At Denmead Infant School we provide a Personal, Social, and Health Education which caters for the needs of all individuals.
We enable our children, through their physical, emotional and moral development, to develop self-respect that will help them move with confidence from childhood into adolescence and then adulthood. We maximise outcomes for every pupil to ensure they become healthy, both mentally and physically, independent and responsible members of society.
Pupils are taught through a range of projects as part of a spiral curriculum to help them understand their bodies and emotions and how these may change as they grow up. We discuss how to tackle many social, moral and cultural issues that are part of growing, including understanding how others may act and feel and how to respond to these. We provide our children with opportunities to learn their rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society.
Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.
Our intention is for every child to leave Denmead Infant School with a knowledge of their own bodies and emotions, as well as their support bubble and how to ask for help. They will know how to keep themselves healthy and safe, and have the resilience to keep asking for support if they feel they have not been listened to the first time.
At Denmead Infant School we ensure that we meet the statutory guidance for relationships education and the non-statutory guidance for personal, social, health and economic education. Within Year R this falls under our provision for personal, social and emotional development.
PSHE education is taught for at least one session weekly throughout every class in the school. Teachers will also add extra sessions if children are struggling with concepts, such as other people’s feelings or bullying on the playground, and as any other issues their class may present with. Additional sessions may also be utilised during times of uncertainty for the children, a change in adult or transition to a new class for example. Elements of PSHE education are also taught throughout the day through discussions around book characters and events that may have happened through the day. The need to wash hands thoroughly if a sickness bug is spreading for example. As well as the discrete weekly session PSHE education is taught in Year R on a daily basis, through play and circle times.
Children are predominantly taught using Coram Life Education’s SCARF resources. Developed by teachers and centred on a values-based and ‘Growth Mind-set’ approach, SCARF’s online resources support positive behaviour, mental health, wellbeing, resilience and achievement. The children explore lessons focussed on three main areas, Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World.
To support learning, children explore a range of online resources, such as songs and videos, as well as using stories. The children have a visit from the ‘life bus’ once a year to provide teaching from a specialist teacher and cover a range of topics. This also helps ensure the children are excited about their PSHE education learning. Children also discuss the values set out in SCARF during assemblies, focussing on 1 value each session to ensure all children have understood the concepts of Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience and Friendship.
Within Year R we utilise the SCARF resources as well as using the Early Years Foundation Stage to ensure they are best meeting their children’s needs. Circle times are used as well as other lesson formats to deliver a PSHE education curriculum that is developmentally appropriate to the children. These sessions are more frequent in the Autumn term to help the children settle, with PSED learning continuing through their child initiated time and their discreet weekly teaching using the SCARF resources.
We continuously strive to better ourselves and frequently share ideas with our partnership schools that have been particularly effective.
Throughout our teaching children’s progress is monitored against ‘I can’ statements in KS1, derived from SCARF, and against the Early Years Foundation Stage in Reception. Formative assessment notes are made as appropriate to ensure excellent provision for every child.
