Please see the bottom of the page for guidance, policies and our rolling programme

Being a Philosopher

Intent

RSE and PSHE underpins life at Stickland’s Primary School. At Stickland’s, we believe that nurturing happy and healthy children is central to all aspects of their learning and development. As a result of our curriculum, every child will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to make informed, healthy and moral life choices.

We want our pupils to leave Stickland’s as proud, confident, kind, and independent members of society, with an awareness of their rights and responsibilities as valuable individuals.

We use Kapow Primary to give children the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to effectively navigate the complexities of life in the 21st Century. The curriculum covers key areas which will support our children to make informed choices now and in the future around their health, safety, wellbeing, relationships, careers and financial matters which will support them in becoming confident individuals and active members of society.

Kapow Primary covers the new RSE & PSHE scheme for Years 1-6 which has been rewritten to meet the 2025 Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education statutory guidance, (as set out by the Department for Education), including the non-statutory sex education. The scheme also promotes and explicitly teaches the British values of: Individual liberty, Mutual respect, Democracy, The rule of law and Tolerance of those with different faiths or beliefs.

Quality PSHE and RSE teaching is an important element in helping schools to carry out their duty of care with regards to safeguards. The DFE’s statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ guidance states that ‘Governing bodies and proprietors should ensure that children are taught about safeguarding, including online safety. Schools should consider this as part of providing a broad and balanced curriculum.’

Implementation

At Stickland’s, our scheme covers the full breadth of learning pupils need to stay healthy, safe and prepared for life. This includes:

• Personal
• Social
• Health
• Economic
• Relationships
• Citizenship
• Sex education (Y6 optional)

Some key areas are revisited each year, while others are revisited less frequently to reflect the volume of content in the statutory guidance and ensure learning is age-appropriate, this allows children to build on their prior learning and the lessons provide a progressive programme. Kapow Primary supports the requirements of the Equality Act through direct teaching, for example, learning about different families, the negative effects of stereotypes and celebrating differences, in addition to the inclusion of diverse teaching resources throughout the lessons.

Sex education has been included in line with the DfE recommendations and is covered in Year 6 of our scheme.

The scheme is organised into strands and key areas to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum, these key areas group learning into meaningful themes and ensure that all statutory content is covered. The strands weave throughout all units, demonstrating how pupils develop lifelong skills in managing themselves, regulating their emotions, building positive relationships and thinking critically, enabling children to build their confidence and understanding in a structured way.

Strands

The strands show how pupils’ personal and social skills develop over time. They are drawn from the EYFS statutory framework, with the addition of critical thinking. They run through every key area, helping pupils learn to regulate their emotions, manage themselves, build positive relationships and think critically. This allows them to make thoughtful, informed choices as they grow.

Self-regulation: Learning to recognise and manage pupils' emotions, thoughts and behaviour so they can respond calmly and make considered choices.

Managing self: Learning to take increasing responsibility for pupils' own behaviour, routines and decisions to support their wellbeing and independence.

Building relationships: Learning how to form positive, respectful relationships by communicating kindly, understanding others and setting healthy boundaries.

Critical thinking: Learning to ask questions, consider different viewpoints and make informed, thoughtful decisions in a world where information is not always reliable.

Kapow Primary teaching in RSE & PSHE will take place for 45 minutes per week. This allows sufficient time to meet the DfE’s Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education guidance. In addition to discrete lessons, RSE & PSHE learning is often reinforced through day-to-day school life, such as in response to real-life situations that arise, such as issues on the playground, in the classroom or during discussions; through assemblies, school clubs, school events as well as across other curriculum subjects; helping pupils to make meaningful links between taught content and real experiences. 

A range of teaching and learning activities are used and are based on good practice in teaching RSE/PSHE education to ensure that all children can access learning and make progress. In each year group, an introductory lesson provides the opportunity for children and teachers to negotiate ground rules for the lessons. These introductory lessons can then be referred to throughout the year to help create a safe environment. All lessons include ideas for differentiation to stretch the most able learners and give additional support to those who need it. In many lessons, stories, scenarios, and video clips provide the opportunity for children to engage in real life and current topics in a safe and structured way. Role-play activities are also included to help children play out scenarios that they may find themselves in.

Impact

Children at Stickland’s will foster well-being and develop resilience and character to be happy, successful and productive members of society. Pupils will have met the objectives set out within the Relationships and Health Education statutory guidance and will be able to utilise their learning within their daily lives, from dealing with friendship issues to making healthy choices and knowing where and how to get help within different scenarios, when needed.

