Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)
Overview
Introduction
Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) at Westfield School offers our young people the opportunity to develop the life skills that will underpin their progress throughout their lives. The subject enjoys a unique position in preparing our students both for the challenges that they are yet to encounter, while also supporting them as they make sense of the world they live in now.
Course leader
Mr C Skinner
Curriculum
Course content
During Years 7–9 the PSHE curriculum focuses on both statutory requirements (compulsory for all schools from September 2020) and requirements to ensure students are taught to understand fully and appreciate the core British values.
The wide-ranging curriculum will ensure that students learn about a range of topics that will help to guarantee their ability to keep safe online while ensuring that they can fully engage with the opportunities that such technologies bring. Furthermore, they will explore relationships and reflect carefully on how you should be treated and how you should treat others.
Our curriculum teaches students about their own welfare (both physical and mental) and how to protect them, while highlighting how and where to seek support. During each year, students reflect on their careers, understand how their present learning will impact on their future, and consider how school can open new opportunities for them in the future. Students also learn about issues such as democracy, crime and human rights.
Topics
- Careers
- Relationship and sex education (RSE)
- Online safety
- Mental health
- British values
- Physical changes
- Physical health
Skills and requirements
Skills developed
Students develop an appreciation of British values, with a focus on democracy, respect, tolerance, the rule of law and liberty. This ensures that they have the skills to be able to identify their own values and understand where they sit within British values. Furthermore, they develop the oracy skills required to explain diverse viewpoints. Students also develop the skills required to understand the possibilities that our society provides, alongside a deep appreciation of the personal responsibilities that both safeguard and develop it.
A further skill developed in the PSHE classroom is the ability to demonstrate a healthy attitude to students' own learning and the wider school community. They develop the confidence to explain their own opinions and values within the classroom, while respecting the opinions and values of others. Additionally, they develop the skill sets required to empower them to make ‘good’ choices in a wide range of situations encountered (be they within education, outside school or in their future lives).
The curriculum therefore provides students with the opportunity to develop their emotional and social skills, including (but not limited to) empathy, communication and conflict resolution, while ensuring that they have the knowledge and skills required to make excellent choices around food and diet, exercise, mental and physical health, managing risk and ensuring they are kept safe. These skills sets are essential, both while at school and as students progress into the adult world.
Note: in secondary schools, parents have the right to withdraw their children from the non-statutory/non-science components of sex education within RSE up to and until 3 terms before the child turns 16. Further information and a copy of the form to complete in order to request withdrawal is available in the Chorus Trust Relationships & Sex Education Policy (www.chorustrust.org/policies).