Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education and Relationships and Health

At Holy Trinity, Mrs Lester is the Relationships and Health (RHE) coordinator and Mrs Griffiths, our Pastoral Care Manger supports staff in the planning and teaching of weekly Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE). In our school, as a Catholic community, both areas are interdependent and supportive of both each other and other areas of the curriculum.

What?

All human beings, and especially our children, need building blocks of knowledge and understanding, in order to make sense of the world and people who live around them. We want our children to become young men and women who are confident about their own identity, supportive of others and fully understanding of the dignity accorded to everyone, as people created in the image and likeness of God. We have created a full curriculum offer, from our youngest to oldest children through which three key themes run. Holy Trinity was a trailblazer school for the Stop, Understand and Move On (SUMO) programme in Wolverhampton schools, and our children were able to provide inset for staff in other settings about its use and application in whole class situations and to support the positive behaviour journey of individuals. In addition to this, our school uses Ten Ten’s programme of work called ‘Life to the Full’ to support teach about Relationship and elements of Health Education (RHE) in our school.  By using this programme, we expect that our school, and you as parents, can support a fully-integrated and holistic programme that truly enables our children to ‘live life to the full’ (John 10:10). We believe the teaching we complete in the weekly PSHE lessons extends far further than the work of that lesson. Positive interactions, respect, care, fortitude and kindness are virtues we want our children to practice every day, along with truth and forgiveness. We encourage this in many ways; however, children need to be taught and modelled what this means in the practical and everyday aspects of our lives. We want our children to care not only for others, but for themselves, practising healthy lifestyles and discernment in making good and right choices. This is what our curriculum aims to do. By creating blocks of learning, which our children return to in a cyclical manner, we deepen and extend learning appropriate to the age of the children and support each one of them in putting our aspirations for each to ‘be more’ (as our school motto says) in their personal, social, health and economic lives and interactions.

How?

In our curriculum offer, our children will follow a three-stage structure, which is repeated across the four different learning stages of our school:

• Early Years Foundation Stage, aimed at Nursery and Reception children
• Key Stage One which is Years 1 and 2
• Lower Key Stage Two, Years 3 and 4
• Upper Key Stage Two which is Years 5 and 6

Our programme reflects the Catholic ethos of the school community, an element our parents want and support. The three key strands are based on the Model Catholic RSE Curriculum:

•  Created and Loved by God
• Created to Love Others
• Created to Live in Community

Each Module is then broken down into Units of Work as shown below:

Learning then takes place within each unit using a number of lessons that are taught in our existing Healthy Living Weeks, as approved by our Governors. Here, our children will be taught about sensitive but essential knowledge and skills in an age appropriate manner The programme follows a spiral curriculum approach so that as a child goes through the programme year-after-year, the learning develops and embeds, with each stage building on the last. Below, there is an outline of the units and when they will be taught to the year groups. Each of our sessions, as in our RE lessons, begins and ends in prayer and there can be music used, a variety of activities and opportunities to discuss and explore what each area means in our own lives. This area of the curriculum, along with others, raises issues of safeguarding and this is something we take very seriously. Our lessons are designed to offer protective knowledge and behaviours to our children. It may raise also, at times, discussions or disclosures all of which are listened to, taken seriously and dealt with appropriately.

So?

Each Unit of work has an Assessment Activity associated with it. We have one simple Assessment Activity to each Unit of sessions. There is a simple criterion to assess successful learning and these will be reported to parents in the end of year report. Around two thirds of our parents felt their chid may need some additional support to understand some of the learning covered and our assessment will support identification of children who may need some additional explanation at times, throughout school. Our children are polite and well-mannered members of an ordered and peaceful community. They engage willingly in work to support themselves and others and are able to articulate why this area of human activity is important. Our boys and girls will, at times, have issues that need to be addressed, as do all people. However, they have the tools and understanding to try to resolve issues and ultimately move forward in their relationships.