Kapow Primary’s RSE & PSHE lessons include ongoing assessment opportunities, such as questioning, retrieval practice and interactive activities, these tools allow the assessment of understanding in real-time and enable teaching to be adapted accordingly. RSE & PSHE is distinct from many other subjects in that pupils start with different levels of prior knowledge and life experience. Accordingly, assessment is primarily ipsative: focusing on where each pupil is starting from and the progress they make over a period of learning, rather than comparison with others.

Each unit includes a Knowledge catcher that can be used at the start of the unit and revisited at the end to check pupils’ progress over time plus a quiz comprising of 10 questions, nine of which are multiple-choice and can be used either at the end of the unit or at both the start and the end to help measure progress and identify any gaps in learning. This allows pupils to show what they already know before learning begins and to demonstrate how their knowledge and understanding have developed by the end of the unit. 

 

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Sex and Relationship Education

The idea of teaching sex and relationships education (RSE) to children as young as those in Key Stage 1 (5 – 7-year-olds) may seem early to some parents, however, a deeper understanding of RSE can reduce concerns. This is explained at an annual RSE and PSHE meeting held for all parents at the beginning of each year, to enable parents to see what this includes; how the content is delivered, to view the specific content and to ask any questions and clarify understanding, so parents understand the importance of introducing each element at the set times and the positive impact it will have on their child now and in the future.

Why is this work so important?
• Our ability to make and maintain healthy, positive and productive relationships is fundamental to a caring and supportive society. Our relationships come in a wide variety of forms: colleagues, family, casual acquaintances, close friendships and eventually, sexual.

• Our children learn by looking at and listening to all the messages they experience. They are constantly trying to make sense of the world around them.
• In our society, children are confronted with sexual images in advertising and stories and messages about celebrity lifestyles and relationships in the media. 
• Using their natural curiosity combined with wonderful ‘child logic’, our young children often put together their own complex ideas about where babies come from. This understanding can be a mixture of correct, almost correct and completely incorrect ideas, therefore it is vital that children are given all the facts.

• Many children will also enter puberty whilst still at primary school and without suitable preparation from parents at home. This can be a confusing, embarrassing and even distressing time, we serve to help with this transition.

So what is the purpose of RSE in primary schools?
• A planned, progressive programme of RSE gradually and appropriately begins to prepare our children for adult life. It teaches the skills they need to fully manage the natural physical and emotional changes that will happen to them as they grow and mature into healthy, confident and responsible adults.
• RSE teaches the skills children need to develop positive healthy relationships. It supports their moral development, helping them to understand themselves and to respect and care for others.
Parents do have the right to withdraw their children from sex education lessons (but not from sex education that is part of the science curriculum) but few take this option.

But what exactly do children learn?
In reception and Key Stage 1 (4 - 7 years old)
• Children learn about their special people; friends and friendship; learning to recognise and react to different feelings and how to keep safe.
• They explore how we show love and express feelings in our relationships.
• They learn how we are all special and what makes us the same, what feelings we all share and what makes us different. They explore how we feel when our special people go away or even die.
• They learn about good and not so good promises and secrets and how to say “No!”, “Don’t”, “I’ll ask” and “I’ll tell”.

• They explore growing and changing in animals, plants and people and understand that growing and changing is a natural part of living.

In years 2 and 3 (6 - 7 years old)
• Children continue to explore growing and changing. Children learn to recognise and name main body parts. This helps children understand the differences between males and females and how they change as they get older.
• They bring in photographs of themselves as a baby, toddler and child and explore how they have grown and changed and what they can do now that they couldn’t do before.
• They explore the different stages of human development, understanding how some people’s needs and responsibilities stay the same whilst some change as they get older.

During Key Stage 2 (8 -11 years old)
• Children explore emotional changes and how to manage feelings towards themselves, their families and others in a positive way.
• They learn that we all go through physical and emotional changes but the age at which changes happen will depend on their own personal ‘body clock’.
• They learn that although people’s bodies may be ready to have/make babies, they as people are not ready in many other ways (emotionally, financially, and educationally) for a long time.
• Towards the end of their time in primary school children learn the process of conception and understand the importance of loving, stable relationships.
• Revisiting differences in reproductive system between boys and girls, they learn how they change during puberty.
• They learn that being able to talk sensibly and learn about this is an important part of growing up.