National Curriculum in Relationships Education and Health Education by using a mapping tool developed by the School’s PSHE lead in collaboration with Leeds School Health and Wellbeing Service. Links to British Values and Protected Characteristics are also mapped and are highlighted within our school’s PSHE long term planning document.
Within our lessons we include the following aspects:
Impact
Our curriculum is designed in small steps which develops understanding of specific end points for each taught unit.
Formative Assessment
The children’s progress is assessed using regular formative assessment in lessons through questioning, making reference to knowledge organisers for the You, Me and PSHE topics, discussion based tasks, pupil voice recorded within floorbooks, how pupils directly apply skills within day to day situations, regular retrieval practice, crunch moments and feedback. Before each You, Me and PSHE unit of learning, the children complete a pre-assessment check based on the previous learning, highlighted within the knowledge organiser. This allows teachers to teach any necessary connected knowledge prior to the starting the new block of work to support the needs of pupils in their classes.
Summative Assessment
At the end of each You, Me and PSHE unit (one unit per half term), children will add to their pre-assessment sheet (in a different colour) to highlight how their learning has developed throughout the unit. Pupils also complete self-reflection sheets, which enable them to reflect upon their learning and how it may help and positively impact upon them or others in the future. These assessments inform the teacher of any children that need further consolidation and/or intervention.
Tracking Pupil Progress
In PSHE children are tracked through:
· Baseline assessment in EYFS and tracking against Early Learning Goals.
· Individual progress is reported to parents through two termly Parents’ Evenings and an end of year report.
Staff Development
Training needs are identified as a result of whole school monitoring and evaluation, performance management and through self-analysis. The subject lead is keen to share best practice and disseminate up-to-date initiatives to staff via planned CPD and development time. This will ensure the subject is constantly evolving to meet the demands of curriculum expectations and meets the specific needs of each cohort. In addition, the subject lead attends annual PSHE lead training and conferences and meets regularly with our school’s external health and wellbeing advisor. Furthermore, all members of staff teaching RSE have undergone training in order to do so with confidence.
Monitoring
The subject leader, SLT and Governors all play a role in the monitoring of PSHE at Meanwood. Regular monitoring via learning walks, floorbook looks and pupil/staff voice feedback ensures the subject is constantly being reviewed and regulated to ensure the best learning opportunities for all.