Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHEE) forms an important and necessary part of all students’ education and, in the current climate, has arguably never been more relevant. The PSHEE curriculum is organised into three overarching themes:
Aspiring to Live in the Wider World
Respectful Relationships and
Engaging with Health & Wellbeing
This spiralled approach to learning, in which each theme is revisited and developed throughout Key Stages 3 and 4, not only supports learning but also allows us to ensure that PSHEE lessons are age appropriate, locally sensitive and supportive of the aims of the wider pastoral curriculum.
Aspiring to Live in the Wider World
Through these units, we aim to provide students with a knowledge of their world – locally, nationally and globally and to give them the confidence to tackle the many moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up today. In partnership with our careers programme, we aim to help our young people develop the essential skills, knowledge and attributes to be active members of their communities and to prepare them for important milestones such as the Key stage 4 preferences and post-16 applications processes and for the world of work and life in general after school.
Respectful Relationships
In the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) units, students learn how to develop and maintain healthy relationships in a range of contexts and about the importance of informed consent and mutual respect. As they move up through the key stages, students will study topics such as puberty, reproduction, contraception, sexuality, abortion, pregnancy, and marriage. They will learn how to understand and manage risk, including how to keep themselves safe online and about the increasing influence of their peers and the media. Students will also be taught how to recognise the signs of unhealthy or coercive relationships and about the sources of help and advice available to them should they be concerned about themselves or one of their peers.
Engaging with Health & Wellbeing
In our Health and Wellbeing units, we help students understand how to look after their physical and mental wellbeing. We assess the risks and consequences associated with poor lifestyle choices such as drug and alcohol misuse, and unhealthy coping strategies such as self-harm and disordered eating. We explore a range of healthy coping strategies and techniques to look after and improve physical and emotional wellbeing. This year, largely in response to the pandemic, we have introduced the (click) RULER approach to emotional intelligence in order to promote emotional literacy, academic progress and mental wellbeing.
Underpinned by the principles of the Equality Act 2010, the PSHEE curriculum is designed to be fully inclusive, accessible by all and wholly representative of our diverse society. The wellbeing of our students is our number one priority and so, due to the sensitive nature of many lesson topics, PSHEE makes a significant contribution to both the personal development and safeguarding of our students.