RSHE

Intent

At Harpur Hill Primary School, positive relationships are fundamental to our school ethos and our success in being a happy, caring and safe school. When pupils leave our school in Year 6, we aim to equip them with the skills and knowledge to allow them to flourish in the wider community. To do this, we believe they must have an understanding of different relationships and how to live a healthy lifestyle. We want our pupils to be able to communicate their thoughts and opinions clearly and in an appropriate way.

We understand that as children grow older, they will face many varied situations within their social groups. We want our children to have the necessary, age appropriate, information to make sensible and informed decisions so that they are able to keep themselves safe.

Implementation

The Department for Education (DfE) announced that from September 2020, all schools in England will be required to teach relationships and health education (RSHE).

Many of the topics required by the DfE are already taught as part of our Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum, as well as in other subject areas.

As part of relationships education pupils have to be taught:

families and people who care for me
caring friendships
respectful relationships
online relationships
being safe

As part of health education pupils have to be taught:

mental wellbeing
internet safety and harms
physical health and fitness
healthy eating
facts and risks associated with drugs, alcohol and tobacco
health and prevention
basic first aid
changing adolescent body

At secondary schools, sex education is mandatory; however, this is not the case with Primary schools. Primary schools can still also choose to teach sex education for example as part of Y7 transition but parents/carers will retain the right to withdraw your child from this area of the curriculum. We will inform parents/carers before teaching this in Year 6, and give families the opportunity to view the content before we teach this.

We have reviewed our RSE policy and provision to ensure it is appropriate for our pupils based on their:

Age
Physical and emotional maturity
Religious and cultural backgrounds
Special educational needs and/or disabilities

Impact

Our RSHE curriculum enables our children to be lifelong learners, developing their ability to listen, communicate, empathise, question and reflect. All staff ensure we provide the support that is necessary for all children to have a good understanding of the complexities of relationships and a secure knowledge and skills base to navigate their way through these, now and in the future. We believe we can enhance children’s education and help them to become confident individuals who have positive body awareness, an in-depth knowledge of how to keep themselves safe and healthy and who will, through respect, tolerance and understanding, forge and maintain positive relationships with a diverse range of family and friendship groups. RSHE lessons at Harpur Hill complement our curriculum to provide the skills needed to ensure our children are well prepared or the next stage of their education and can move smoothly into secondary education.