PSHE and RSHE
PSHE/RSHE/Mental Health and Well-Being Lead - Miss Cohen
What is PSHE and RSHE?
PSHE stands for personal, social, health and economic. The ‘E’ in PSHE covers economic well-being and careers – vital parts of the subject that mustn’t be ignored.
RSHE stands for relationships, sex and health education.
Most of PSHE education became statutory in September 2020 under the Children and Social Work Act.
The Act introduced compulsory Relationships Education in primary schools and compulsory Relationships and Sex Education in secondary schools. Health Education (both mental and physical) became statutory from key stages 1 to 4.
This statutory content – now often summarised as ‘RSHE covers the majority of PSHE education.
PSHE/RSHE Subject Statement
At St Margaret’s we believe it is essential to deliver an ambitious, comprehensive and inclusive curriculum in order to provide children with the foundations they need to develop become happy, healthy, independent and responsible members of society in future life. We encourage children to express, listen and value others opinions in line with British Values to ensure children experience the process of democracy in school. Our curriculum equips children with the knowledge they need to make decisions, strengthen them personally, and contribute to character building whilst having an awareness of their rights responsibilities as part of a diverse society.
We use the Heartsmart Programme to deliver all our PSHE/RSHE content although there are many opportunities for its coverage across all subject areas. Daily collective worship gives us an additional opportunity to cover many themes that fall under the PSHE/RSHE umbrella e.g. equality, diversity and Esafety. These themes are carefully planned into our collective worship on rotation and there are regular opportunities to address personal safety and the safety of others e.g. fire and water safety and recognising the signs of abuse.
Heartsmart covers all of the end of primary school objectives as outlined in the Department for Education's RSHE guidance. The coverage of our Heartsmart curriculum has been carefully reviewed alongside the RSHE Guidance to ensure our children are being taught content at what we deem to be an age-appropriate level. There is more information on how RSHE is covered at St.Margaret's in our RSHE Policy which has been reviewed in consultation with parents/carers, staff and governors.
Mental Health Champions
Mental health at St.Margaret's is very much a priority. We are proud to have provided mental health workshops to our Key Stage 2 children from 'One goal' and as a result have created a Mental Health Champions group as part of our Agents of Change (please see the Agents of Change tab under the heading 'Children').
The idea behind the Mental Health Champion workshops is that children are given the opportunity to learn and experience:
- What mental health is and what factors can affect it.
- The differences between good mental health and poor mental health.
- How to recognise the signs of poor mental health and how to seek help.
- How to take daily care for their own mental health and manage stress using a variety of evidenced based best strategies.
- Encouragement to support the mental health of other children in the school.
Our Mental Health Champions lead our worship on a rota with our other Agents of Change and meet half-termly.
The NSPCC produces an annual assembly that can be shared with different ages. We deliver this annually and revisit its content regularly throughout the year through our Heartsmart sessions and collective worship focuses.
Our daily collective worship runs on a rolling timetable to ensure that safeguarding, including keeping yourself and others safe, is regularly addressed at an age-appropriate level.