St Alban's Catholic Primary School

Intent

At St Alban’s Catholic Primary School, we are committed to the education of the whole child (spiritual, physical, intellectual, moral, social, cultural and emotional) and we believe that RSHE/PSHE is an integral part of this education.  We believe that high quality, age-appropriate teaching of RHSE (Including PSHE and Citizenship) will help prepare pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life. 

Our intent is to give the children the opportunity to explore relationships and life cycles, health and our bodies, how to stay safe in their community, transitions, rights and responsibilities, money and careers.  Our teachings will allow the children to build their relationship with God and deepen their understanding of the role He plays in all aspects of our lives.

We endeavour to raise pupils’ self-esteem, help them to grow in knowledge and understanding, recognise the value of all persons and develop caring and sensitive attitudes.

Our intent is also that we, in partnership with parents, provide children and young people with access to the learning they need to stay safe, healthy and understand their rights as individuals. 

Implementation

Whilst promoting Catholic values and virtues and teaching in accordance with Church teaching, we ensure that pupils are offered a balanced programme by providing an RSHE/PSHE programme that offers a range of viewpoints on issues. Pupils receive clear scientific information as well as covering the aspects of the law pertaining to RSHE.

We use the Ten:Ten programme ‘Life to the Full Plus’ within which the topics and themes are revisited from year to year taking account of the children’s development and the spiral curriculum concept.

Topics include:

• Feelings and relationships
• My healthy body including physical health and fitness, healthy eating and drugs, alcohol and tobacco.
• Lifestyles and culture
• Growing up including the changing adolescent body
• Being Safe including health and prevention, basic first aid
• Online relationships including internet safety and harms
• Mental wellbeing
• Transitions
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Money and careers

In the Foundation stage, RSHE/PSHE is taught both discretely and along with other curriculum areas, often linked with the teaching of Understanding the World, PSED or R.E.  Circle time and class discussions are important within the EYFS to support and address pertinent issues on a timely basis.

From Year 1 through to Year 6, dedicated time is timetabled for the teaching of RSHE/PSHE. This is typically a session of between 30 and 45 minutes per week, which includes some group discussion and group or individual activities. The work taught is based mainly on resources from Life to the Full Plus (Ten Ten Resources) in addition to other localised school resources.

Delivery of the programme is:

• Through active learning including discussions, investigations and problem solving activities
• Through planned aspects of science
• Addressed occasionally in assembly time
• Through small group work
• Through story time
• Through sessions delivered by the school nurse in liaison with other school staff
• Through sessions delivered by external speakers

We also teach RSHE/PSHE through our links to the community. We welcome visitors, who provide talks and workshops for our pupils and our Parish Priest, Canon Maurice, often visits and talks to the pupils about their spirituality and their relationships with others and God.

We understand that parents are children’s first educators and work closely with them when delivering the RSHE/PSHE curriculum. Parents know what is being taught in each year group and can then support the learning further at home.

Impact 

 The impact of the teaching of the RHSE/PSHE curriculum at St Alban’s Catholic Primary School is that our children are equipped with the knowledge and emotional intelligence needed to be a healthy, happy and productive member of society, in an ever changing and fast-paced world. The children leave St Alban’s equipped for the next stage of life at secondary school and beyond.

The impact can also be seen on a daily basis both in school, and in our community, as our children demonstrate the values of equality, tolerance, honesty, support, respect, empowerment, sensitivity, trust and empathy. They understand about positive, emotional and mental wellbeing, including how friendships can support out mental wellbeing.