PSHE at Hillside 

Subject Leader: Mrs Rushton 

Subject Support Coach: Miss Hewitt 

Link Governor: Mrs Wainwright 

PSHE Long Term Plan and Progression of Skills - 2022-23

Vision

At Hillside, our school motto is ‘Developing the Individual’. We facilitate this through the teaching of PSHE and through teaching our children to become independent, responsible citizens who have an awareness of right and wrong. Through an apt curriculum, the teaching of PSHE and statutory RSE (in line with governmental changes from 2020) equips our children to leave primary education with an in-depth understanding of social skills, moral beliefs, sex education, positive relationships and radicalisation.  

At Hillside we use the ‘3D Dimensions’ syllabus which contains many units relating to current issues within today’s world and society, while providing full coverage for all areas of PSHE and RSE. Lessons are taught through a variety of teaching and learning styles such as role-play, storytelling, team challenges and games, and these are extremely effective when engaging pupils, in making learning purposeful, and have had positive feedback from the children. In addition to this, elements of PSHE are taught subtly in every interaction and are embedded within every contact made in or out of school, with every child, peer and adult and through the positive relationships that we engender at Hillside. 

The Subject Leader  

Mrs Rushton leads PSHE at Hillside Primary. PSHE is a cornerstone within Hillside’s curriculum, developing key life skills for all children throughout their educational journey and beyond. My role is essential to ensure that PSHE is taught well throughout the school, is well resourced, updated in line with national guidance and to ensure that it develops every individual child. PSHE education teaches skills and attributes that help children to stay healthy, stay safe and ensures that they are prepared for life and work in modern Britain. At Hillside, we truly believe that PSHE education helps children to achieve both their academic potential and leave school equipped with skills they will need throughout life and that support them to become positive contributors within society.  

We ensure that PSHE is interwoven throughout the entire curriculum at Hillside Primary and will be touched on in some way discretely, every day in every lesson: whether that be through being a positive role model, developing team work skills or showing respect and care towards others and themselves. PSHE lessons are also taught separately as necessary, but through careful guidance and collaboration, a priority has been that all teachers have woven PSHE lessons in to their topics, ensuring that they are relevant, pertinent learning experiences and tie with the overarching themes of the term. For example, when linking healthy eating to Design and Technology in Year One, teaching e-safety and safe relationships online with Computing in Year Four or when learning about family dynamics in the Early Years and Foundation Stage as well as in many other key curriculum areas like Physical Education, Science, English and History. Through this careful planning, teachers are able to make learning links more valid, increasing and developing life-long learning skills and ensuring that children’s well-being is a priority across the curriculum – whether they are developing their own health through kicking and catching balls or learning about empathy when taking on historical character roles or writing about different people and their views in English.   

Every interaction at Hillside Primary has links with PSHE and RSE and this is a key area that is considered. Adults and children alike are treated with and treat each other with respect. Our school ethos holistically links when ‘developing the individual’ and our school values of determination, excellence, inspiration, courage, friendship, respect and equality all tie with the key values of PSHE and RSE education. We ensure that relevant training is undertaken and support offered to staff in their daily work with children and we teach using the Growth Mindset approach, supporting children to develop their understanding of how they learn, what works for them and how to develop numerous problem solving skills enabling the power of ‘yet’. We teach children that with hard work and determination, they can achieve any goal that they set themselves. We also ensure that enrichment to the curriculum is provided through many themed days or charity events, for example, when raising money for Young Minds as part of Hello Yellow, or BBC Children in Need which is supported nationwide and also supports the development of SMSC. Enrichment also comes through peer play, ‘Friendship Buddies’ at lunch times or even the promotion of aspirations through Careers events across the whole school.  

Changes to Relationship Education that came in to place in 2020 are interwoven within our syllabus. We believe strongly that through relationships education, we will be able to further equip children with the knowledge that they need to create and maintain healthy, happy and safe relationships and that they will understand and report abuse, further safeguarding our children. We are excited to be further providing opportunities to enable children to be taught about positive emotional and mental wellbeing and to provide key coping strategies for them to enter the wider, ever-changing world. We ensure that standards of PSHE teaching are high through pertinent experiences in lessons, that PSHE teaching is memorable through discussions with children who can talk about their learning and how this impacts their lives currently or will do in the future and staff CPD is ongoing.  

Curriculum and Curriculum Design 

The National Curriculum states that ‘Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education is an important and necessary part of all pupils’ education. All schools should teach PSHE, drawing on good practice, and this expectation is outlined in the national curriculum.’   

