Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE) at St. Thomas More Catholic Primary School

PSHCE is at the heart of everything we do at St Thomas More. We teach PSHCE throughout the school as discreet sessions as well as incorporating it in all other areas of the curriculum, including assemblies and Collective Worship. PSHCE themes have been carefully chosen to link with events planned nationally and within school throughout the academic year.

Due to the excellent outcomes of our PSHCE and wellbeing sessions, we have been awarded both the GHLL Accreditation and the Mental Health Champions award.

Intent

Our aim is for all children to become confident, creative and engaged learners who achieve their full God-given potential.  We aim to inspire curiosity and fascination about our local communities as well as our world community.

We ensure that through the lens of faith we develop individual, unique people and form the foundations of them being able to contribute to society.  Our school vision is that as a Catholic school, God is at the heart of all we do. We believe that each person is made in His image, deserving to be treated with respect and dignity.  Showing respect, love and care for everyone and everything, we aim to develop harmony between pupils, parents the school and Parish and grow as a Christian community. We aim to enable each individual to realise their full potential, spiritually, academically, physically, socially and emotionally.  

At St Thomas More, our intention is that all children will leave our school with the knowledge, understanding and emotions to be able to play an active role in today’s society. We want our children to have high aspirations, a belief in themselves and realise that anything is possible if they put their mind to it.  The aim of Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE) is to help children to acquire and develop knowledge and understanding of the world around them in order to help them develop as young citizens. In an every-changing world, it is important that they are aware, to an appropriate level, of different factors which will affect their world and that they learn how to deal with these so that they have good mental health and well-being.

Implementation

PSHCE is planned and taught from a whole school progressive overview using a range of resources including GHLL’s PINK Curriculum (People in the Know), SCARF (Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship) and based on national and international events (Anti-Bullying Week, Children’s Mental Health Week etc).  We facilitate and develop the learning of key topics from outside visitors such as our local PSCO team and Life Education team.  PSHCE is recorded in our whole class workbook which children can have access to, to recap their learning.  Not only is PSCHE taught from a whole school overview but sessions are also planned and taught based on the needs of individual classes where appropriate, for example, Year 6 transition work in the Summer Term.  This can then be followed up with individual children by our CAWAF and Nurture team.

Impact

Children leave St Thomas More with the resilience, self-belief and the positive mental health and wellbeing to achieve what they put their mind to. Children demonstrate and apply the British Values of Democracy, Tolerance, Mutual respect, Rule of law and Liberty.  Children will know how to make healthy choices and how to deal with and overcome challenges they will face in their wider life.

PSHCE Overview

Find out more with the links below: