Subject Philosophy: PSHE
Intention
The PSHE curriculum in Queen's Park Primary School is integral to the school's vision and ethos and is carefully woven into all areas of the curriculum. We use our curriculum to develop the following 10 ways of wellbeing in all of our pupils:
Our PSHE curriculum focuses on the three core themes of mental health, physical health and relationships education and is built with the belief that a 'well child is a happy child and a happy child learns well'.
As part of the school’s PSHE curriculum, we will be teaching the Zones of Regulation curriculum. The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum that is advocated internationally and is full of a range of activities that helps children develop skills in the area of self-regulation. Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management and impulse control. It is defined as the best state of alertness of both the body and emotions for the specific situation. For example, when a child plays in a basketball game, it is beneficial to have a higher state of alertness. However, that same state would not be appropriate in the library.
There is progression across the curriculum with children in Early Years learning to identify different emotions to children in Upper Key Stage 2 discussing how our behaviour can impact upon the feelings of those around us.
This is complemented by the whole school use of Mind Up by the Goldie Hawn Foundation. This is a comprehensive, classroom-tested, evidence-based curriculum framed around 15 easily implemented lessons that foster social and emotional awareness, enhance psychological well-being, and promote academic success. This curriculum particularly complements the use of Zones of Regulation as it helps children to understand the neuroscience behind emotions, therefore making their knowledge of emotions deep.
Our Curriculum also includes Protective Behaviours, this is a framework for personal safety consisting of 2 Themes and 7 Strategies. This is a dynamic, confidence building, empowering approach that links safety with having adventures and taking risks. This part of our curriculum gives children a shared language to use in all situations to keep themselves safe.
Using elements of these three resources we are able to give children a complete understanding of themselves and equip them with tools to explore the three themes of mental health, physical health and relationships education fully.
Implementation
Our PSHE curriculum is planned through weekly lessons but many elements of the curriculum can be seen in use throughout the day in every lesson. We use the Zones of Regulation for our wellbeing policy and as a strategy to help children with their behaviour. We have one planned focus lesson per term for each year group but this may be complemented if a teacher sees a whole class need or a small group intervention.
The first term focuses on Protective Behaviours as this prepares the children with a shared language to ensure everyone feels safe at all times. Again, this is not just a language for these lessons - it is a language that should be used at all times in school and in daily life. The first term is a perfect time to implement this with new classes because it develops a positive ethos in the classroom with the new teacher. There is progression with how this is followed and it is planned carefully for each year group.
Mind up practices are also demonstrated daily in class through brain breaks and through the teacher questioning in class. You will see linked questions to different curriculum areas on planning and the mind up lessons are covered throughout the year in the PSHE Curriculum. There is a clear progression of learning the Neuroscience at different ages and stages through the school.
See PSHE Curriculum attached.
Impact
At Queen’s Park, we believe in aspirational expectations for all children and the impact of the PSHE curriculum on physical and mental health, levels of bullying and general behaviour allows pupils to excel by removing barriers to learning, and developing skills and attributes - such as confidence and positive risk-taking - which support their progress.
We assess the impact of our PSHE curriculum through assessment of key indicators which we have identified to be essential to the curriculum’s success. We look carefully for these indicators through all teaching and learning and interactions throughout school life. The triangulation model will also act as away to monitor how effectively the PSHE is embedded into each classroom. We also measure the impact of the curriculum through boxhall profiling and the happiness scale.
The PSHE subject leader is responsible for the monitoring of learning and teaching and will ensure high quality learning and teaching by: