PSHE/RSE
Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) at The Hayes Primary School
Introduction
At The Hayes Primary School, our curriculum is rooted in our vision for every child to ‘Be the best they can be.’ PSHE (including RSE) plays a vital role in supporting pupils’ personal development, wellbeing and readiness for life beyond primary school. Alongside academic learning, PSHE equips pupils with the knowledge, skills and values they need to thrive as confident, respectful and responsible members of society. Our PSHE curriculum is inclusive, progressive and carefully sequenced, ensuring pupils develop emotionally, socially and morally as they move through the school.
Intent
At The Hayes Primary School, our PSHE curriculum aims to support children to become confident, resilient and compassionate individuals who are prepared for the opportunities and challenges of modern life. We aim for our children to understand themselves and others, build positive and respectful relationships, make informed choices and support their own well-being and contribute positively to their community and wider society.
Our PSHE curriculum is built around the three core themes of the PSHE Association:
- Health and Wellbeing – enabling children to look after their physical and mental health, develop resilience, manage emotions and make healthy, balanced choices.
- Relationships – supporting pupils to form safe, respectful and caring relationships, understand boundaries, show empathy and communicate effectively.
- Living in the Wider World – helping pupils understand and value diversity, rights and responsibilities, financial awareness and their role as active, caring and responsible citizens in their school and local community.
Through PSHE, we promote emotional literacy, self-awareness and a strong sense of identity. Pupils are encouraged to reflect on their actions, manage change positively and develop the personal qualities needed to succeed both now and in the future. Our curriculum reflects our school values and actively promotes respect, equality, kindness and aspiration, ensuring all pupils feel valued and supported.
By the time pupils leave The Hayes Primary School, they will have developed the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to navigate relationships, stay safe, look after their wellbeing and approach new challenges with confidence and maturity.
Implementation
PSHE at The Hayes Primary School is well structured and delivered through the Kapow Primary PSHE scheme, which provides a clear, coherent and progressive curriculum from EYFS to Year 6. Lessons are engaging and taught weekly for 45 minutes, following a spiral curriculum model in which key themes (health & wellbeing, relationships and living in the wider world) are revisited and developed in greater depth as pupils mature.
The curriculum is organised into five key strands:
- Families and Relationships
- Health and Wellbeing
- Safety and the Changing Body
- Citizenship
- Economic Wellbeing
Learning is carefully sequenced so that new knowledge builds on prior understanding. Children’s skills are also developed cumulatively, enabling them to develop the personal, social and emotional attributes they need to thrive as confident, healthy, responsible and resilient members of society. At the start of each year, teachers establish clear ground rules to ensure PSHE lessons are safe, respectful and inclusive spaces for discussion. Units conclude with opportunities for reflection and consolidation, enabling pupils to secure their learning.
Teaching and learning in PSHE is active, inclusive and skills-based. Our implementation includes:
- Lessons that follow a consistent structure of recap, engage, explore and reflect, supporting continuity and cognitive scaffolding.
- A wide range of strategies are used, including discussion, storytelling, role-play, video stimuli, scenarios and collaborative activities.
- These approaches allow pupils to practise real-life skills such as decision-making, empathy, communication and problem-solving.
- Differentiation and adaptive teaching strategies are embedded within lessons to ensure accessibility for all learners, including pupils with SEND and EAL.
- Teachers create supportive learning environments where sensitive topics are handled with care, appropriate language is modelled and every pupil’s voice is valued.
- Consistency of language and approach across the school enables children to connect knowledge over time, deepens understanding and promotes cumulative learning.
- Strong cross-curricular links with subjects such as science, computing, PE and citizenship reinforce relevance and deepen understanding.
The spiral design of the curriculum supports long-term retention as key concepts are regularly revisited. Retrieval activities at the start of lessons activate prior knowledge, while knowledge organisers and consistent vocabulary and visual prompts strengthen memory recall. Opportunities to apply learning in real-life contexts help pupils transfer knowledge from short-term to long-term memory, ensuring learning is meaningful and lasting.
PSHE Impact
The impact of our PSHE curriculum is seen in the confident, caring and respectful pupils who attend The Hayes Primary School. Children develop a secure understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe, both physically and emotionally. They can articulate their feelings, manage friendships positively and apply strategies to resolve conflict. As they progress through the school, pupils demonstrate increasing independence, empathy and resilience.
Through a carefully sequenced, ambitious and progressive curriculum, pupils know more, remember more and can do more over time. They confidently use appropriate vocabulary to discuss emotions, relationships, health and rights, and they make meaningful connections between PSHE learning and real-life situations, such as online safety, healthy choices and transition to the next stage of education.
All pupils make strong progress from their individual starting points. The curriculum is inclusive and supports the needs of all learners, including those with SEND and disadvantaged pupils. Teacher observations, pupil voice and reflection activities show that pupils grow in self-confidence, emotional literacy and social understanding as they move through the school.
Assessment in PSHE is purposeful and reflective. Teachers use questioning, discussion, self-assessment and end-of-unit reviews to identify pupils’ understanding and address misconceptions. Evidence shows that the majority of pupils meet or exceed age-related expectations in personal, social and emotional development. Assessment outcomes are used to adapt teaching and revisit areas when understanding needs strengthening. Over time, children demonstrate that they can recall prior learning and apply it to new experiences.
Overall, PSHE makes a significant contribution to pupils’ wellbeing, personal development and cultural capital and builds confident, caring and respectful individuals. Children leave The Hayes Primary School well-prepared for secondary education and for life beyond school; ready to make informed choices, build positive relationships and continue striving to ‘be the best they can be’.
Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation