Vision Statement
PSHE at Ormiston South Parade Academy includes Relationship Education, Relationship and Sex Education and Health Education. These elements became compulsory from September 2020 with the exception of Sex Education, which is optional, however, we continue to deliver this at OSPA to offer a comprehensive curriculum. PSHE at OSPA aims to provide children with a spiral curriculum of both content and skills. It is designed in a way that topics are revisited throughout the key stages to ensure that children’s understanding and skills can be developed at an age appropriate stage that they are able to understand and relate to. This approach enables pupils to grow in confidence through the discussions, debates and exploration of the current issues that are addressed. We want children to develop skills in personal and social effectiveness, managing risks and decision making and becoming the very best role model to society that they can be. By the time children leave OSPA our aim is to have equipped children with the skills and knowledge to keep them safe in the wider world. This will ensure that children are well informed and confident with making those next step into adolescents and then later on into adulthood.
The delivery
At the start of each academic year children create a set of class rules and expectations with their new teacher to ensure that everyone is respected and valued, listened to and has a voice. We create an atmosphere where children can talk openly about topics, their feelings, experiences and what is important to them in their lives at that time. We recognise that children have to feel emotionally secure and happy in their environment to reach their potential in other subjects, which is why such importance is placed on building solid relationships with all of our pupils.
OSPA has recently invested in a scheme of work called ‘My Life’. We have used this along with the expertise of teaching staff, local data and the knowledge and backgrounds of our children to develop a curriculum that we feel is well suited to the children in our school. Below highlights how the curriculum is organised:
In KS1 the children will cover 6 topics in each year group and in KS2 the children will cover 6 or 7 topics in each year group.
The topics covered are as follows and these lessons are delivered through a range of activities, including quizzes, discussions, drama, games and art. The topics may not necessarily be delivered in this order as teachers will decide how best to organise the topics to link in with the teaching of other subjects and the needs of the children in their class. For further information about the content covered in each topic, please see our Curriculum Maps for KS1, LKS2 and UKS2.
The curriculum is progressive and similar topics across the year groups build on from previous learning.
Please Note: We will continue to work with ‘Big Talk’ (Sex Education programme) to deliver Sex Education across the year groups at an age appropriate level. In addition to this, Year 6 will have extra topic time to ensure there are no misconceptions before entering secondary school.
Lifting Limits
As well as our PSHE offer we also teach lessons which embed ‘Gender Equality’. We have worked with ‘Lifting Limits’ as part of a pilot project because we wanted to be a school that empowers children to question and challenge learned gender norms and to further encourage children to develop confidence and feel accepted for themselves and celebrate individuality.
The project really highlighted to us that early gendered norms can influence aspirations, choices and behaviours that lead to unequal outcomes. We learnt that evidence shows that children’s sense of themselves according to gender become fixed during the primary years and become harder to subvert after this time. This results in boys and girls having gendered ideas about jobs, careers and roles in family relationships which can all have long term implications. By delivering a range of lessons that link to different subjects we are teaching children even more about inclusion, diversity, aspiration and equality. Here are some of the quotes from our children this year:
Boy, age 5: “I have learnt that girls and boys can do the same thing. I like football and so does Aurora.”
Female – aged 11: “Through our Lifting Limits lessons, I have learnt how important it is to not think certain things about people just because of their gender. For example, just because they are a girl doesn’t mean they like the colour pink and make-up. I think society should do more to remove gender stereotypes such as in toy shops, I don’t think all the pink things should be together as if it’s a ‘girl’ section”.