Skip to content ↓

Personal, Social and Health Education (including RSE)

The National Curriculum framework document states that: 

‘All schools should make provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), drawing on good practice.’

All schools have statutory duties to meet Section 2.1 of the National Curriculum framework which also states that: 

‘Every state-funded school must offer a curriculum which is balanced and broadly based and which promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society and prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’

PSHE education is a non-statutory subject, but in order to fulfil its duties relating to the Social Moral Spiritual and Cultural development of children, their behaviour and safety, and to provide a broad and balanced curriculum a comprehensive programme of PSHE education is in place. 

In 2020 the Department for Education released the compulsory, Relationships education and relationships and sex education (RSE) guidance that we encompass within our teaching of PSHE. This includes aspects such developing children’s understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship including online relationships. Supporting children to develop healthy habits and have some understanding of how to maintain both their physical and mental health.

The benefits to pupils of such an approach are numerous as PSHE prepares them to manage many of the most critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities they will face growing up. It also helps them to connect and apply the knowledge and understanding they learn in all subjects to practical, real-life situations while helping them to feel safe and secure enough to fulfil their academic potential.  

At Sholing Infant School PSHE is taught explicitly as a discrete lesson, organised into three themes, which are taught each year: Health and wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the wider world. Children are taught a variety of units during Key Stage One PSHE such as learning about positive relationships, mental wellbeing, and the wider world. Our learning is reinforced by our Safety Curriculum that threads through each unit of work which includes Stranger Danger, Online Safety, Road Safety, Rail safety and Water and Beach Safety. We plan our PSHE lessons to provide as many opportunities as possible for children to be collaborative to enable them to communicate effectively, to work well with others and discuss ideas. Our PSHE and Safety Curriculums are progressively planned and coherently sequenced to ensure that pupils always build on prior learning and are able to know, remember and do more.

 Every PSHE lesson follows our agreed teaching sequence, with regular opportunity to retrieve and revisit prior learning, enabling children to think back to what they have already learned so their knowledge becomes embedded in to their long term memory. PSHE is also taught through the day-to-day work of the school, e.g. through assemblies and the school’s behaviour policy as children learn ‘The Golden Rules’.

The schemes of work for the PSHE units can be downloaded from the links below.

Should you have any questions then do please speak to either our headteacher Mrs Houghton, or our PSHE leader Miss Gardner.