PSHE
It is our intent to inspire children to be life-long learners as we equip them with the ability to develop their skills and self-confidence when meeting new experiences and facing challenging situations both within and beyond school. By providing a safe and nurturing environment, children are encouraged and supported to reach their full potential with their achievements celebrated and rewarded. As a school, we believe children are all unique individuals and therefore, we aim to encourage mutual respect and responsibility in a happy, stimulating and inclusive environment.
The teaching and learning of PSHE using the Jigsaw programme supports this; in connecting the pieces of Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education, children are able to develop emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual growth. Jigsaw is a unique, progressive and effective scheme of work, aiming to prepare children for life, helping them really know and value who they truly are and understand how they relate to other people in this ever-changing world, including protected characteristics. Jigsaw is implemented throughout the whole school during weekly whole class Jigsaw lessons and is embedded in many areas of the curriculum. With staff being excellent role models, they support and encourage children to use the skills they are developing and to make links to other areas of learning.
Jigsaw helps to teach children about keeping themselves safe and promotes an ethos in school that strongly supports keeping children safe in many diverse situations. From the Early Years onwards, children are taught about what to say and do if they don’t like something – from encountering strangers to bullying, and from unwanted physical contact to racism and being safe with technology.
Jigsaw supports delivery the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) aspects of the curriculum. A planned and progressive program of RSE gradually and appropriately begins to prepare our children for things they will experience as they grow. It teaches the skills they need to fully manage the natural physical and emotional changes that will happen to them as they grow and mature into healthy, confident and responsible adults. RSE teaches the skills, children need, to develop positive healthy relationships. It supports their moral development, helping them to understand themselves and to respect and care for others. Children will learn about the different relationships they have, how their body will change and grow and how they can keep themselves and others safe.
The areas of PSHE within the Jigsaw programme at Benton Dene Primary are:
-Being me and my world; celebrating and understanding their place in the world as individuals, as members of the community and globally
-Celebrating Differences; embracing diversity while building resilience both emotionally and physically
-Dreams and Goals; creating new and realistic goals while maintaining positive attitudes, focusing on perseverance and individual strengths
-Healthy me; developing skills and strategies to live a healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible life
-Relationships; forming and sustaining healthy relationships while reflecting their own values and challenging those of others, respectfully
-Changing Me; being aware of self and body image, recognising the physical changes of our bodies and being prepared for transition
Sex Education
Sex Education is designed to help children to:
- Understand and respect their bodies
- Develop positive and healthy relationships appropriate to their age and development
- Support children to have positive self-esteem and body image
- Empower them to be safe and safeguarded.
Parents do have the right to request their child is withdrawn from these specific lessons. If you wish to withdraw your child, please contact Miss Lawrence and she will be happy to discuss this.
At Benton Dene Primary School, we have been delivering RSE within our Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) curriculum for many years. We have reviewed our PSHE curriculum to make sure that our lessons meet the requirements that the government has set out for the content of Relationships and Health Education. The DfE recommends, ‘that all primary schools should have a Sex Education programme tailored to the age and the physical and emotional maturity of the pupils.’ At Benton Dene this is taught through our Jigsaw PSHE programme, which is delivered through the ‘Relationships’ and ‘Changing Me’ puzzle pieces which are covered in the summer term.
There are four main aims of teaching RSE:
Each year group will be taught appropriate to their age and developmental stage. At no point will a child be taught something that is inappropriate; and if a question from a child arises and the teacher feels it would be inappropriate to answer, (for example, because of its mature or explicit nature), this information with be shared with you by your child’s class teacher. The question will not be answered to the child or class if it is outside the remit of that year group’s programme.
Below is a summary of RSE coverage within the Jigsaw scheme for each year group:
• Foundation Stage – Growing up: how we have changed since we were babies
• Year 1 – Boys’ and girls’ bodies; naming body parts
• Year 2 – Boys’ and girls’ bodies; body parts and respecting privacy (which parts of the body are private and why this is)
• Year 3 – How babies grow and how boys’ and girls’ bodies change as they grow older
• Year 4 – Internal and external reproductive body parts, body changes in girls and menstruation
• Year 5 – Puberty for boys and girls, and conception
• Year 6 – Puberty for boys and girls and understanding conception to birth of a baby
If you would like more information about statutory Relationships and Health Education, please click below to read the Jigsaw parent and carer guide. Parents/Carers are able to come into school should they wish to discuss their child’s PSHE/RSHE curriculum and we would be happy to go through the resources that we use as part of the jigsaw scheme. Contact us via the school office if you wish to make an appointment.
Further information about how the school approaches the teaching of Relationships and Sex Education through the Jigsaw programme can also be found within the documents listed below.
