Wellbeing
PSHE at Elm Hall Primary School:
My name is Louise Sage and I'm the PSHE leader for Elm Hall Primary School. At Elm Hall, our PSHE curriculum emphasises personal, mental and physical well-being and looks to prepare children for life in and beyond the classroom. We look to promote the development of our children's sense of awareness, both in themselves and others. We believe our curriculum enabled the choldren to become healthier, more independent and resposible members of society who are able to make their own informed choices. Through the teaching of PSHE at Elm Hall, we aim to inform children of their rights and resposbilitilies, teaching them to appreciate what it means to be a positive memeber of a diverse and multi-cultural society. The teaching of our wellbeing curriculum helps, in many ways, to meet the objectives set out in the Children’s Act 2004 (Every Child Matters) which states that children ‘be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic well-being’. Our children are held at the centre of our bespoke wellbeing curriculum and know that an emphasis in line with ‘The Children’s Health Project’ and links to PSHE association is crucial to help our children achieve this.We give children the knowledge to keep themselves and others safe and recognise when this isn’t happening and where they can go for support.
How do we teach PSHE?
At Elm Hall, most of our ideologies are derived from the PSHE association, the ‘Children’s Health Project’ as well as specific area’s which we feel our children need to keep themselves safe. The teaching of PSHE in Upper Key Stage 2 focuses on improving the children's transitions to Secondary Schools to make this a less daunting time for the children. All PSHE learning links directly to our Elm Hall Attitudes and these are taught and practiced alongside our PSHE teachings. This innovative element in the curriculum allows children to understand and link the skills in context and practice them daily. Like our PSHE curriculum, our Elm Hall Attitudes curriculum is nurturing, progressive and powerful in allowing the children to reach exceptional personal development. It focuses on believing, owning, grouping, respecting and collaborating. We emphasise active learning by including children in discussions, investigations and problem-solving activities as well as encouraging the children to take part in a range of tasks which promote active citizenship, e.g. charity fundraising, the planning of special school events, or involvement in supporting others. We encourage children to discuss sensitive issues through a variety of ways such as stories or drama. We have a big focus on oracy and discussion as either a whole class or smaller group. We incorporate the children's learning in PSHE into much wider opportunities such as the Subject Ambassadors, Prefects and our Attain Pupil Forum. We aim to establish a safe, open and positive learning environments based on trusting relationships between all members of the class, adults and children alike, and believe it is vital to the effective teaching of PSHE. Children are expected to respect each other’s views, opinions and contributions – treating others with respect and sensitivity.
Our learning aims:
- In Each year group, we teach 6 ‘being healthy’ aspects that aim to facilitate learning attitudes and knowledge that produce pro-active, conscientious and responsible members of society that live enjoyable and fulfilled lives by making informed choices:
- By the end of the children’s education at Elm Hall, our aims in the teaching of PSHE and Citizenship are:
- Healthy thoughts: children should be able to show an awareness of mindfulness, demonstrate a positive body image, exude positivity and motivation, and develop resilient attitudes and tolerance towards others.
- Healthy habits: children should have a range of tools to improve their health through beneficial daily habits, developing an awareness of their feelings and learning how to deal with emotional difficulties.
- Healthy eating: children should understand how different foods affects their bodies in terms of mood, energy and immunity. This unit encourages healthy eating and developing an awareness of healthy and less healthy foods and their impact.
- Healthy relationships: children will understand how to form positive and safe relationships that support them to be responsible, tolerant and mindful individuals. This topic also supports them in making sense of their own identity and relationships as they get older.
- Healthy citizenship: children will be able to recognise the challenges that they may face in a modern, changing society and aims to keep them safe, distinguish between right and wrong, and lead compassionate and fulfilled lives.
- Healthy aspirations: children will value the richness and cultural diversity of modern Britain which will prepare them to become valuable citizens who make a positive contribution.
- We have included that statutory elements of sex and relationships education (RSE) within our wellbeing curriculum as well as the statutory mental health and wellbeing curriculum which have been identified in bold throughout the curriculum document.
Check out our PSHE Curriculum below:
Check out how we progress our vocabulary in PSHE below: