Beamont Primary School

At Beamont, we ensure that Personal, Social, Health Education is at the core of our teaching and learning and that it enables our children to become independent, confident, resilient and healthy young people who are learning about themselves and how to make responsible choices in regards to their physical and mental health.  Being a school with above national average percentages of Pupil Premium and English as an Additional Language children, and being situated in an area with high levels of deprivation, we recognise the importance of excellence in PSHE for our children and their families. We aim to equip children with fundamental and essential skills for life and intend for them to leave us well informed about and prepared for life outside school, knowing and valuing who they are and how their uniqueness is something to celebrate, knowing how to tackle and overcome barriers they face in life and with the ability to make responsible decisions as they work towards career and life choices and grow into young adults.

• Excellence in our teaching of PSHE will have a great impact on academic achievement and progress across the curriculum for all learners, regardless of their background or any additional needs.  Through integrating the explicit teaching of social skills, development of emotional literacy and support for nurturing positive relationships between themselves and others into a fully comprehensive PHSE curriculum, we enable therapeutic support and the development of social and emotional learning.
• Our teaching of PSHE is delivered through a spiral curriculum in which themes are revisited year on year from EYFS-Y6 at the same point in the academic year.  Each year, the challenge increases, the scope broadens and pupils are required to think more deeply.  The progression of skills and emotional vocabulary is carefully structured in a way that allows for the revisiting of learning before it is built upon.  The position of the units within the year have been outlined in a way that supports the children into and through their current school year.
• Our whole school approach to teaching PSHE, which offers a nurturing learning environment that encourages all children to reach their full potential, develops our children socially, morally, culturally and spiritually and helps them to gain an understanding of the ever-changing world around them.
• The structure of both the lessons and units take into account how children learn and the metacognitive processes that children are required to experience in order to retain knowledge and skills.  Each lesson is structured through from EYFS –Y6 in a way that allows for retrieval, mindfulness and learning preparation, direct instruction, independent practice to reinforce new learning and, finally, reflection.
• As well as the end points of each unit, the children, teachers and leaders are aware of the success criteria of each lesson. These are shared with the children and reflected upon following the delivery and engagement in each lesson.  Teachers are provided with clear descriptors that outline whether a child is working towards, at or above age related expectations.
• Part of PSHE, at Beamont Primary School, is ‘Relationships Education’ from the statutory RSE framework, taking effect from September 2020.  It is implemented through the ‘Relationships’ and ‘Changing Me’ units of PSHE.  The aim of our ‘Relationships Education’ is to equip children with the information they need to prepare for adult life.  The children will leave Beamont knowing the key building blocks of healthy, respectful relationships, focusing on family and friendships, in all contexts, including online.  They will develop the skills to not only form relationships but to think about relationships with others and recognise when these relationships are positive.  As a school, we recognise that the parents are the prime educators of many of the matters but ensure that, as educators, we reinforce and support this learning.
• Not solely due the pandemic and the significant impact that is has had on children’s mental health and wellbeing (and by extension social, emotional and PSHE learning), but more so this year, we encourage our teachers to use their knowledge of the children and their needs to make adaptations and revisit previous learning in order to address gaps and areas for development.  Whilst we know the delivery and engagement with PSHE learning remains strong throughout periods of remote learning, we acknowledge the effects that such experiences have on our children and their impact to PSHE outcomes.