PSHE

At The Duchy School, personal, social and health education (PSHE) enables our children to be healthy, active, safe and responsible members of local and global communities. We aim to help our children to understand how they are developing personally and socially, how they are developing relationships with their peers, and we tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society. Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community through lessons, assemblies and through their contribution to pupil voice opportunities. We have a real focus on the importance and impact of decision-making and provide opportunities to role play and reflect on the decisions of both ourselves and others in real life scenarios.

The Duchy School has an embedded Primary PHSE scheme of work called One Decision which is used from the EYFS to Year 6. Teachers use this programme to equip pupils with a sound understanding of risk and the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions.

Our offer covers eight key curriculum areas which pupils build upon each year. These are:

Keeping and staying safe

Keeping and staying healthy

Relationships

Being responsible

Feelings and emotions

Computer safety

Money matters

A world without judgement

The distribution of the PSHE areas covered also links with key whole school focuses throughout the year such as Anti-Bullying Week and an Internet Safety Day. 

A decision-making approach is also applied through the use of posed problems during circle times, scaffolded peer discussions, role play activities and adult and peer modelling. Curriculum coverage is also adapted as and when issues arise in the classroom so that children can apply new skills in current contexts.

PSHE is an important part of our whole school and class assemblies where children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural curiosity is stimulated, challenged and nurtured. These regularly focus on wider community and national events and provide opportunities to reflect on British Values.

Each topic in the One Decision scheme incorporates activities to assess the starting and end points of learners in order to provide opportunities to assess progress as pupils move through the school. These start and end point assessments take place at scheduled points throughout the year and will be shared by teachers across year groups.

We use these assessments to ensure that:

• Children will know more and remember more about PSHE and will be able to talk about issues related to this with confidence.
• Children will develop positive and healthy relationships with their peers both now and in the future.
• Children will be equipped with the language needed to express their emotions, and reactions to developing relationships and responsibilities.
• Children will recognise and apply the British Values of Democracy, Tolerance, Mutual respect, Rule of law and Liberty.