At St Michael’s, our PSHE curriculum is intended to prepare children for the personal, social and health related situations that will occur throughout their lives. It is a whole school approach, where problem solving and building resilience are core to every topic. The whole school approach ensures consistency and progression throughout every year group, and lessons and the supporting collective worship work alongside our ENRICH values.
Each topic builds on the learning from the previous year, enabling children to develop their understanding of self-awareness, self-worth, and self-care, thus promoting awareness, worth, and care of others, in order that they develop tolerance and understanding of the local, national and global communities in which they live. Jigsaw PSHE intends to instil a recognition of celebrating oneself and one’s place in the community, and celebrating those who are different to us.
PSHE also includes Relationship and Sex Education. This is taught in the summer term at an age-appropriate level in every year group. More information, including detailed information of lesson content, is sent out by class teachers nearer the time.
Our PSHE curriculum is a scheme of work called Jigsaw, developed by the Jan Lever Group. This scheme runs throughout the school, from Reception to Year 6, and is taught discreetly every week at St Michael’s. There is a new theme each half term, with each topic supported by a whole school assembly.
The themes are as follows:
Being Me in My world
Celebrating Difference
Dreams and Goals
Healthy Me
Relationships
Changing Me
Each lesson is divided into different sections, which includes time to work together as a class, a learning input, discussion opportunities to express different ideas and viewpoints, independent/paired/small group activities, and a refection time allowing for self-assessment. Each lesson also includes the use of our special Jigsaw chime bars to help children become quiet, still and focused, all ready to start learning. This ‘Calm Me’ time with the chime bar is a favourite activity for many of the pupils at St Michael’s, so please do ask your children about it!
At St Michael’s, we want children to be able to show and talk about self-awareness, social skills, managing feelings, motivation and empathy in relation to the lessons taught in Jigsaw PSHE. We hope that these will become life-long skills. Through Jigsaw PSHE, children should
understand the importance of healthy lifestyles and adopt healthy practices and attitudes;
recognise that health and well-being is an important part of learning;
be equipped with skills of citizenship and to guide them in making decisions to become independent and confident members of society;
recognise and respect others who have a different viewpoint to themselves;
understand the impact that their actions and choices have on themselves, their peers, their school, their families, their community and those living in communities across the world;
understand how they fit into the world around them and recognise that everyone has an important role to play;
aspire to be the best ‘Me’ that they can be;
recognise how they change as they get older, both on the inside and on the outside;
understand that our bodies change in different ways and at different rates, but that change is necessary and normal;
be equipped with the tools with which to deal with changes of all kinds in their lives;
to be able to assess their own progress and recognise learning that they are proud of.
PSHE sits within the areas of 'Personal, Social and Emotional Development' and 'Understanding of the World'. From an early age, the children at St. Michael’s learn to develop respectful communication and they are aware of the feelings and wishes of others by following the Jigsaw plan. The continuous provision is planned to provide the children with the opportunity to further develop the skills that they have learned from focused sessions and then practise using these independently. The youngest learners in the school are exposed to and participate in upholding British Values.