Personal, Social and Health Education

Our PSHE curriculum has been designed using the PSHE Association question based model and is split into three core themes.  Themes include Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World and these link well with our own school themes of Ourselves, Other People and the Environment. 

Through our lessons we aim that our children learn the language required to express and describe themselves both physically and emotionally.   Children will learn about their families and communities that includes understanding about differences and diversity.  We want our pupils to develop confidence and resilience with the knowledge needed to lead healthy, safe and positive lives.  Our pupils will learn about risks and how to manage these effectively, including identifying safe people to talk to.  Road Safety, Water Safety, First Aid and Bikeability sessions also complement our curriculum with outside providers coming in to develop some of these lessons. Our curriculum has been designed to help pupils become independent, considerate and thoughtful citizens, here in school, at home and in their community.  We teach our pupils to be ‘useful and kind and ready to learn (unlimited)’. 


The National Curriculum for PSHE aims to ensure that all children can:


"I like being able to learn about being a good friend.  I’m a good friend." 

"I like learning about how you keep people safe and care for them." 




"I like learning about how you keep people safe and care for them." 

Summer Term Transition - Children have the opportunity to ‘move up’ to their new class/cohort for two days towards the end of the summer term.  This allows PSHE lessons to support transition through meeting their new classmates in advance of the autumn term.  DSEN children have additional support with transition booklets and being personally introduced to their new teacher and classroom before these days.  


Autumn Term - At the beginning of the autumn term, orientation and familiarisation lessons allow children time to get to know their new classmates, their teacher/s and teaching assistants.  Class rules, wants and wishes for the year ahead and setting behaviour expectations are also considered.  


Curriculum - Our curriculum is delivered over a two year rolling programme.  Lessons are taught weekly using a range of teaching methods and age appropriate, high quality resources.  These may include stories, role play, discussions, PowerPoints, philosophy for children (P4C) or music.   In addition, we use the No Outsiders scheme of work to complement and support our lessons.  The picture books included are used to explore themes such as LGBTQ+ in a child appropriate and accessible way. Children will learn about school and British values and Protected Characteristics using our question based curriculum which are also delivered through our Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC) assemblies. 


Assemblies - We have our 5 Routines that include Music on Monday,  Thinking on Tuesday, Words on Wednesday,  Thursday Thoughts and Friday Fable.  Assemblies are a mix of whole school, phase and online meetings.  We also have a community assembly every half term, where children are mixed across year groups and the assembly is led by our School Councillors.  Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development is taught through our assemblies which are linked to the termly theme (Ourselves - autumn term, Other people - spring term or The environment - summer term).  

Progression across Year Groups


Health and Wellbeing (Ourselves)  - children increasingly learn how to manage their own physical and mental wellbeing.  They learn how to make healthy food choices, manage personal hygiene and how physical health is closely linked to mental health. 


Relationships (Other People)  - children develop their knowledge and understanding of relationships both at home, in school and the wider community.   They learn about bullying, how to manage negative relationships and who to go to if they are worried. 


Living in the Wider World (The Environment) - Teaching builds on our differences and diversity in our society and how these should be respected.  Children increasingly understand how rules are there to protect them and the importance of following them and their routines.  They will learn about money, the importance of managing it correctly and consider jobs and careers for the future.

Through learning journals and pupil voice, children will be able to demonstrate a greater understanding of PSHE.  They will be able to recall their learning from previous sessions and use this to build on knowledge going forward.  Children will be equipped to look after their physical and emotional health and know how to navigate the online world.  They understand where money comes from and will know different ways that money can be earned including giving examples of future careers.  



If you were to walk into a PSHE lesson at Kingsmead you would see: