PSHE

At Glendower in Personal, Social and Health Education, we aim to start-and regularly build on-the process of giving pupils the knowledge, skills and understanding they require to lead confident, healthy and independent lives and to start becoming informed, active and responsible citizens.

We feel that PSHE is an essential part of the school curriculum and, as such, it provides a broad and balanced base from which we promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of all pupils in school.

In PSHE, we encourage pupils to:

• Take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum contributing fully to the life of the school and the local and wider community.

• Recognise their own worth, work well with others and become increasingly independent learners.

• Reflect on their experiences and understand how they are developing personally and socially.

• Learn about many of the spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues that are part of their growing up.

• Use PSHE to build up positive working relationships between children and staff and reinforce the fact that all members of our school family are valued as individuals.

• Take a pride in themselves and their school community.

• Have independence of mind to question and seek to improve themselves-and society-whilst respecting law and authority.

• Understand tolerance and respect both for themselves and others around them.

• Understand what a healthy lifestyle means in terms of diet and exercise.

• Start to recognise the rights and responsibilities of all citizens.

• Value and respect belongings in the environment.

There are many cross-curricular links in PSHE-indeed, there are strong links to all subject areas.

We run a School Council-please refer to the relevant section.

Of the many experiences we provide for pupils, themobile classroomexperience is one of the most exciting. This mobile classroom comes to Glendower for 2 days-usually in the Spring term-and during this time every year group has a session in this classroom to learn about the many ways to live a healthy lifestyle, to understand the many risks associated with the use of drugs including alcohol and tobacco-and all of this delivered in a most imaginative and high-tech mobile classroom.

Another interesting and most enjoyable experience is The Junior Citizen experience run by the Police. Our Y6 girls enjoy this and gain much good advice which they will require as they are about to gain greater independence in their senior schools. This session is essentially aimed at raising awareness of the many dangers on the streets and, importantly, how to recognise these dangers. Strategies are discussed and given in order to understand how to avoid and minimise these risks.

We run a The Young Experience day for the Y6 pupils-and this is another very exciting and innovative experience. This day directly supports the citizenship element in the curriculum. The day helps to increase pupil understanding of how the world of work operates and the pupils consider the attributes needed for success beyond the world of school. The pupils emerge from this day with just a taste of the world of work and a sense of the role played by, for example, trading and finances too and the skills which contribute to a happy and successful working environment.

The younger pupils have regular visits from community police officers who speak to the girls about safety and, in general terms, about the work undertaken by the police officers.

This is a snapshot only of what we offer in PSHE but we hope it gives a flavour of the many different and varied experiences of the PSHE syllabus.