PSHE & RSE
(Personal Social & Health Education and Relationships and Sex Education)
“The aim of RSE is to give young people the information they need to help them develop healthy, nurturing relationships of all kinds, not just intimate relationships. It should enable them to know what a healthy relationship looks like and what makes a good friend, a good colleague and a successful marriage or other type of committed relationship. It should teach what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in relationships.” DFE guidance
What is PSHE?
PSHE Education(Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) is a non statutory planned programme of learning to support children in acquiring knowledge, understanding and skills to successfully manage their lives. Although not statutory, it is strongly recommended that schools do follow this curriculum. We believe that these skills and knowledge are extremely important and also support children’s emotional, physical and mental well being. In these lessons children learn about how to look after themselves, about feelings and emotions and managing money.
What is RSHE?
From September 2020, primary schools in England are required to teach Relationships and Health Education as compulsory subjects and the Department of Education strongly recommend that schools should also include age appropriate Sex Education. In these lessons children learn about certain aspects of health such as healthy eating and about some harmful substances. They learn about how the body changes and how humans reproduce. The Guide for Parents below provides some clear information about RSHE.
Guide for Parents - Understanding Relationships and Health Education in Primary School
Department for Education - Statuatory Guidance for Schools (RSE)
How we teach these subjects in school:
In our school, we use teaching materials and resources from ‘The Jigsaw Programme’. This is a whole school approach and embodies a positive philosophy and creative teaching and learning activities to nurture children’s development as compassionate and well-rounded human beings.
Jigsaw Guide - RSHE
Our Long Term Plan for this subject shows what we teach to each year group.
The DFE guidance clearly states the statutory requirements of what children must be taught by the end of Primary School. Health Education includes learning about the changes in adolescence to equip children to understand and cope with puberty. Science is also a compulsory subject and includes learning the correct names for the main external body parts, learning about the human body as it grows form birth to old age and reproduction in some plants and animals including humans. Parents do not have the right to withdraw their children from these subjects.
At our school we also teach Sex Education as part of the PHSCE programme as recommended by the DFE. The Jigsaw programme includes lessons on all aspects of compulsory Relationships and Health Education and is designed to be sensitive and teach in a spiral, age appropriate way. We believe that this work is an important part of safeguarding children and will help them to stay safe and cope with puberty understanding why their bodies will change.
Parents have the right to withdraw their child from PSHCE lessons that cover Sex Education and should make an appointment with the Head Teacher to request this. Further details are in the Policy.
Policy
The School PSHE and RSE Policy can be found here:
This policy is currently a draft until the end of term (July 2021). If you have commenst or questions about the policy we would welcome comments using the form below. Your comments will be reviewed by the school leadership team and we will respond to you. We will take comments and questions into consideration at the final Policy Review.