PSHE is a non-statutory subject. To allow teachers the flexibility to deliver high-quality PSHE we consider it unnecessary to provide new standardised frameworks or programmes as PSHE can encompass many areas of study. Teachers are best placed to understand the needs of their pupils and at Hillside, through the careful selection of 3D Dimensions, coverage is full and detailed, enabling teachers to select what best meets the needs of their pupils. This PSHE programme reflects the needs of pupils and equips pupils with a sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions and the syllabus is regularly updated in line with worldwide, national or local changes (for example, offering further support with ‘Let’s Begin Again! lessons following the return to school during the Covid 19 pandemic). 

As a school we seek to use PSHE education to build, where appropriate, on the statutory content already outlined in the national curriculum, the basic school curriculum and in statutory guidance on: drug education, financial education, sex and relationship education (RSE) and the importance of physical activity and diet for a healthy lifestyle. 

Early Years Foundation Stage

Personal, social and emotional development involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities. 

At Hillside there are many opportunities within everyday situations in Nursery and Reception that enable children’s PSHE development. These include the children building friendships, sharing experiences, playing games/turn-taking and taking part in regular circle time activities to develop their social skills and listen to others’. Within the EYFS, lessons from our 3D Dimensions syllabus are also taught on a weekly basis to focus on the objectives from the EYFS and have been updated in line with curricular changes from 2021.   

The contribution of PSHE to teaching in other curriculum areas 

English  

In English, our writing allows us to explore texts from different perspectives, we often re-write chapters as a different character, write diary entries as a particular character and use hot-seating to question the characters within the texts. These activities in our English lesson consolidate our PSHE learning by allowing us to focus on the feelings of the characters and empathise with them. We also consider relationships between characters and this supports the development of our understanding of relationships with our peers, families and the people that we meet, engaging our understanding of RSE.  

Mathematics 

Our understanding of economic wellbeing is supported through our Maths curriculum, whereby pupils learn about number, money and budgeting. Children are often posed with real life challenges to support their understanding relating to the wider world, for example, when learning to measure, the ability to work out how much they would need to carpet a room, or when devising fractions and percentages, how this would help them to purchase a discounted holiday or clothing! They also work together to solve problems, engendering their ability to work in teams and to problem solve, using apparatus, sharing resources and aiming high to reach end goals.  

Science

Many of the units within the PSHE syllabus make strong links to our Science learning particularly in terms of children’s health; these include the importance of healthy eating, understanding what constitutes a balanced diet, being aware of the food groups and their importance. Children also learn about their personal hygiene (including oral care), the spread of germs and diseases and ways to prevent these – particularly pertinent during the past few years!   

Religious Education 

A significant element of PSHE is children being aware of similarities and differences between themselves and others and showing respect to all people. RE teaching enables children to learn about and experience elements of world religions, tradition and culture. They consider their own personal beliefs and values and are supported to question any stereotypical or fixed ideas they may have which enables them to become respectful, polite and tolerant members of society.  

Physical Education 

A significant element of PSHE is children being aware of how to look after their bodies and understanding how their bodies are affected by different activities. Through physical education lessons children are not only taught the physical aspect of how to compete in team games for example, but also begin to consider how their bodies respond to exercise. Children begin to be aware of how their body works whilst exercising, understanding the effects that physical activity has on their body and how these can benefit them, both physically and mentally. Links to physical and mental health are also discussed to support children’s understanding through PE and awareness of mental health understanding in school.  

History and Geography  

Throughout History and Geography teaching at Hillside, children explore a range of different eras and localities and through these units children are shown how life was or could be. Children are encouraged to think about how they would feel in a range of different time periods, contexts and areas and they draw comparisons to their own lives and views, considering additional how viewpoints may change over time. Lots of discussion through History and Geography lessons, sharing opinions and taking into consideration other people’s views contributes to the values of PSHE teaching.  

Computing 

Online safety, e-safety and bullying are all pertinent areas of both the PSHE and RSE curriculum in addition to the computing curriculum. In addition to themed events throughout the year, specific teaching enables children to learn how to stay safe online, consider how they feel when online and helps them to understand how they and others can be influenced, raising their awareness of positive and negative relationships, how to stay safe and who to speak to if they are concerned.  

Art and Design and Technology  

Fundamental life skills are often taught in these curricular areas, in addition to the appreciation of other’s artwork and different skill bases. Through the design process and reflection, children are able to share their opinions, build on positive skills and apply them in a creative manner that allows them to culture their own diverse skill base.  

Inclusion 

Lessons and activities are planned to include all children by using a range of approaches. This includes: questioning, use of resources, and mixed ability grouping to enable children to offer peer support. Lessons are planned to facilitate the best possible outcome for all children within the class and the differing skill levels of all children are considered by teaching staff.  

