PSHE & Citizenship

Welcome to the PSHE & Citizenship page for 2024/25

Our PSHE & Citizenship Curriculum

Our teaching at St Edward’s is driven by the desire for every child to fulfil their potential as a child of God and to establish their place and role within both the local and worldwide community. The delivery of PSHE (Personal Social and Health Education), alongside the broader remit of Citizenship, is woven into all of our teaching and learning experiences. PSHE & Citizenship are not taught in isolation. Our intention is for the broader themes to be woven into all of the work we do as a Catholic school. In this way, the children are encouraged to become responsible and respectful citizens with a conscience to better our God-given world.

In addition, all children from Reception to Year 6 have discrete curriculum time each week dedicated to PSHE and Citizenship. Their experiences vary from:

· The examination of character virtues in relation to topics such as Caring for Others, Helpfulness, Co-operation, Stress, Exercise and Peer Pressure.

· Studying current affairs both locally, nationally and internationally such as environmental concerns, areas of conflict.

· Community involvement with charity work, Junior PCSO work and the School Council.

· Whole school focus activities eg: Mental Health Awareness Day, Anti-Bullying Week, Black History Month, Parliament Week, Internet Safety Week, Road Safety Week and Healthy Eating Week.

· Outside visitors to school eg: charity workers, various occupations (Vocations Week).

· Outdoor days which are used to incorporate the virtues explored in PSHE and Citizenship eg: leadership, problem solving skills, collaboration and resilience.

· Displays around school which celebrate our teaching of the topics and the children’s work.

The lessons we teach and opportunities we offer are designed to inspire the children to discuss issues important to them, to develop leadership qualities and to make a positive difference in our ever-changing modern world.

We are extremely proud to be a My Happy Mind school at St Edward’s.  

This PSHE curriculum is grounded in the latest science and research about what it takes to create positive wellbeing for pupils from EYFS to Year 6. Myhappymind is taught across five modules and each introduces a new set of content and habits to help children build resilience, self-esteem and confidence. They include; Meet your brain, celebrate, appreciate, relate and engage.  

Here are the skills taught within each module.

We are also extremely happy to offer a parent platform for you to support your child and further explore strategies at home. Attached below are the parent newsletter and instructions to support your downloading the app at home.

In addition to MyHappyMind, we also supplement our PSHE and Citizenship with Picture news. This supports our pupils who may see stories in the news they are curious or confused about. This can sometimes be tricky to explain. Picture News finds the positives in current affairs by turning world events into learning opportunities. 

 
By exploring and debating topical issues, pupils will exercise British Values by learning to respect and tolerate the views of people around them. Each photo pack connects to and explains a British Value to explore further.  

The theme of Anti-Bulling Week this year from the Anti-Bullying Alliance was ‘choose respect’. Throughout the week, our children focused on what the term 'Bulling' means (Several Times On Purpose.) What they should do if they witness unkind behaviour, or experience it themselves. Team building activities encouraged the need to stamp out negative behaviour and to develop kindness towards each other. Pupils engaged with a school wide project highlighting ‘choose respect’ in poster form. A selection of the winners can be viewed below.  

We also celebrated odd-sock day during Anti-Bullying week, further highlighting the ethos that we celebrate each other's individuality and acceptance of this within our school. 

More recently, we have taken part in children’s mental health week with the theme ‘know yourself, grow yourself’. Children took part in activities to explore how they can look after their own mental health and use strategies to grow in resilience and self-esteem.  

At St Edwards, we are passionate about putting messages we have learnt through these special weeks into action, in the recent past, pupils have led the way in organising assemblies to raise awareness on poignant days such as world down syndrome day and for those affected by cleft palates.