Intent

Green Park School positions itself at the heart of our community. It’s extremely important to us that we nurture successful relationships with our children, parents and carers and in the wider community. We recognise that or children enter school from a range of settings and culturally diverse backgrounds and we celebrate this diversity within classrooms and across the school.

Our PSHE and Citizenship curriculum aims to equip our children with essential knowledge and skills for life. It intends to develop the whole child through carefully planned and resourced lessons that develop the knowledge, skills and attributes children need to protect and enhance their wellbeing. Through carefully planned series of lessons, children will learn how to stay safe and healthy, build and maintain successful relationships and become active and responsible citizens. We believe that our PSHE curriculum is a vital tool in preparing our children for life in society now and in the future. Our spiral design curriculum aims to cover a wide range of social and emotional aspects of learning, enabling children to develop their identity and self-esteem as active, confident members of their community. We encourage our pupils to play a positive role in contributing to the school and wider community. For example, we have a Student Council with representatives from each class, student volunteers who help younger children in the school with their reading, and Play Leaders.

The main themes of our curriculum (Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World), provide children with protective teaching on essential safeguarding issues, so that all Green Park School children recognise when they are at risk and know how to ask for help. Our spiral-designed curriculum provides sequential progression and allows children to re-visit key themes throughout their PSHE journey at Green Park School. Key skills and knowledge are built upon systematically and encompass the key areas of PSHE, SMSC (spiritual, moral, social, cultural) and RSE (Relationship and Sex Education). Our curriculum also promotes a sound understanding of the fundamental British Values (Democracy, The Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance).

Implementation

At Green Park School, we use the planning from the PSHE association’s question based model to teach the curriculum content for PSHE/RSHE. However, we understand that the issues our young people face on a daily basis are ever changing and so our planning remains flexible in order to meet specific school, local and national issues. To better understand the needs of our pupils and their families, we engage in regular pupil and parent voice, which shapes PSHE planning going forward.

The PSHE Association’s question-based model for planning and teaching builds skills and knowledge term by term and year by year. As part of this spiral-designed curriculum, pupils revisit prior learning and deepen their understanding each year. Within each area of learning, pupils visit key themes:

• Healthy lifestyles
• Growing and changing
• Keeping safe
• Feelings and emotions
• Healthy relationships
• Valuing difference
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Environment
• Money

This enables children to recall and build upon previous learning, exploring the underlying principles of PSHE education regularly at a depth that is appropriate for the age and stage of the child. At each stage, children are introduced to key words, building a rich vocabulary to develop their understanding. We aim for or lessons to be informative, creative and reflective. Alongside recorded pieces of work, we use many creative approaches such as role play, discussion and games. These activities enable children to build confidence and resilience.

Assessment for learning opportunities are built into each lesson and enhanced by the children’s PSHE journal, which they take with them throughout their time with us. These journals provide opportunity for self-evaluation and reflective learning and allow teachers to evaluate and assess progress. Children are given a safe and encouraging environment in which to articulate their thoughts and feelings in a climate of openness, trust and respect. They know when and how they can seek the support of others.

Impact

Our PSHE scheme of work underpins our school culture that prioritises physical and mental health and wellbeing, providing children with skills to evaluate and understand their own wellbeing needs, practise self-care and contribute positively to the wellbeing of those around them. We understand that effective PSHE education can have a really positive impact on the whole child, including their academic development and progress, by mitigating any social and emotional barriers to learning and building confidence and self-esteem. We understand that evidence suggests that successful PSHE education also helps disadvantaged and vulnerable children achieve to a greater extent by raising aspirations and empowering them with skills to overcome barriers they may face. In summary, our PSHE curriculum supports our whole-school commitment to positively impact wellbeing, safeguarding and social and emotional outcomes of our children and families. We aim to ensure that all Green Park children are given the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to succeed at school and in the wider world.