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and British Values (SMSC and BV)  

Spiritual development: We explore the beliefs and experiences of ourselves and others; discuss the importance of respecting all beliefs and faiths; learn about and discuss our feelings and values and those of others. 

Moral development: We learn about and discuss things that are right and wrong; learn about the law and the importance of it; begin to consider our actions and the consequence of them; consider, discuss and debate ethical issues; offer reasoned views. 

Social development: We consider all of the groups and communities that we are part of; participate in our local community; learn how to resolve conflict; engage with the British Values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance. 

Cultural development: We become aware of cultural influences; learn about the role of Britain’s parliamentary system; understand, accept, respect and celebrate diversity. 

Growth Mindset 

Growth Mindset teaching supports our children in developing their can-do attitudes and as noted above, the power of YET! The learning completed during these lessons embeds the knowledge that children need to work hard, persevere and challenge themselves in order to achieve. Through relevant texts, discussions, opportunities to challenge themselves and work together, children can see that they have the skills they need, and that they can grow their skills to succeed.  

Careers

A focus on careers education is supporting our children to realise their potential by providing them with opportunities to explore their own interests, to develop as individuals and to see the many and varied opportunities available to them as they continue their education, select a career and progress in to adulthood. Children are encouraged to plan for their futures and to work on the skills that they may need throughout their time at Hillside, they are given chances to explore careers each week with focussed early start discussions and through visitors to school, enrichment events and educational visits, are emboldened to make choices that will influence and impact their future.  

Enrichment Activities and Educational Visits  

At Hillside we have many days throughout the academic year which have a focus on PSHE and RSE. In addition to these, many educational visits incorporate elements of PSHE and develop children within their own local area, community and areas further afield. They are given many varied opportunities to develop their skills in the wider environment and these hands-on life-lessons ensure increasing confidence for all children.  

  • Anti-bullying week – we learn to value that each of us is different but we are all equal, we have celebrated this through ‘Odd socks day’, assemblies and focused PSHE lessons throughout the week.
  • Young Minds – we support this worthwhile charity by celebrating ‘Hello Yellow!’ and as well as raising funds, we raise awareness of the importance of mental health.  
  • Children in Need and Comic Relief – we support through themed dressing up days, a focused assembly and often holding a Pudsey themed raffle to raise money.  
  • Children’s Mental Health Week – every year this important week is recognised and the theme embraced at Hillside, for example, ‘Growing Together’ where children got outside in the school environment to spot signs of growth and recognised growth within themselves.  
  • Water assemblies, NSPCC assemblies and SEND awareness assemblies are also led throughout the year to encourage children’s understanding and compassion towards others.  
  • In addition, termly educational visits and residential visits provide opportunities for children to engender and practise their skills of citizenship, confidence and support increasing self-esteem.  

Assessment for learning 

Teachers will assess children’s work by making informal judgements during lessons. On completion of a piece of work, the teacher assesses the work and uses this information to plan for future learning. Verbal feedback is given to the child to help guide his or her progress and floor books are used to gather pupil voice, understanding and demonstrate progress within each year group.  

Each unit completed in PSHE will be assessed by the class teacher using a range of evidence collected through the unit, and this may include participation to class discussions, production of work relating to the unit and practical activities that have demonstrated the skills taught or show depth and breadth of understanding.  

At the end of a unit, teachers complete informal assessments / spreadsheets that determine whether children are emerging, expected or exceeding within these domains. This is used to provide accurate information to other teachers, the PSHE subject leader and learning support assistants termly and during times of transition in order to support the progression of all children.  

Pupil Voice

Children at Hillside talk positively about their learning. They enjoy working collaboratively, developing themselves, their friendships and their understanding of the world around them. They develop their own skills, value their own attributes and show respect towards others, understanding that differences are to be valued. They talk about their futures openly and honestly and it is clear that they are developing their skills as life-long learners through the PSHE and RSE curriculum.   

“My family is different. Everybody’s family is! My family has a mummy and daddy. Some don’t and that is okay!” (Reception child)  

“We have learned about emotions and how sometimes your actions can affect someone else or your own feelings. We used the word ‘love’ to explain how much we care for people. We also know we have choices between right and wrong and this can affect us and other people.” (Year Two child) 

“We talk about what we know in our flashbacks then we learn new things too. We talked about communication and how we already communicate through talking and smiling. We also found out about how people communicate with their faces, hands and some people, like people who cannot hear, use sign language. We learned the letters in our names!” (Year Four child) 

“We learned about our strengths – things that we are good at. This will help us to think about our future and what we want to be when we’re older or what we need to work at. It will help us in the future to get a job, money and maybe a car!” (Year Five child)