What is PSHE and RSE?

Personal, Social, Health, and Economic (PSHE) education is a school subject through which pupils develop the knowledge, skills, and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future. It helps children and young people to stay healthy and safe, while preparing them to make the most of life and work. PSHE education can also help pupils to achieve their academic potential.

The Department for Education published statutory guidance for Health Education, Relationships Education, and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in June 2019. This covers broad areas of relevance and concern to children and young people today. It should ensure that every pupil is guaranteed a PSHE education that covers mental health and wellbeing; physical health (including healthy lifestyles and first aid); learning about safe, healthy relationships and sex (including understanding consent, negotiating life online, intimate relationships).

A broader PSHE programme should also cover economic wellbeing, careers and enterprise education, as well as education for personal safety, including assessing and managing risk

Context and Purpose

PSHE education has a proven impact on life chances and academic success. This strengthening of PSHE educations’ status can have a major impact on the quality of PSHE in all schools for all students. These developments mean that all students can benefit from an education that keeps them safe, healthy and prepared for the realities of modern life.

PSHE Curriculum aims

A person’s ‘character’ develops over time and in a range of contexts and is shaped by unknown and unpredictable events. PSHE education helps children and young people to stay safe, healthy and prepared for life's opportunities and events.

PSHE education is an integral element of a whole-school approach to developing ‘character’, providing the ideal curriculum subject through which to focus on the development of these essential skills and attributes. The Shoreham Academy PSHE framework provides learning objectives that, delivered through the context of a planned, developmental PSHE education programme, enable pupils to develop:

• interpersonal and social effectiveness
• self-awareness
• values
• resilience
• effectiveness within a wider community
• risk management

Outcomes

The aim of our PSHE education programme is to give every child and young person an equal opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in a time of rapid change now and in the future, outlined within the three core themes of the PSHE Programme of Study:

• Health & wellbeing
• Living in the wider world
• Relationships

These have been carefully designed as a context through which to develop the concepts, skills and attributes. Although the specific content of PSHE education will constantly evolve as the world changes, these concepts are timeless. It is not enough to simply teach students about the issues covered in the suggested subject content. It is vital they have the opportunity to explore their attitudes, values, and beliefs about them and to develop the skills, language, and strategies necessary to manage these issues should they encounter them in their lives.