PSHE, Citizenship and HRSE

PSHE

Curriculum Lead: Mrs R. Nayler

Intent

At St. Mary and St. Michael Primary School, it is our intent to provide all children with a broad and balanced curriculum that aims to assist children and young people to prepare for adult life by supporting them through their physical, emotional and moral development, and helping them to understand themselves, respect others and form and sustain healthy

relationships.

This will be implemented by creating a programme of study that is bespoke to our school

and all our children. The three main core themes of our PSHE programme of study focuses

on Health and Wellbeing, Relationships Education and Health Education, and Living in the Wider World.

Department for Education statutory guidance states that from September 2020, all

primary schools must deliver relationships and health education whereby parents cannot

withdraw their child from this (until this time parents have the consent to withdraw them from sex education).

Implementation 

The school seeks to provide a safe, secure learning environment for PSHE that enables

children and young people to gain accurate knowledge, develop their own values and

attitudes, and develop skills to grow into happy confident successful adults. At the

beginning of each year, every class sets rules that children must follow during

PSHE lessons. This creates a safe and supportive learning environment and allows

children to feel comfortable and to speak openly and honestly.

At St. Mary and St. Michael Primary School we promote the needs and interests of all pupils, irrespective of gender, culture or background and all teachers consider the children’s age, ability and readiness.
P.S.H.E will be provided through discreet curriculum time, assemblies, class discussions/circle time, as and when issues arise, ensuring time is made within the curriculum to meet the needs of the children and through extra-curricular activities. These include mental health awareness week, safer internet day and walk to school week.

Impact

Assessment and development in PSHE are on-going and based on the guidelines laid out in the Assessment and Record Keeping Policy.  Each year the PSHE co-ordinator receives data and tracking for each pupil, linked to the Lancashire Key Learning documents, recording if the pupil is working towards or at the age-related expectation, or if they are working beyond age-related expectations. Regular meetings are held to ensure that they are aware of any children who require intervention, support or extra challenge.

Healthy Relationships and Sex Education (HRSE)

School has always placed emphasis on respect for self and others and the need for good relationships as well as studying new life in nature. Personal relationships and sex education is through a cross-curricular approach and the majority of the coverage is through the science and religious education programmes of work. Section 24 of the Education Act 1993 gives parents the right to withdraw their children from any or all parts of a school's programme of sex education, other than those elements that are required by the National Curriculum.  

At SS Mary and Michael Catholic Primary School we are inspired by Jesus to be the very best we can be. We look after one another and show respect and love through our relationships with one another. Jesus is invited into our hearts. In the Beatitudes, Jesus invites us to lead a full life with him by explaining what makes people blessed or happy. This is about understanding how loving our neighbour enables us to be happy too. Therefore, having a good relationship with ourselves and the other people in our lives makes us grow and flourish and we respect that everyone is a unique and beautiful part of God’s creation. We are all children of God, called to grow in love for him through the person of Jesus Christ and to spread the Good News through the action of the Holy Spirit.

At SS Mary and Michael Catholic Primary School, in the Diocese of Lancaster Education Service, we use the term Human Relationships and Sex Education (HRSE) as we believe that relationships education is about all aspects of growing a fulfilled and happy life; sexual education is a dimension of this greater whole. To further explain this,

Christian belief is that God took on human form and therefore, this endows the human form with an extraordinary dignity that goes beyond that of all other forms of life showing that humanity alone can embrace this relationship with God. Therefore, our relationship with our own bodies is not casual but infused with the Holy Spirit. Any teaching about love and sexual relationships in school must be rooted in this belief which is expressed in the Church’s teaching about relationships, marriage, sex and family life.

Education about human love is no less a part of a Catholic schools responsibility than teaching about mathematics or English. At SS Mary and Michael Catholic Primary School, we teach young people about how to form relationships, including understanding loving relationships and acknowledging that children’s first experience of love is in the home. We encourage children from the earliest age to recognise that they are all children of God and that each person shares a God given dignity. As children mature, we encourage them to follow the example of Jesus and live lives inspired by the Gospel virtues, enabling them to follow His commandment to “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). This is the basis for all relationships in our school where we model Christian Virtues. We follow the guidance of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and ‘Fit for Mission? Schools’.