PSHE (Personal, Social, Health & Economic Education)

Children are at the heart of everything we do and Christ is the light that guides us. John 8:12

  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” We are committed to ensuring children encounter and achieve the highest possible standards through partnership with our entire school community.   We provide a happy, stimulating environment rooted in Christian values. Our aim is to equip individuals with the Christian Values (courage, love, friendship, hope, forgiveness, and respect ) and life skills needed to "Live in peace with each other" (Romans 12:16-18), to take their place in the wider world and to make a contribution to it. Mark 9:37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me.”

At Lostock Gralam, our mission statement underpins everything we do. We believe passionately that in order for our children to successfully demonstrate our core Christian values to others, they must first recognise them in themselves. When children can do this, they will have a healthy mind and a positive mental health and with this will go onto become positive role models and citizens.

What does PSHE look like in our school?

At Lostock Gralam we believe passionately that our whole-school ethos, our curriculum and our PSHE learning enables our children to stay safe, healthy and prepared for life’s challenges and opportunities.

We plan and deliver a PSHE curriculum that enables children to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives now and in the future. We ensure that throughout their time at Lostock, children have the opportunity to learn about and experience financial planning education, careers education, citizenship and British Values teaching. We also teach children about the importance of strong and successful relationships and how these can impact on our health and wellbeing. We teach children about Relationship and Sex Education (RSE), and we empower children to know and understand about ‘No Outsiders’ and to have the ability to recognise, understand and celebrate differences without prejudice or harmful stereotyping. The children at Lostock know and understand that they are God’s children and that we are all part of God’s family, we teach children about different family structures and we encourage all of our children to be ‘Heartsmart’ and to use personal and social skills in order to be a positive and active member of society.

Relationships, Health and Wellbeing within our PSHE curriculum

Our PSHE curriculum has many elements that are designed to enable children to understand not only what mental health and wellbeing is but also how to have a happy and healthy mind. Specifically, we use two schemes of learning; ‘Heartsmart’ and ‘My Smiling Mind’.

Heartsmart

Heartsmart is a scheme of learning divided into five core elements: ‘Don’t Forget To Let Love In’, ‘Too Much Selfie Isn’t Healthy’, ‘Don’t Hold On To What’s Wrong’, ‘Fake Is A Mistake’, and ‘No Way Through Isn’t True’.

In our school, Heartsmart lessons are delivered bi-weekly across all age groups. Each lesson within HeartSmart presents children with a social scenario and moral dilemma that is appropriate to their age and developmental level. The children discuss the scenario and dilemma together as a class and they use the core element focus (See above) to learn about the best way to solve the problem they are faced with.

When children are presented with real-life scenarios, staff and peers use Heartsmart language (for example ‘Don’t hold on to what’s wrong’) as a reminder to use their learning in order to overcome problems and difficulties.

What Heartsmart looks like in our school:

The children love Heartsmart lessons and see these as an opportunity to come together and share positivity, about themselves and about each other. They explore what they are grateful for, the discuss love languages and how we can demonstrate kindness, and they explore sensitive subjects such as body positivity in a safe space.

Class teachers share Heartsmart learning on our school twitter page as a way for parents to stay connected and to be involved in what the children have been discussing in school.

My Smiling Mind

Alongside Heartsmart, the children in our school are presented with weekly meditation sessions for which teachers use the platform ‘My Smiling Mind’. My Smiling Mind aims to help every young mind to thrive by providing accessible, life-long tools to enable children to learn about healthy minds, including what a healthy mind is and how we can keep our minds healthy.

What My Smiling Mind looks like in our school

Each class teacher has access to a resource bank of meditations based on year-group specific curriculum outcomes and objectives. Each session is between 2 and 10 minutes long and is a time for children to reflect, be aware of their mind, their breathing and pay attention to their mental wellbeing in a way that is developmentally appropriate for them.

My Smiling Mind takes place a minimum of once each week from Years 1 to 6. Reception children take part in daily shared meditation and relaxation time.

No Outsiders

Lostock Gralam is proud to be a ‘No Outsiders’ school, we believe in and adopt the No Outsiders ethos that is, everyone different, everyone welcome, no one is an outsider. We value all of God’s children and we accept diversity, we welcome people’s differences and we accept every person in our school for who they are as an individual. Genesis (1:27) states that “All are made in the image of God and are loved by God.” As No Outsiders we believe that being human, and a child of God can mean a variety of different individualities such as race, disability, or LGBT+

Every class in our school reads a picture story book together that drives a learning theme around No Outsiders, the children then discuss the main ideas within the book and talk about differences in a positive, safe space.

Sex, Relationships and Health Education within our PSHE curriculum

At Lostock, the SRE curriculum we deliver is guided by our faith in God and our connection to the Church and the Diocese. The Church of England have developed a RSE programme for schools entitled ‘Goodness and Mercy’ and as subject leaders and SLT at Lostock we have consulted with the parents and governors of our school and decided to adopt this in our school, but with adaptations relevant to our school core values, our mission statement and the needs of our children and families.

The core principles of our policy and SRE curriculum

Guided by our statutory requirements as outlined in the DfE document ‘Relationships Education, Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education (RSHE)’, our policy and SRE curriculum aims to teach our children about relationships:

• Families and people who care for us
• Caring friendships
• Respectful relationships
• On line relationships
• Being safe

And about physical health and mental wellbeing:

• Mental Wellbeing
• Internet safety and harms
• Physical health and fitness
• Healthy eating
• Drugs, alcohol and tobacco
• Health and prevention
• Basic first aid
• Changing adolescent body

We teach about relationships in the context of the school’s aims and values.  It is important to build positive relationships with others, involving trust and respect. Children are taught to have respect for their own bodies. We promote health education through our curriculum and encourage children to make the right choices. The focus of children’s health education is on learning the characteristics of good physical health and mental wellbeing and the steps children can take to protect their own and others’ health and wellbeing. Daily exercise and fitness is a significant feature of our daily practise with children as part of this.  We consult with parents on all matters of our health education policy and look positively at any local initiatives that support us in providing the best relationships education programme for our children within a Church of England setting.

Financial Education

Children from Reception to Year 6 take part in financial education lessons in order to learn about the value and importance of money. Children are taught, through stories, shared activities and role play, about choices people can make about spending and about the importance of saving as well as spending. Children have opportunities and experiences to explore where money comes from, how to budget, different was to pay and how we can use money to help others.

Careers Education

From reception class onwards, children learn about different careers, the ways in which different people help us and what qualities are needed to maintain different jobs. They have the opportunity to share and recognise their own strengths and set goals and aspirations for themselves when thinking about their own future careers. Our older KS2 children begin to look at what different paths they may need to take to achieve their goals, and they learn about the importance of equal opportunities within careers.

British Values

The teaching of British values and culture capital is not isolated to PSHE lessons, although our PSHE curriculum ensures that all children have the opportunity to learn about democracy, the rule of law, respect and tolerance, and individual liberty.

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