Weston Village Primary SchoolPersonal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE)
PSHE at Weston
At Weston Village Primary School, PSHE helps children develop the knowledge, understanding and confidence they need to keep themselves healthy and safe, build positive relationships and participate responsibly in the wider world.
Children learn about themselves and other people, physical and mental health, relationships, safety, money, communities, rights and responsibilities, the online world and preparing for change.
Our curriculum is progressive and age-appropriate. Important ideas are revisited as children mature so that their knowledge and understanding become increasingly sophisticated.
PSHE also supports our wider aim for children to Be the Best You Can Be by helping them develop independence, resilience, empathy and the confidence to seek help when they need it.
Our Curriculum
From Year 1 to Year 6, our PSHE curriculum is organised through three closely connected strands:
Relationships
Health and Wellbeing
Living in the Wider World
Relationships and health education form important statutory parts of the curriculum, while our wider PSHE programme also develops children's economic understanding, citizenship and preparation for life beyond school.
Relationships and Sex Education is not treated as an isolated subject at Weston. It forms part of this carefully sequenced programme, alongside relevant learning in Science and other curriculum areas.
Relationships
Children learn what healthy and respectful relationships look like and how to manage difficulties when they arise.
Across the primary years, this includes developing understanding of:
families and the different forms they can take
friendship and kindness
cooperation and teamwork
respect and equality
bullying and how to seek help
personal boundaries
consent and bodily autonomy
resolving disagreements
healthy and unhealthy relationships
relationships online.
In Year 1, for example, children learn about kindness, teasing and bullying and what to do if something happens to them or another person.
Year 2 pupils develop their understanding of families and friendships, cooperation, resolving differences and respecting their own and other people's bodies.
As pupils mature, they encounter increasingly complex questions about relationships, including peer pressure, stereotypes, conflict, respect and personal boundaries.
Feelings, Mental Health and Wellbeing
Children progressively develop their emotional vocabulary and understanding of mental wellbeing.
They learn to recognise and name feelings, identify things that affect their emotions and develop strategies for managing difficult or uncomfortable feelings.
This begins in Reception, where children learn to talk about feelings such as happiness, sadness, anger and worry and become increasingly able to recognise emotions in themselves and others.
In later year groups, children consider the connections between thoughts, feelings, behaviours and choices, developing strategies including calm thinking, resilience and appropriate ways to seek support.
The aim is not to suggest that children should always feel positive. They learn that a range of emotions is normal and that difficult feelings can be talked about and supported.
Physical Health
Children learn how everyday choices can affect their health.
This includes age-appropriate learning about:
physical activity
healthy eating
sleep
personal hygiene
dental health
medicines
harmful substances
germs and disease
keeping physically safe
puberty and growing up.
The statutory health curriculum also includes knowledge about areas such as exercise, healthy eating, drugs and tobacco, health prevention, basic first aid and the changing adolescent body.
Our curriculum develops this knowledge progressively rather than introducing it all at once.
Keeping Safe
Knowing how to recognise risk and seek help is an important strand of PSHE.
Children learn about safety in ways appropriate to their age, including:
everyday hazards
road safety
medicines and substances
safe and unsafe situations
trusted adults
secrets and surprises
personal boundaries
appropriate and inappropriate touch
emergencies and how to get help
online safety.
In Year 2, for example, children learn about the Underwear Rule, that private parts are private, appropriate and inappropriate touching, and who can help them if they feel unsafe.
As pupils grow older, they learn to assess risk with greater independence and take increasing responsibility for their own safety.
Digital Wellbeing and Online Relationships
PSHE complements our Computing curriculum by helping children consider the personal and social aspects of life online.
Children learn progressively about:
balancing time online and offline
keeping personal information private
respectful online communication
recognising inappropriate or harmful behaviour
online bullying
judging whether online information is reliable
seeking help when something online worries them.
In Year 1, children begin by considering how the internet can be useful, why personal information should remain private and why not everything online is necessarily true.
Older pupils consider issues such as social media, harmful online relationships, unreliable information and responsible digital behaviour in greater depth.
Living in the Wider World
PSHE also helps children understand their place within communities and society.
Pupils learn about:
belonging and community
diversity and difference
rules and laws
rights and responsibilities
democracy
equality
discrimination
protecting the environment
contributing positively to society.
Children are encouraged to understand that people may have different backgrounds, families, experiences, beliefs and identities and that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.
By Year 6, pupils consider rights, equality and discrimination in increasingly sophisticated ways, including how people's choices can respect or infringe the rights of others.
Money and Economic Understanding
Children develop age-appropriate financial understanding throughout the curriculum.
Younger pupils learn about spending, saving, keeping money safe and distinguishing between wants and needs.
As they progress, pupils consider borrowing, budgeting, value for money, advertising and how financial choices can affect people.
Older pupils also encounter ideas such as ethical spending and taxation.
The aim is to give children useful foundations for becoming increasingly informed and responsible consumers.
Aspirations and Preparing for the Future
Children are encouraged to recognise their strengths, approach challenges positively and think about their future.
They learn about different jobs and pathways, stereotypes associated with work, goal-setting and the importance of perseverance.
This begins with helping younger pupils recognise their own qualities and develops into increasingly realistic thinking about aspirations, opportunities and the steps involved in achieving longer-term goals.
Relationships and Sex Education
Relationships Education is compulsory in primary schools. Primary schools may also choose to teach sex education beyond what is included in the National Curriculum for Science.
At Weston, Relationships and Sex Education is taught as part of the wider PSHE curriculum in an age-appropriate, factual and sensitive way.
Our RSE programme helps children develop:
respectful and healthy relationships
appropriate vocabulary for bodies
understanding of personal boundaries and consent
confidence in seeking help
knowledge about growing and changing
preparation for puberty
understanding of human reproduction at an appropriate stage.
