RSHE
Curriculum Lead Alicia Ketteringham McCourt
At Howard Junior School, we follow a comprehensive and informative PSHE (Personal, Social Health Education)/ RSHE (Relationships, Sex and Health Education) curriculum using the 'Jigsaw' scheme of work.
Intent
At Howard Junior School we value PSHE as one way to support children’s development as human beings, to enable them to understand and respect who they are, to empower them with a voice and to equip them for life and learning.
We include the statutory Relationships and Health and Sex Education within our whole-school PSHE Programme. We define sex education as understanding human reproduction, but this is not about the promotion of sexual activity. At Howard Junior School, we believe children should understand the facts about human reproduction before they leave primary school. Therefore, we teach this concept by gently introducing this in Year 4 and then revisiting it in Year 5 and 6 during the Changing Me unit. We inform parents of their right to request their child be withdrawn from these lessons.
Implementation
Jigsaw is designed as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (Puzzle) at the same time and shows a progression in children’s learning. There are six puzzle pieces: Being Me in My World, Celebrating Difference, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me.
PSHE is a mindful approach which brings together Personal, Social, Health Education, emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual development in a comprehensive scheme of learning. We teach this one lesson a week with teaching resources included, that helps teachers to focus on tailoring the lessons to their children’s needs and to enjoy building the relationship with their class, getting to know them better as unique human beings. We ensure that these lessons are taught in an age-appropriate way.
These explicit lessons are reinforced and enhanced in many ways: assemblies, praise and reward systems, Learning Charter, through relationships from child to child, adult to child and adult to adult across the school. We aim to ‘live’ what is learnt and apply it to everyday situations in the school community.
Impact
Through this approach, we hope to support children’s development as human beings, to enable them to understand and respect who they are, to empower them with a voice and to equip them for life and learning. The impact of PSHE, including RSHE enables pupils to feel supported in an understanding of the developmental changes that happen throughout life, which also supports the Science curriculum where the children look at the Human Body.