We want all children to grow up healthy, happy, safe, and able to manage the challenges and opportunities of modern Britain. Our curriculum is designed to equip all children with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their wellbeing, health and relationships as well as preparing them for a successful adult life.
Our RSHE curriculum will put in place the building blocks needed for positive and safe relationships, including with family, friends and online. Children are taught what a relationship is, what friendship is, what family means and who can support them. In an age-appropriate way, they will develop their understanding of how to treat others with kindness, consideration and respect.
We strive to give learners the information they need to make good decisions about their own health and wellbeing, to recognise issues in themselves and others, and to seek support as early as possible when issues arise.
Why do we teach Relationships and Health Education?
- First and foremost: it helps to keep pupils safe: RHE gives pupils the knowledge to tell right from wrong, and the skills to assess risk and seek support if they are worried. Giving pupils the correct language to describe genitals helps to keep them safe. If someone touches them inappropriately, they can seek help from an adult and accurately describe what is happening.
- It gives pupils information and skills to make healthy choices. pupils need to have knowledge about what is healthy and what is not but also the skills to be able to use this information. RHE provides the perfect environment for pupils to practice these skills safely.
- It promotes tolerance and respect. We want pupils to become adults who are accepting of all people, even if their way of life is not the same as their own.
- It develops the skills to form and maintain healthy relationships: whether friendships, family, or with teachers, every pupil needs these skills in order to function effectively in society.
- Pupils need to be prepared for the changes of puberty before onset. Some pupils will begin these changes in year 5 or even earlier, they need to know what is going to happen and how to deal with these changes.
Our aspiration is that our children have the knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe, make healthy choices, develop respect for themselves and others, and form positive and healthy relationships.
In addition, as recommended by the Department for Education, we also teach non-statutory elements of sex education in an age-appropriate manner in Year 5 and Year 6.
Implementation
Across KS1 and KS2, we have created a Relationships, and Health Education curriculum for each year group using half termly topics.
Healthy and happy friendships
This topic explores friendships: their importance, what being a good friend means, and how to keep friendships positive and healthy. Pupils investigate their own values and identity (including their online identity), and develop skills to resolve difficulties within friendships, including maintaining and respecting< personal boundaries and safe touch, managing peer pressure and the effects on friendships of change.
Similarities and differences
This topic explores and celebrates the similarities and differences between people, exploring and encouraging ways to value and respect difference and diversity. It looks at the damaging effect that stereotypes can have, and how to identify and challenge them. It helps pupils recognise their own personal strengths and abilities, and develop self-respect.
Caring and responsibility
This topic focuses on special people. It explores why they are special and how they care for and keep one another safe. It examines pupils’ increasing responsibilities towards themselves and others as they get older, including the role they can play and the difference they can make within their communities.
Families and committed relationships
This topic explores the importance and diversity of families, and the characteristics of healthy, positive family relationships. It enables pupils to recognise when they may feel unsafe within a family, and how to ask for help if they need it. It identifies the characteristics of a committed relationship, and at Year 6 explores human reproduction and other ways that people can start a family.
Healthy bodies, healthy minds
This topic explores how to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. It explores ways to maintain wellbeing and prevent illness; how to develop a healthy, balanced lifestyle; and the consequences and effects of different habits and choices. It encourages the development of positive self-worth and recognition, what might affect or influence unhealthy ways of thinking, and how to overcome this.
Coping with change
This topic explores how people grow and change from babies, through puberty to adulthood. At Key Stage 1, it examines ways in which children have grown and how they will continue to change, and how to develop resilience to change. At Key Stage 2, it identifies changes that will take place in children’s bodies during puberty, and explores ways to manage the emotional effects of life changes, including transition to secondary school.
EYFS – Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Toddlers and young children will be learning to:
- Find ways to calm themselves, through being calmed and comforted by an adult
- Establish their sense of self
- Express preferences and decisions - trying new things and establishing their autonomy.
- Engage with others through gestures, gaze and talk.
- Use that engagement to achieve a goal. For example, gesture towards their cup to say they want a drink.
- Find ways of managing transitions, e.g. from their parent to their key person
- Thrive as they develop self-assurance
- Look back as they crawl or walk away from their key person. Look for clues about how to respond to something interesting.
- Play with increasing confidence on their own and with other children, because they know their key person is nearby and available.
- Feel confident when taken out around the local neighbourhood and enjoy exploring new places with their key person
- Feel strong enough to express a range of emotions.
- Grow in independence, rejecting help (“me do it”).
- Begin to show ‘effortful control’. For example, waiting for a turn and resisting the strong impulse to grab what they want or push their way to the front.
- Be increasingly able to talk about and manage their emotions.
- Notice and ask questions about differences, such as skin colour, types of hair, gender, special needs and disabilities, religion and so on
- Develop friendships with other children.
- Safely explore emotions beyond their normal range through play and stories.
- Talk about their feelings in more elaborated ways: “I’m sad because…” or “I love it when …”.
- Learn to use the toilet with help, and then independently.
3 and 4-year-olds will be learning to:
- Select and use activities and resources, with help when needed. This helps them to achieve a goal they have chosen, or one which is suggested to them.
- Develop their sense of responsibility and membership of a community
- Become more outgoing with unfamiliar people, in the safe context of their setting. Show more confidence in new social situations
- Play with one or more other children, extending and elaborating play ideas.
- Find solutions to conflicts and rivalries. For example, accepting that not everyone can be Spider-Man in the game, and suggesting other ideas
- Increasingly follow rules, understanding why they are important. Remember rules without needing an adult to remind them
- Develop appropriate ways of being assertive. Talk with others to solve conflicts. Talk about their feelings using words like ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘angry’ or ‘worried’.
- Understand gradually how others might be feeling.
- Be increasingly independent in meeting their own care needs, e.g., brushing teeth, using the toilet, washing and drying their hands thoroughly. Make healthy choices about food, drink, activity and tooth brushing.
Children in reception will be learning to:
- 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, tooth brushing, sensible amounts of ‘screen time’, having a good sleep routine, being a safe pedestrian
Teachers will answer any questions from children in an age-appropriate and factual way, without personal bias or judgement. All teachers will have boxes in their classrooms where pupils can post questions anonymously if they wish. Questions will be answered in one of the following ways: by providing an answer to the whole class; by giving an individual answer to a pupil, or, on rare occasions, by contacting parents if we feel the question would be better handled in the home setting. Any questions that give rise to concerns of a safeguarding nature will be handled in line with our published safeguarding policy.
Government guidance (2019) requires that all schools in England consult with parents when developing their curriculum and policy on Relationships Education. Parents were consulted prior to the development of our RHE curriculum. Parents continue to be consulted annually regarding our Sex Education lessons as part of our RSHE curriculum.
Right to withdraw
Parents cannot withdraw their child from Relationships and Health Education because it is important that all children receive this content, covering topics such as friendships and how to stay safe. In line with legislation, parents have the right to withdraw children from the sex education lessons in Year 5 and 6. If you would like to exercise the right to excuse your child from these lessons, please send a letter direct to school for the attention of the Headteacher, explaining your request.
RSHE Policy