Relationships, sex and health education (RSHE)
Intent
At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School we aim to help our children to become healthy, independent, confident and responsible citizens through teaching and learning opportunities. RSHE aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We ensure that our children are provided with rich opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities, while appreciating and respecting the diverse society that we live in. We aim to develop passionate and aspirational pupils through the teaching our RSHE curriculum and enable pupils to have the platform to share their views without judgement. We encourage our children to play a positive role in contributing to school life and wider community to develop their sense of worth and respect for others. At Woodcocks’ Well, mental health is prioritised to the same extent as physical health and the children and staff are encouraged to be open and honest.
Implementation
At Woodcocks’ Well CE (VA) Primary School, we deliver the RSHE curriculum to all pupils from EYFS to Year 6 with specific concepts to focus on. We expect all staff and pupils to be role models to each other and for staff to have high expectations of all pupils.
The delivered curriculum (scheme of work) reflects the needs of our pupils and is tailored to meet specific needs. Teachers use the RSHE programme to equip pupils with a sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions. We use a combination of schemes to deliver our RSHE lessons including the use of ‘Love and Sex Matters’ (Diocese resource), ‘No Outsiders’ and ‘Twinkl Life’.
The curriculum is split into three core themes of: Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Sex Education and Living in the Wider World. The children will meet these themes throughout the course of the year and the themes are built upon as the children move through school. There is also a focus on different areas of safety to give our children the skills to deal with potentially dangerous circumstances, including fire, road, internet, water and rail safety.
From EYFS through to Year 6, children use floor books to record their responses and progress in RSHE sessions. Pupils in Year 1 through to Year 6 also have individual RSHE books which are used for recording assessment pieces. Our lessons involve lots of discussion and relevant points of discussion are noted in the floor books.
Through the programme of study the children should have a good balance of these overarching concepts:
- Identity
- Relationships
- A healthy, balanced lifestyle,
- Identification of risk and safety
- Diversity and equality
- Rights, responsibilities and consent
- Change and resilience
- Power
- Career
At Woodcocks’ Well we believe that RSHE plays a vital part of primary education and needs to be accessible for all pupils and taught at least weekly; although there will also be opportunity to make cross curricular links and these opportunities should not be missed. This enables staff to ensure full coverage of the RSHE scheme of work. There may be times when staff feel that an RSHE session would be appropriate to further discuss concerns which may have arisen from an incident or to help pupils make more sense of a situation and use of RSHE this way is encouraged.
Emotional Wellbeing:
At Woodcocks’ Well CE Primary School, we aim to promote positive Mental Health for every member of our school community including, staff, pupils and families. RSHE is an important part of Collective Worship where children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural curiosity is stimulated, challenged and nurtured. Through the teaching of different concepts in RSHE, we promote the use of self-reflection to ‘check-in’ and identify any needs, both emotionally and physically.
At Woodcocks’ Well, we hold a weekly wellbeing Collective Worship. During this time, we collectively explore a range of topics to improve emotional wellbeing such as emotions, developing resilience, building a growth mindset and transitioning to a new year group/school. The Safeguarding and Ethos Councils are included in these worships where possible to help promote wellbeing within and around school.
Impact
Our school uses the PSHE Association’s three core themes as the basis for curriculum planning. RSHE education is taught by class teachers who take responsibility for planning, resourcing and delivering the RSHE curriculum. Beyond the planned programme for RSHE education, the curriculum provides children with a variety of experiences that have the potential to promote their personal, social development and economic education. These include:
- Celebration Worship
- Circle time
- Sports clubs and participating in competitions
- Drama and music activities and productions
- Residential visits and day trips
- After School Clubs
- Social and fundraising events
- Theme days/events, for example The Big Draw, World Book Day, Subject days
- Charity events
- Leadership opportunities, for example Playground Leaders and representatives on our Ethos Council