The school's RSE Policy describes the aims as preparing pupils for puberty, helping them understand sexual development, health and hygiene, developing self-respect and empathy, and ensuring children have correct vocabulary for themselves and their bodies.
Growing Up and Puberty
Learning about growing and changing develops gradually.
Younger children learn that bodies change as people grow, that everyone is unique and that their body belongs to them.
By Year 4, learning becomes more explicit about how male and female bodies are involved in human reproduction, alongside different relationships and family structures.
In later Key Stage 2, children learn the key facts about puberty and the physical and emotional changes of adolescence, including menstrual wellbeing.
In Year 6, the Growing Up unit builds on this knowledge and includes further learning about physical and emotional change, relationships and sexual relationships.
Teaching is handled sensitively, using correct terminology and creating an environment in which children can ask appropriate questions without embarrassment.
Families and Diversity
Children learn that families can be structured in different ways.
Our RSE policy explicitly recognises families including single-parent families, families with LGBT parents, families headed by grandparents, adoptive families and foster families, as well as children who may have other structures of care and support around them.
Teaching is designed so that children can understand diversity without any pupil or family being made to feel that their home circumstances are unusual or less valued.
PSHE in Reception
In Reception, the foundations of PSHE are developed principally through Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Children progressively develop:
self-regulation, including recognising feelings, listening, following routines and increasingly managing emotions;
managing self, including independence, self-care, healthy choices and understanding expectations;
and building relationships, including friendship, cooperation, turn-taking, sharing and resolving simple conflicts.
The curriculum deliberately increases independence across the year, from settling into school and separating from carers towards managing routines, building strong relationships and resolving difficulties with increasing confidence.
How Learning Develops
In Key Stage 1, children build foundations in friendship, emotions, safety, health, money, community, online behaviour, families and bodily autonomy.
In Lower Key Stage 2, pupils revisit these ideas at a more sophisticated level. They consider assertiveness, peer influence, digital wellbeing, financial choices, healthy lifestyles, growing bodies and the responsibilities involved in belonging to different groups.
In Upper Key Stage 2, children prepare increasingly for adolescence and secondary school. Learning includes puberty, relationships, safety, equality and discrimination, environmental responsibility, financial understanding and making increasingly independent choices.
The spiral structure means important topics are deliberately revisited rather than assumed to have been secured after a single lesson. The school's RSE policy describes this as progressively expanding concepts, increasing knowledge and deepening understanding from Reception to Year 6.
How We Teach PSHE
PSHE requires an environment in which children feel able to discuss ideas and ask questions respectfully.
Teachers establish clear expectations around listening, privacy, respect and appropriate language.
Our whole-school teaching routines support this.
I → We → You allows adults to model vocabulary, thinking and appropriate responses before children explore ideas with support and increasing independence.
Scaffold → Fade means visual prompts, sentence stems, scenarios or structured discussion can support pupils initially and be reduced as confidence develops.
Retrieval, little and often helps children revisit important knowledge such as safety strategies, trusted adults and key health information.
Words & Visuals supports sensitive or unfamiliar vocabulary so that children can understand and communicate accurately.
Discussion, scenarios and carefully chosen examples allow pupils to apply knowledge rather than simply repeat rules.
Responding to Children's Questions
Children sometimes ask questions about bodies, relationships or experiences that go beyond the planned content for their age.
Teachers respond in an appropriate and sensitive way, taking account of the child's age and needs. The RSE policy specifically recognises the importance of giving children reliable information rather than leaving them to seek answers from potentially unsafe or inaccurate online sources.
Where necessary, staff will speak with parents or carers or seek safeguarding advice.
Inclusion
PSHE must be accessible to every child, while recognising that children's experiences and needs differ.
Teachers consider pupils' developmental stage, communication needs, SEND, family circumstances and previous experiences when planning sensitive learning.
Support may include visual resources, explicit vocabulary teaching, advance preparation, smaller-group teaching, additional processing time or individual discussion.
The school's RSE policy requires teaching to be sensitive to pupils' experiences and to enable children to feel safe, supported and able to engage with the key messages.
Adaptation does not mean withholding important safeguarding or health knowledge from pupils who may need it most.
Assessment
Assessment in PSHE focuses on what children know, understand and can apply.
Teachers use discussion, questioning, scenarios, pupil responses and appropriate written or practical work to identify whether pupils can apply knowledge to situations such as:
identifying a safe course of action
recognising healthy or unhealthy behaviour
explaining where to seek help
making an informed choice
showing understanding of another perspective.
Assessment is used to identify misconceptions or knowledge that needs revisiting rather than to grade children's personal beliefs, feelings or family experiences.
PSHE Beyond Lessons
PSHE is reinforced through wider school life.
Our culture of relationships, safeguarding, pupil leadership, online safety, inclusion and wellbeing gives children opportunities to apply what they learn.
Pupil leadership is particularly important: children have opportunities to contribute to school life and consider the needs of others through a range of ambassador roles.
I would keep this section concise. There is no need to claim a long list of themed weeks, visitors, fundraising projects or initiatives unless they are established current provision.
Parents and RSE
We recognise that parents and carers are important partners in relationships and sex education.
Our Relationships and Sex Education Policy explains what is taught, how it is taught and the arrangements for parental involvement and withdrawal.
Parents cannot withdraw their child from Relationships Education or from statutory Science, but may request withdrawal from the non-statutory sex education taught by a primary school.
At Weston, the current policy identifies this specifically as some elements of the Year 6 Growing Up unit. Parents are informed in advance and requests for withdrawal are made to the Headteacher.
Our PSHE Curriculum
The documents below provide further detail PSHE Long-Term Plan 2026–27; Relationships and Sex Education Policy