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PSHE and Relationship Education

A key priority at Northwood Primary school is to ensure that all of our children are healthy and happy, both at school and in their wider lives. One of the most impactful ways in which we do this is through delivering lessons and educational content around PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) and RSE (Relationship and Sex Education).

To ensure our children become well rounded, happy and healthy individuals, our PSHE and RSE curriculum covers a wide range of topics and themes which include:

Health and Wellbeing

  • What constitutes a healthy lifestyle, including the benefits of physical activity, rest, a healthy diet and dental health, and how to maintain it.

  • To recognise what they like and dislike.

  • To make informed choices that improve their physical and emotional health, and to understand that choices can have good and bad consequences.

  • To think about themselves, learn from their experiences, recognise and celebrate their strengths, and set themselves simple but challenging goals.

  • To recognise positive and negative feelings, develop a vocabulary to talk about their feelings, and master simple strategies for managing their feelings.

  • About change and loss, such as moving home and losing toys, pets or friends, and the associated feelings.

  • The importance of personal hygiene and how to maintain it.

  • How some diseases are spread and can be controlled; the responsibilities they have for their own health and others’; simple skills to prevent diseases from spreading.

  • How we grow from young to old, and how people’s needs change.

  • About growing and changing and new opportunities and responsibilities that come with increasing independence.

  • The names for the main parts of the body, including genitalia, and the physical similarities and differences between boys and girls.

  • That household products, including medicines, can be harmful if not used properly.

  • How to keep physically and emotionally safe, including online, on roads, when cycling and around railways, water and fire.

  • About people who look after them, their family networks, who to go to if they’re worried, and how to attract their attention.

  • About how they can help the people who look after them to protect them more easily.

  • To recognise that they share a responsibility for keeping themselves and others safe, know when to say ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘I’ll ask’ and ‘I’ll tell,’ and know that they don’t have to keep secrets/

  • About privacy, their right to keep things private, and the importance of respecting others’ privacy.

Relationships

  • The roles different people (e.g. acquaintances, friends and relatives) play in our lives

  • Identifying the people who love and care for them and what they do to help them feel cared for

  • Learning about different types of families including those that may be different to their own

  • How people make friends and what makes a good friendship

  • How to recognise when they or someone else feels lonely and what to do

  • Learn that bodies and feelings can be hurt by words and actions; that people can say hurtful things online, and how to deal with it

  • How to respond safely to adults they don’t know

  • What to do if they feel unsafe or worried for themselves or others; who to ask for help and vocabulary to use when asking for help; importance of keeping trying until they are heard

  • What is kind and unkind behaviour, and how this can affect others

  • How to treat themselves and others with respect; how to be polite and courteous

  • Recognise the ways in which they are the same and different to others

  • How to listen to other people and play and work cooperatively

  • Recognise that there are different types of relationships (e.g. friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, online relationships) and that people may be attracted to someone emotionally, romantically and sexually; that people may be attracted to someone of the same sex or different sex to them

  • Recognise and respect that there are different types of family structure (including single parents, same-sex parents, step-parents, blended families, foster parents); that families of all types can give family members love, security and stability

  • How to recognise if family relationships are making them feel unhappy or unsafe, and how to seek help or advice

  • How friendships can change over time, about making new friends and the benefits of having different types of friends

  • that friendships have ups and downs; strategies to resolve disputes and reconcile differences positively and safely

  • Recognise the importance of self-respect and how this can affect their thoughts and feelings about themselves; that everyone, including them, should expect to be treated politely and with respect by others (including when online and/or anonymous) in school and in wider society; strategies to improve or support courteous, respectful relationships

Living in the Wider World

  • How they can contribute in the classroom and to school life.

  • How to construct and follow group, class and school rules, and how these rules help them.

  • Recognising that people and other living things have rights, and that everyone has responsibility to protect these rights.

  • Understanding that they belong to different groups and communities, such as family and school.

  • What improves and harms their local, natural and built environments, and how to look after them, including conserving energy.

  • Understanding that money comes from different sources, and can be used for different purposes, including spending and saving.

  • Understanding the part money plays in their lives, including how to keep it safe, making choices about spending or saving, and what influences our choices.

  • That we are all unique.

  • That we all have similarities with other people, and what we have in common.

  • The ‘special people’ who work in the community and how they protect them, including how to dial 999 in an emergency.

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