Our PSHE Curriculum

“Personal development is the belief that you are worth the effort, time and energy needed to develop yourself.” — Denis Waitley

At Hill View Junior Academy, we recognise that children grow up in a complex and ever-changing world and are exposed to an increasing range of influences. As a school we aim to build on and compliment the learning that has already started at home to provide the knowledge, understanding and skills that children need to lead healthy, fulfilling and meaningful lives. Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) and Personal Development is central to our curriculum drivers -GROW, Gratitude, Resilience, Opportunity and Wonder. We work hard to support our children in their development, and underpin learning in the classroom, school, and in the wider community. The intent of PSHE and Personal Development is to deliver a curriculum which is accessible to all and ensures that each of our pupils will know more, remember more and understand more about how to play a positive and successful role within our society, both as a child and as an adult within the future. Our aim is to provide pupils with a knowledge of their world, locally, nationally and globally and give them confidence to tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up within this. We aim to provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society, as well as understanding being an integral part of a British society.

At Hill View Junior Academy, we use Yasmine and Tom, a comprehensive scheme of work for PSHE and Wellbeing education. This covers all the DfE's new statutory requirements for Relationships Education and Health Education, and the PSHE Association’s Programme of Study’s recommended learning opportunities, as well as contributing to different subject areas in the National Curriculum. We follow many of the suggested half termly units and adapt the scheme of work where necessary to meet the local circumstances of our school, for example, we may use our local environment as the starting point for aspects of our work. Lessons are weekly standalone PSHE lessons which enable the teacher to fully embed the core aspects of the PSHE curriculum and the skills needed to thrive in our ever-changing world. The lesson plans list the specific learning objectives for each lesson and provide support for how to teach the lessons; class teachers and our PSHE lead often discuss this on an informal basis. We have chosen Yasmine and Tom as our PSHE resource because the lessons build upon children’s prior learning; we have assessed the content and feel that it is relevant and sensitive to the needs of the children. There is planned progression across the Yasmine and Tom scheme of work, so that children are increasingly and appropriately challenged as they move up through the school.