Intent

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At St. John’s, PSHE is at the centre of our ethos. We believe that the nurturing and development of every child is imperative and that PSHE plays a key role in this. We believe that pupils should develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, attitudes and values which are necessary for them to make sense of the responsibilities, opportunities and experiences which are part of their lives, both now and in the future.

At our school we ensure that every child feels valued and cared for as well as enabling them to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society. We encourage our pupils to play a positive role in contributing to the life of the school and the wider community. We teach them how society is organised and how we, as the children of God, can do our part to an active, positive and successful role in today’s diverse society.

Mental health is a key driver to our PSHE teaching; addressing the issues that our children and families face and ensuring to provide the tools needed in order to aid them to overcome these are central to our practice.

Implementation

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We follow the Rotherham scheme of work across school which is broken down into focussed sections where children will explore and learn about:

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• Friendships and relationships

• Equality and diversity

• Physical health and hygiene

• Keeping safe

• Mental health and wellbeing

 

These are taught through short, weekly lessons and are also as part of the ethos of the school and being taught through daily actions and conversations. Our approach to behaviour management allows us to have ongoing discussions and mentoring to the children to be able to build skills to resolve conflict, practise being a good friend and building positive relationships with their peers and adults across school. Lessons and class discussions, role play or circle times are often held off the back of playtimes if any issues have arisen or in line with any current issues of the class to be addressed there and then.

 

In addition to using this scheme, we use My Happy Mind across school. This is a programme built around neuroscience that helps children to understand how their brain works, builds self-esteem as well as regulation strategies through five modules:

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• Meet your brain

• Celebrate

• Appreciate

• Relate

• Engage

 

This programme is used from Foundation Stage through to Year 6 and is designed to be built upon through each year group for our children to be able to understand and help their own mental health by identifying barriers and learning strategies to help them overcome these. They build a firm knowledge of their emotions and how to support their mental health and well-being through short sessions. The language and key concepts used in this programme is displayed in each classroom and referred to by all adults across school in order to have a consistent approach which will aid children to embed the learning and understand that we are all in this to support each other together. In addition to school provision, this programme also has an app for parents so that they can support children in the same way at home and become familiar around what they have been learning.

 

Each class takes part in daily ‘Take 10’ where they do a short burst of physical exercise in order to give their brains a break, do something active and reset to be able to continue learning. During this time, conversations about emotions, mental health and well-being are built in.

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School has a designated mental health team that meet to put things in place to positively impact mental health for both staff and pupils. The team is made up of the PSHE lead, SENDco, business manager, Thrive trained practitioners, inclusion manager and HLTA that works across school – these have been identified to be on the team due to the breadth of experience and knowledge across school and the curriculum. The team has a range of people who are all best placed to support in different areas so that things are implemented to the best of their abilities.

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Supporting vulnerable groups (children with additional social and emotional needs etc.)

Children with additional social and emotional needs have opportunities to access things further than within the immediate classroom teaching. At St. John’s we have two trained Thrive practitioners who work across school with small groups that assess against Thrive statements. They work with the children to develop their needs, starting with the greatest need of the group as a whole and working through until children are secure in each area of social and emotional development. These are weekly sessions for all children Y1-6.

 

Impact

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Pupils’ learning over time, reflects the intended curriculum. The concepts and big ideas provide the schema through which meaning is made and helps to ensure long term knowledge growth. This in turn ensures pupils know more and can do more.

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Research shows that repetition of course content leads to sticky learning; the transfer of knowledge from the short term to long term memory. At Mexborough St John’s, we achieve this through regular retrieval practise. Children can speak with confidence about what they have learnt and how they can apply this to other parts of their learning.

By the time our children leave our school they will become responsible citizens who can:

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• Implement our school values of hope, respect, forgiveness, stewardship and honesty

• approach a range of real life situations and apply their skills and attributes to help navigate themselves through modern life

• be on their way to becoming healthy, open minded, respectful, socially and morally responsible, active members of society

• appreciate difference and diversity

• recognise and apply the British Values of Democracy, Tolerance, Mutual respect, Rule of law and Liberty

• understand and manage their emotions

• look after their mental health and well-being

• develop positive, healthy relationship with their peers both now and in the future.

• understand the physical aspects involved in RSE at an age appropriate level

• have respect for themselves and others.

• have positive self esteem