INTENT
At Hebburn Comprehensive School, the core British Values taught explicitly through PSHE play an essential role in equipping learners with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to stay both physically and mentally healthy and to become imaginative and well-informed thinkers, who demonstrate respect and tolerance and have an appreciation and understanding of both world and current affairs.
The PSHE curriculum aims to produce students who are equipped with life skills which allow them to be fully participating members of a fast-changing British and global society. Our students will develop a sense of self-worth and confidence to be the best version of themselves. They will mature into individuals who can think independently and critically, and have the knowledge to make informed choices around their physical, mental, sexual, emotional and economic wellbeing. We want all of our students to have high aspirations and to become healthy, safe, independent, responsible members of society who demonstrate respect and tolerance and are fully prepared to face and manage the many challenges and opportunities they will encounter throughout their lives.
The spiral nature of the curriculum allows them to revisit areas and explore them at an age-appropriate level and provides our students with opportunities to reflect on and clarify their values and attitudes, allowing them to engage in a meaningful way with a world where values and attitudes may be complex and at times in direct conflict with their own.
The RSE elements of the curriculum allow our students to understand appropriate behaviours which will help them to develop and maintain healthy relationships. This is an important aspect of PSHE. This may be in the form of working collaboratively in a group or pair to produce possible responses to scenarios that students might encounter in life or reflecting on how they will use their acquired knowledge to make positive choices in their own lives as they move through school.
Our PSHE curriculum aims to:
- Promote students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development;
- Allow students to identify their own personal qualities, explore attitudes and have an appreciation of what influences these;
- Explore and examine their own values and beliefs and develop the skills, language and strategies needed to manage any issues they may encounter now and in later life;
- Develop critical thinking and resilience;
- Equip all students with the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe and be able to communicate when they do not feel safe;
- Provide expert, independent and up-to-date careers advice that gives our students the best information and opportunities available and helps them progress into further education, training and employment.
At Hebburn Comprehensive we will:
- Deepen our students’ understanding of the fundamental British values of democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance;
- Provide opportunities for our students to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to contribute positively to an ever-changing, diverse society.
- Help students to develop an understanding of the many moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up in a diverse Modern Britain;
- Ensure that students aspire to be the best they can be and to have high aspirations for the future,
- Develop students’ sense of self-worth and belonging by enabling them to play a role in contributing to wider school life and the wider community;
- Stimulate, challenge and nurture children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural curiosity;
- Help students to understand the importance of their physical and mental health and how to manage emotions and feelings and to develop strategies to enable them to become resilient and confident;
- Help students to have a good understanding of themselves, to build positive relationships, treating everyone equally with tolerance and respect;
- Teach age-appropriate RSE lessons, so students develop an understanding of how to stay say safe and healthy relationships;
- Teach our students about personal safety and E-Safety, signposting students to any support they may need;
- Encourage all of our students to strive to be the best they can be.
Through PSHE, there is a significant contribution to students’ development of SMSC, their behaviour and welfare. PSHE promotes personal development by helping students to build confidence, resilience and self-esteem, to help them identify and manage risk, make informed choices and develop an understanding of
what influences their decision-making. It provokes challenging questions and discussions about health and wellbeing and relationships, as well as other topics.
IMPLEMENTATION
PSHE / RSE is a timetabled lesson, once per fortnight. Staff follow a whole-school scheme of learning with pre prepared lessons and resources.
- In years 7 -10, PSHE is taught for one hour, once per fortnight delivered to each class by the same teacher
- In year 11, PSHE/RSE is delivered through drop-down sessions and external speakers. There is a greater focus on CIAG in year 11.
- We follow a spiral thematic approach:
- Rights, Responsibilities & British Values
- Celebrating Diversity and Equality
- Relationships and Sex Education
- Staying Safe Online and Offline
- Health and Well Being
- Life Beyond School
- The programme is written to meet all the statutory requirements for RSE, Health Education and Citizenship. The balance of the different aspects (PSHE, CIAG, Financial Management and SMSC) varies between year groups to respond to the needs of each particular year group – for example, more CIAG is taught in year 9, as students approach their option choices, enabling the programme to be tailored to the needs of our students.
- In addition, we run drop-down sessions and events throughout the year, such as subject careers day; a careers convention; sessions delivered by local employers/post 16 partners; ‘Raising Aspirations’ university events; specialist RSE sessions; external speakers from local and national groups and themed weeks/events.
