Overall curriculum
An Daras Multi Academy Trust has used the latest pedagogy, research and understanding of local contextual needs to structure the curriculum design to ensure the growth of capability mature children who exhibit a sustained curiosity for learning. The ‘lived values and experiences’ of pupils are determined by the individual school and should run through all operational elements of curriculum provision.
Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education offers both explicit and implicit learning opportunities and experiences which reflect pupils’ increasing independence and physical and social awareness, as they move through the primary phase.
It builds on skills that pupils started to acquire during the Early Years Foundation stage (EYFS) to develop effective relationships, assume greater personal responsibility and manage personal safety, including online. PSHE education helps pupils manage the physical and emotional changes at puberty, introduces the to a wider world and enables them to make an active contribution to their communities.
PSHE has deep links with science and Computing (online safety), as well as SMSC, UNICEF Rights Respecting, RE and our school capabilities.
Pedagogy
Our PSHE curriculum focuses on developing our pupils through the acquisition of WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS. These have been selected because they ensure the whole development of the child will be prioritised, they enable pupils to meet the expectations of the National Curriculum 14 and have ambitions beyond the NC14.
Each theme has a set of curriculum tools which ensure it is fully embedded through the lived experiences of staff, children and stakeholders. Impact scales will measure the effectiveness of curriculum provision on the growth of children within these three equally important themes.
Wisdom
Children’s wisdom is developed in the following ways:
- Taking part in topical and relevant debates.
- Using Circle Time to explore issues and make decisions. -
Through learning how to make positive contributions to topics under discussion.
- Making real and informed choices about their lives.
Knowledge
Children’s knowledge is developed in the following ways:
- Listening to and discussing stories/accounts of others’ lives.
- Meeting with and talking to other individuals.
- Being given the factual information necessary to understand themselves, their bodies and how to be responsible for their health and well-being.
- With a mixture of individual, group, whole class and whole school recording and some practical work.
- Using a variety of resources, including: fiction and non-fiction books; posters; games; videos; flash cards and ICT.
Capabilities
Children’s capabilities are developed in the following ways:
- Being given responsibilities for roles within the school community, (eg. Monitors/Playground Leaders/ Playground Buddies/ members of Focus Groups).
- Meeting with and talking to other individuals.
- Developing the skills and confidence to ask for help and advice.
- Developing the skills to understand and be in control of their emotions and behaviour.
- With a mixture of individual, group, whole class and whole school recording and some practical work.
The PSHE curriculum at Windmill Hill Academy follows SCARF (Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship) Coram Life Education is the leading charity provider of relationships, health, wellbeing, and drugs education to children across the UK. Coram Life Education & SCARF offers a whole-school approach to wellbeing and Mental Health. It is a progressive PSHE scheme for 3-11 year olds, high-quality, educator-led workshops for pupils SCARF's whole-school approach supports primary schools in promoting positive behaviour, mental health, wellbeing, resilience and achievement. The scheme starts from nursery age up through KS1, KS2 and KS3. It offers supporting knowledge organisers and provides assessments pre and post unit to track pupil progress. It provides resources for SMSC, RRSA as well as documents for teachers to check against the national curriculum and PSHE Association, RSHE statutory documents and Keeping Children Safe in Education information. It gives resources on statutory and no statutory guidance including British values and prevent radicalisation. SCARF gives advice/training films for educators and parents regarding RSE, LGBT and support with policy writing, vocabulary glossary as well as links to resources for when needed e.g. bereavement.
Scarf is organised into 6 half termly units:
- Me and My Relationships
- Valuing Difference
- Keeping Safe
- Rights and Respect
- Being my Best
- Growing and Changing
The scheme starts from nursery age up through KS1, KS2 and KS3. It offers supporting knowledge organisers and provides assessments pre and post unit to track pupil progress. It provides resources for SMSC, RRSA as well as documents for teachers to check against the national curriculum and PSHE Association, RSHE statutory documents and Keeping Children Safe in Education information.
It gives resources on statutory and non statutory guidance including British values and prevent radicalisation. SCARF gives advice/training films for educators and parents regarding RSE, LGBT and support with policy writing, vocabulary glossary as well as links to resources for when needed e.g. bereavement.
At Windmill Hill Academy, rather than teaching all the protected characteristics in every year group, we ensure that our children are given opportunities to develop age-appropriate knowledge and understanding through a well-planned and delivered curriculum. Many of these are covered in our PSHE curriculum.
As part of being a Rights Respecting school, the UNICEF Rights of the child are promoted throughout the school and embedded during assemblies and throughout with the use of language that staff and pupils use. This is built upon thought both key stages and EYFS. PSHE has deep links with science and Computing (online safety), as well as SMSC, UNICEF Rights Respecting, RE and our school capabilities.
