PSHCE
PSHE education is a school subject through which pupils develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to keep themselves healthy and safe and prepare for life and work in modern Britain.
‘Evidence shows that well-delivered PSHE programmes have an impact on both academic and non-academic outcomes for pupils, particularly the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.’ PSHE Association 2019
PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) is a vital part of the Personal Development curriculum supporting the needs of the students of The Oxford Academy. The Personal Development curriculum at The Oxford Academy includes the PSHE curriculum, careers education, SMSC Social, moral, spiritual and cultural British values.
The academy's pastoral systems, extracurricular activities that demonstrate the ethos and values of the academy, Commitment to learning, and commitment to others. Students are encouraged to develop the concepts of courage, compassion and curiosity throughout their school day. These start at the beginning of the school day with either an assembly, ‘thought for the week’ ‘TOA topics’. Students are encouraged to reflect on themselves and others around them whether it is within our school community, our wider community or the global community. The PSHE curriculum aims to equip students with relevant knowledge, practical examples, and valuable guidance that they can apply in their daily lives.
PSHE is designed as a spiralling curriculum. There are key strands that run throughout the curriculum: Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the wider world. Students are introduced to new information or build on information in Year 7 and then year on year the depth of knowledge is increased, and the scenarios/situations to guide students to apply knowledge are created to be age appropriate. The aim is to ensure that students can see the relevance of the curriculum to daily life.
To ensure that we meet the needs of the pupils we use the extended Personal development team to inform the planning of our PSHE curriculum. The extended Personal development team are our SEND department, Wellbeing Team, the safeguarding team, the Heads of Year/Assistant Heads of Year, our School Nurse and our School Health Nurse (PCT).
Lessons may have verbal or written baseline assessments so teachers are aware of starting knowledge and what is needed for progression. PSHE has a ipsative marking, this means that we assess children from their starting knowledge and understanding to their new knowledge and understanding. Some of this is student assessed through personal reflection. Students are also assessed by short knowledge quizzes to allow staff to be able to see gaps in knowledge and understanding.
Modern day life brings many challenges to young people. As educators we want our students to be as best prepared as possible for adult life. The PSHE curriculum covers key elements that are essential to the well being, health and safety of our young people.
Due to the demographic of the school (areas of high economic deprivation, high free school meals and high pupil premium) emphasis is put onto certain sections that we know require a focus. For example, risk taking behaviours, including social media, intimate relationships and social influences like gangs.
As part of mental wellbeing students are encouraged to increase their positive risk taking. This includes school events, having aspiration targets and focussing on what they want their adult life to look like.
Students are supported by the careers programme to envision this and broaden their horizons by encounters with employers such as BMW, Nanopore technology and other local businesses, with the support of OxLEP. Students attend work experience, careers fairs and receive 1:1 personal guidance. We endeavor to incorporate workshops to meet the needs of individual students to have fun while learning about different career pathways that are linked to the curriculum. As stated in the PSHE association document, A curriculum for life ‘PSHE education has proven to remove barriers to learning and provide skills to aid success.’
With the community in mind students are taught key things about financial capability. For example, government support for paying bills and how to budget effectively. Students gain knowledge and further life skills for example saving money and how to avoid being the victim of fraud.
Please find the curriculum overview document in the link below.
