PSHE

PSHE is taught once per week during form time. We have a spiral curriculum, where key topics recur in increasing detail throughout a student’s five years at the academy. Sessions are mainly discussion-based, where students are encouraged to express their opinions and ask questions.

The curriculum map for form time PSHE is outlined below:

The curriculum map is reviewed regularly and subject to change to react to issues that arise in school, locally and nationally.

The form time PSHE programme is audited against the PSHE Association programme of study that is regularly signposted by the Department for Education.

Form time PSHE is supplemented by six drop-down PSHE Days per year. These days are responsive to current issues in the school and local community and feedback from students, parents and staff. They reinforce key messages from the form time programme and provide additional opportunities for enrichment activities that expose students to new activities and experiences.

Below is an example of a recent PSHE Day timetable:

Many of the sessions are delivered by specialist external agencies. All external providers must share the values of the academy and sign up to our ‘No Platform for Extremism’ agreement.

Our external providers include:

Students in all year groups will have at least one careers-based session on each PSHE Day. This is in addition to those sessions that form part of the form time PSHE programme. During form time, once every week, students and form tutors also discuss the ‘Career of the Week’, with each half term assigned a different field/theme. To read more about our careers offer, please click here.

The Department for Education’s statutory RSE guidance sets out in detail what schools must cover. This guidance can be found here.

Our PSHE programme integrates all of this statutory content and more. A letter from the academy giving more information about RSE can be found here.

Our PSHE programme is designed in collaboration with students, staff and parents as well as external agencies such as police, health and children’s services. We regularly ask students and staff to contribute to the design of the PSHE curriculum by giving their opinions on issues that they’re concerned about or think need including. We also welcome parents/carers to give their opinions on our PSHE curriculum – you can do this by following this link and completing the short survey.

The intended impact of the PSHE programme is that students keep themselves safe, healthy and informed about both the world and their future.

Regular quality assurance and student voice activities assess the quality of our PSHE provision. Students and staff provide feedback on all sessions delivered on PSHE Days, describing what has been learnt and explaining whether they’d recommend the session for students in the future. Students rank their confidence in the topics being delivered at the start and end of PSHE Days to as one way of measuring their progress.