Teachers will help pupils with SEND to overcome any barriers to participating and learning and make any ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to include pupils. To make lessons inclusive, teachers will anticipate what barriers to taking part and learning may pose for pupils with SEND. Some modifications or adjustments will be made or smaller steps to achieve the learning goal. Occasionally, pupils with SEND will have to work on different activities, or towards different learning intentions, from their peers.
In EYFS, all areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. These are stipulated in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’.
The most relevant statements for PSHE are taken from the following areas of learning:
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
Assessment
Formative
Assessment is regarded as an integral part of teaching and learning and is a continuous process. All sessions should begin with a recap/recall of previous learning. Teachers should use skillful questioning to gauge starting points, to assess current understanding and knowledge, to ensure concepts have been acquired, to identify misconceptions. This formative assessment should support the teacher in adapting lessons to ensure pupils are learning new learning, building on prior learning and making links between new and previous learning. At the end of each session, teachers should use assessment tools to ensure that the intent of the lesson has been achieved, to help plan for the following session and to support building a picture of the pupils’ progress for final summative assessments.
Summative
It is the responsibility of the class teacher to assess all pupils in their class. Each child is assessed termly, against the criteria in: Sex and Relationships; Drugs Education; Healthy Eating; Health Related Exercise; Emotional Health and well-Being and Citizenship as appropriate to current learning. This is recorded as teacher assessments of skills and abilities against the unit plan. Pupils may produce a final outcome to demonstrate their unit learning.
End of year assessment is reported on Itrack and features on the annual report to parents.
In EYFS, the level of development children should be expected to have attained by the end of the EYFS is defined by the early learning goals (ELGs). These are not used as a curriculum or in any way to limit the wide variety of rich experiences that are crucial to child development. Instead, the ELGs support teachers to make a holistic, best-fit judgement about a child’s development, and their readiness for year 1.
When assessing pupils with SEND, there will be carefully planned opportunities in order for them to demonstrate what they know and are able to do, using alternative means where necessary. Where a pupil is unable to use particular types of equipment, assessment of attainment will be based on understanding of the processes used as demonstrated through oral and written responses or, where possible, through the use of alternative equipment. The attainment of pupils who require adapted equipment, such as particular switches or voice-activated software, will be assessed using these specialist items.
The monitoring of the standards of children’s learning and the quality of learning and teaching of PSHE is the shared responsibility of the Senior Leadership Team and the subject leader. The work of the subject leader also involves supporting colleagues in the teaching of PSHE, being informed about current developments in the subject, and providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school. A named member of the school governing body is briefed to overview the teaching of the curriculum in the school, another focuses on wellbeing and the safeguarding governor will also have an overview in relation to online safety.
Culture
PSHE is vital for pupils so that they have a balanced understanding of their own emotions, mental health to be able manage their own behaviour to be able to grow in today’s modern lifestyle.
We believe it is essential that all pupils gain the confidence and ability that they need in this subject, to prepare them for the challenge of a rapidly changing world and to support them with whatever challenges they have in their future.
At Windmill Hill Academy, rather than teaching all the protected characteristics in every year group, we ensure that our children are given opportunities to develop age-appropriate knowledge and understanding through a well-planned and delivered curriculum. Many of these are covered in our PSHE curriculum.
As part of being a Rights Respecting school, the UNICEF Rights of the child are promoted throughout the school and embedded during collective worship and throughout with the use of language that staff and pupils use. This is built upon thought both key stages and EYFS. We have recently been awarded with the UNICEF Rights Respecting Silver award and are now working towards achieving the gold award.
Our PSHE teaching has a strong link with the online safety aspect of computing and, as well as teaching regular sessions, we also celebrate the annual ‘online safety week’ as well as ‘anti-bullying week’. There are also occasions where additional sessions will be taught if needed due to latest developments/class needs.
It is imperative that parents and carers are kept up to date with the latest RSE guidance and guidance is regularly shared with parents via ClassDojo and via our website. Stakeholders were consulted prior to the PSHE (with inclusion of Relationships) Policy being adopted.
It is widely recognised that a child’s emotional health and wellbeing influences their cognitive development and learning. This also impacts on their physical and social health and their mental wellbeing into adulthood.
Our role in school is to ensure that children are able to manage times of change and stress, and that they are supported to reach their potential or access help when they need it. We also have a role to ensure that children learn about what they can do to maintain positive mental health, what affects their mental health, how they can help reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues, and where they can go if they need help and support.
At Windmill Hill Academy, we follow the Trauma Informed Schools (TIS) approach in line with our Rights Respecting (Rights of the Child) approach. Both of these, support pupils' wellbeing.
Wellbeing strategies are promoted and embedded on a daily basis, as well as additional supporting sessions, e.g. mindfulness sessions. Bertie, our school dog, also helps to support the pupils and staff wellbeing. A stroke to our fluffy waggy-tailed friend really helps!
