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Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE)

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education is a subject through which pupils develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future. These skills and attributes help pupils to stay healthy, safe and prepare them for life and work in modern Britain.

The intent of our PSHE curriculum is to deliver a curriculum which is accessible to all and ensures that each of our students will understand more about how to play a positive and successful role within our society. Our aim is to support students’ spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development, prepare and equip them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life. Our aim is to provide students 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 they face as they grow up. We aim to provide our students with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society.

Our key aims are:

To promote outstanding personal development so that students become well-educated and well-rounded young adults.
To promote SMSC development of students and prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.
To promote good behaviour and positive character traits e.g. stickability; self-regulation and empathy.
To foster good mental wellbeing in students so that they can fulfil their full potential at school and are well prepared for life.

The programme of learning follows the PSHE Association: We’ve Got It Covered, Programme of Study. The programme is also based on DfE Draft Statuary Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education. We have also included aspects of UKCCIS (UK Council for Child Internet Safety) Education for a Connected World, a framework that aims to equip children and young people for digital life. The curriculum is split into six core themes of: Relationships and Sex Education, Careers, Social awareness, Character and learning and Health Education. The students will meet these themes throughout the course of the year and the themes are built upon as the children move through key stages.

The PSHE spiral and progressive curriculum allows students to revisit topics or themes several times throughout KS3, 4 and 5. The complexity or difficulty of the topic or theme increases with each revisit. Most of the learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information. This allows most of the information to be reinforced and solidified each time students revisit the subject matter or topic. The content is tailored to meet the needs of Kings Langley students such as our personalised approach, for example using an ex-parents’ trust to deliver on knife crime after his son was killed. We also have visitors and experts from outside agencies and organisations who deliver some of the aspects of the curriculum for example, Diversity Role models workshops on LGBT related topics.

Our teaching approach places great emphasis upon the development of character or virtues. Character education is integrated into all PSHE lessons. Most of the lessons will start with a character theme or virtue and the virtue will be directly linked to the lesson content. Students will be given opportunities in lessons to reflect on virtues. There would be dilemmas that promote or encourage critical thinking, reflection, problem solving and decision making (phronesis).

Our PSHE programme information: