PSHE at St Thomas’
Intent – Our vision for PSHE
Personal, Social, Health Education underpins life at St Thomas’ and we aim to create a happy, safe, caring and supportive environment where children are enabled to become successful learners, develop their full potential and achieve the highest educational standards they can.
We believe that nurturing content and emotionally healthy children is central to all aspects of their learning and development. We recognise the uniqueness of individual learners.
Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) enables our children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of a society. It aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We aim to provide our children with learning opportunities across and beyond the curriculum, both in specific lessons using the My Happy Mind Curriculum, and as part of special celebrations during the year such as Stay Safe week, Anti-bullying Day, and Children’s Mental Health Week. School works to deliver PSHE in partnership with parents, the Church and the local community.
"PSHE education gives pupils the knowledge, skills, and attributes they need to keep themselves healthy and safe and to prepare them for life and work in modern Britain."
PSHE Association
The myHappymind lessons are intended to help the children to:
- Feel happier
- Know what to do when they feel worried or stressed
- Improve their focus and learn more
- Achieve more of the goals that they set for themselves
- Develop better relationships with friends and families
- Feel great about who they are and have positive self esteem
Implementation – How we plan for, and teach PSHE
The myHappymind teaches children how the brain works and supports them in developing positive skills and habits to be their very best selves.
The programme is taught across five modules and each introduces a new set of content and habits to help children build resilience, self-esteem and confidence:
- Meet Your Brain
Understanding how your brain works and how to ensure we look after it so that we can manage our emotions and be at our best. Growth mindset is a key part of this too.
- Celebrate
Understanding your unique character strengths and learning to celebrate them. This is a fantastic module for building self-esteem.
- Appreciate
Understanding why gratitude matters and how you can develop gratitude as a habit. Gratitude is key to wellbeing and resilience and we’re all about making it a habit!
- Relate
Understanding why positive relationships matter and how to build them. We’re focussed on the building blocks of good relationships and friendships.
- Engage
Understanding how to set meaningful goals that matter and how to keep resilient in times of challenge. This module is all about building self-esteem and resilience too.
The children learn through questioning, exploring opinions, stories and factual evidence and record their thoughts and feelings in their own journal.
The teaching and learning of PSHE is supplemented by a carefully planned curriculum week - Stay Safe Week. This is designed to teach the elements of the PSHE curriculum not covered through the myHappymind programme. Throughout this week, children will find out about how they can stay safe in school and at home. This covers internet safety, anti-bullying, first aid, workshops with the Dog’s Trust and how and when medicines can be used safely.
RSE (Relaltionships and Sex Education) is covered through a combination of myHappymind, which focuses on Relationships and Health Education, and Science, which focuses on the statutory elements of Sex Education.
PSHE learning is also cross-curricular and is reinforced through science, computing, RE and English. Quality literature is chosen to support the children’s understanding of protected characteristics and focuses on diversity, equality and celebrating difference.
Children in Year 5 take part in the Archbishop of York’s Young Leaders Award, a leadership and character education programme which has strong links to SMSC, British Values, PSHE, Character Education, Citizenship, RE and SIAMS.
Throughout PSHE, teachers will incorporate St Thomas’ Be Statements: Be Curious, Be Knowledgeable, Be Creative, Be Compassionate, Be Reflective, Be Courageous.
Impact - How we evaluate learning in PSHE
By the time children leave St Thomas’, they will know how to be healthy, independent and responsible members of society. They will have participated in opportunities to develop personally and socially. They will know how to develop and maintain positive relationships, showing increasing self-awareness interlinked with compassion towards others.
They will have an overview of many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up in a diverse society. They will know about rights and responsibilities and will have been encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.
‘myHappymind is a science-based system designed to help you develop confident, resilient children with the self-esteem and the tools to thrive because a greater sense of wellbeing means they’re better equipped to succeed in life.’ myHappymind