Teachers will help pupils with SEND to overcome any barriers to participating and learning and make any ‘reasonable adjustments’ needed to include pupils. To make lessons inclusive, teachers will anticipate what barriers to taking part and learning may pose for pupils with SEND. Some modifications or adjustments will be made or smaller steps to achieve the learning goal. Occasionally, pupils with SEND will have to work on different activities, or towards different learning intentions, from their peers. For some activities, there may need to be a ‘parallel’ activity for pupils with SEND, so that they can work towards the same learning intentions as their peers, but in a different way. The use of technology to assist learning can removes barrier e.g. Widget, switches, text readers and speech and communicator devices. Using keyboard shortcuts instead of a mouse, enables all pupils to be involved. Generic software, such as Microsoft Office, contains accessibility facilities for SEND pupils. Screen filters may help with glare or using coloured backgrounds e.g. yellow background with blue script for dyslexic learners. Because the range of hardware and software is wide and continually expanding, teachers will always seek to collaborate with the SENDCo or colleagues e.g. previous teacher, on removing barriers to learning and participation for particular pupils with SEND. Pupils will also be able to advise on the technologies that suit them best.
Systems
In EYFS, all areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected. These are stipulated in the ‘Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage’.
The most relevant statements for PSHE are taken from the following areas of learning:
- Communication and Language
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Development
Reception
Communication and Language
- Use talk to help work out problems and organise thinking and activities, and to explain how things work and why they might happen.
- Develop social phrases.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- See themselves as a valuable individual.
- Build constructive and respectful relationships.
- Express their feelings and consider the feelings of others.
- Show resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge.
- Identify and moderate their own feelings socially and emotionally.
- Think about the perspectives of others.
- Manage their own needs
personal hygiene
- Know and talk about the different factors that support their overall health and wellbeing:
regular physical activity
healthy eating
toothbrushing
sensible amounts of ‘screen time’
having a good sleep routine
being a safe pedestrian
Physical Development
- Further develop the skills they need to manage the school day successfully:
lining up and queuing up for mealtimes
Understanding the World
- Talk about members of their immediate family and community.
- Name and describe people who are familiar to them.
- Recognise that people have different beliefs and celebrate special times in different ways.
ELG
Communication and Language
Listening, Attention and Understanding
- Hold conversation when engaged in back and-forth exchanges with their teachers and peers.
Speaking
- Express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions, with modelling and support from their teacher.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Self-Regulation
- Show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly.
- Set and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate impulses when appropriate.
- Give focused attention to what the teacher says, responding appropriately even when engaged in activity, and show an ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.
Managing Self
- Be confident to try new activities and show independence, resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge.
- Explain the reasons for rules, know right from wrong and try to behave accordingly.
- Manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs, including dressing, going to the toilet and understanding the importance of healthy food choices.
Building Relationships
- Work and play cooperatively and take turns with others.
- Form positive attachments to adults and friendships with peers.
- Show sensitivity to their own and others’ needs.
Physical Development
Gross Motor Skills
- Negotiate space and obstacles safely, with consideration for themselves and others.
Understanding the World
Past and Present
- Talk about the lives of people around them and their roles in society.
The statutory content of the national curriculum for PSHE aims to ensure that all pupils are equipped with sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills necessary to make safe and informed decisions.
The core statutory guidance is:
- Drug education
- Financial education
- Sex and relationship education (SRE)
- Physical activity and diet for a healthy lifestyle
Windmill Hill Academy follows the SCARF programme for PSHE/RSE, which also allows teachers in school to tailor the programme to the needs of their pupils whilst still following statutory guidance. By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the skills and knowledge specified in the relevant programme of study. See the knowledge and skills organiser for PSHE/RSE which demonstrates the progression through the year groups.
The Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019, made under sections 34 and 35 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, make Relationships Education compulsory for all pupils receiving primary education and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) compulsory for all pupils receiving secondary education. They also make health Education compulsory in all schools except independent schools. Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) continue to be compulsory in independent schools. RSE is not compulsory in primary schools. However, primary schools are required to teach the elements of sex education contained in the science curriculum.
At Windmill Hill Academy, we teach RSE as set out in the PSHE (with the inclusion of Relationship Education and Relationships and Sex Education) Policy. Biological aspects of RSE are taught within the science curriculum, and other aspects are included in religious education (RE), RRSA (Rights Respecting School Award), capabilities curriculum, Wisdom resource, Computing (online safety), PE and SMSC. Please refer to the knowledge and skills organisers for these.
Policies/key documents
- Whole School Long term horizontal curriculum map
- SCARF overview of units
- PSHE Knowledge and Skills organiser
- EYFS Long term overview
- SMSC Knowledge and Skills organiser
- Computing Knowledge and Skills organiser
- Anti-bullying Policy
- PSHE (with inclusion of Relationships and Sex Education) Policy
- Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Policy
- Protected Characteristics document
- SEND Policy
All of these can be found on our website under the curriculum/policies tab.