- Our PSHE programme is further enhanced by our whole-school assembly themes
PSHE Differentiation
In PSHE, we have high learning expectations for all students. It is essential that all our students are challenged to think deeply about the different aspects of PSHE and their rights and responsibilities in respect of being caring, thoughtful and productive individuals. A range of strategies will be used to achieve appropriate levels of differentiation. Students may be given thinking time before being asked questions, sometimes with the opportunity to share their ideas in discussion with a partner or in a small group to improve understanding.
All students will be asked to contribute to lessons, though due to the sensitive nature of some areas of the curriculum, there will be an awareness on the part of the teacher that a student may not wish to share a response with a larger group of their fellow students, and therefore it may at times be appropriate to allow for collecting anonymised responses to share.
Consistent referencing back to earlier learning and linking this to wider society and the modern world will assist students in making sense of how the knowledge and skills they acquire in PSHE apply to real life. Questions will be asked at an appropriate level of challenge for individual students, and where appropriate, students will be encouraged to develop further independent research into different aspects of a particular topic.
Students with additional needs can also be further supported through scaffolded activities provided in the student work booklets for every unit.
Literacy & Numeracy in PSHE
A shared understanding of particular vocabulary is important in PSHE. A high level of skill in communication is essential when presenting an opinion or point of view, and an understanding that such communication needs to utilize precise, neutral and non-offensive language to convey the intended meaning. Evidence supporting a particular position should be presented in the same way, and topic-specific vocabulary used where appropriate.
In respect of literacy in PSHE you will find every lesson in the curriculum will introduce students to new terminology and this will be highlighted on the first slide of every lesson and will be recorded in the SOW.
Cross-curricular links
Spiritual
- Exploring beliefs and experiences
- Respecting faiths, feelings and values
- Enjoying learning about oneself, others and the surrounding world
- Using imagination and creativity
- Reflecting on own values and beliefs
Moral
- Recognising different ideas of right and wrong, and how these sit with personal moral compasses
- Respecting the law
- Understanding the consequences of actions and behaviours
- Exploring moral and ethical issues
- Offering reasoned viewpoints in concise, neutral and non-offensive language
Social
- Engaging with Fundamental British Values
- Working collaboratively with others
- Linking learning to wider society
Cultural
- Appreciating the role of culture in shaping individual values and opinions
- Understanding, accepting, respecting and celebrating diversity
Fundamental British Values
The unit contained within the themes of Celebrating Diversity and Equality and Rights, Responsibilities and British Values explores all the fundamental British values with a particular focus on democracy.
Celebrating Diversity and Equality underlines respecting differences through mutual respect, tolerance of those with different beliefs and the right to individual liberty. Individual liberty is also explored in learning about trade unionism and vaccination.
British Values also form part of the assembly themes delivered to all year groups.
Other Subject areas links
Science
Key Stage 3 and 4, includes teaching about reproduction in humans. For example, the structure and function of the male and female reproductive systems, menstrual cycle, puberty, gametes, fertilisation, gestation, birth and HIV/AIDS. Stem cell research and associated ethical considerations; Immunisations; drugs, alcohol and smoking; sexual relationships.
Business Studies – KS4 only
Entrepreneurship, Consumer and employment rights, Trade unions and industrial action and the impact on the economy, advertising and the media.
Food Technology
Healthy eating.
RE
Families and Relationships, Diversity, Cultural differences, Tolerance.
Sports Studies – KS4 only
Healthy eating, using stress to optimize performance. Health education can complement what is taught through PE by developing core knowledge and a broader understanding that enables people to lead healthy, active lives.
PE – Healthy lifestyles and active lives
Health and Social care – KS4 only
Families, Relationships, Mental health wellbeing.
ICT
E-safety, with progression in the content to reflect the different and escalating risks that young people face as they get older. This includes how to use technology safely, responsibly, respectfully and securely, how to keep personal information private, and where to go for help and support.
Impact
Expectations for students will be as follows:
- Be able to present an opinion or point of view which is clear in meaning
- Use subject-specific vocabulary in an appropriate context
- Present evidence to support a particular opinion which uses precise, neutral and non-offensive language
The curriculum is specifically planned to enable students to re-visit core themes and deepen their knowledge and understanding. Retrieval of prior learning is present at the start of each PSHE lesson and aims to embed key concepts. In order to recall this key information, termly reviews take place, which help to develop understanding.
Students are assessed through multiple choice and knowledge-based questions which are built into each termly scheme of work, aiming to challenge all abilities across Key Stage 3 and year 10. This identifies gaps and misconceptions.
Student progress is reported on as part of the school reporting system; the benchmark against which progress is measured is the student’s own starting point of knowledge, not the performance of others.
