PSHE

Welcome at PSHE at Bussage! At Bussage Primary School, our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) programme is carefully designed to support children’s personal and social development. We aim to equip our pupils with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive both now and in the future.

Following the Department for Education’s recommendations, our PSHE curriculum provides a structured framework through which key life skills and values are taught. Children learn how to stay safe online, build positive and healthy relationships, understand media messages, develop resilience and good mental health, and challenge unkind or extreme views. It also helps them become confident in making decisions, solving problems, and asserting themselves appropriately.

Our PSHE programme supports the wider aims of our school: to nurture confident citizens and successful learners who are creative, resourceful, and ready to take on challenges. Social and emotional learning is embedded across our whole curriculum and school culture.

We use a well-structured, themed programme based on a spiral curriculum—where key topics are revisited and built upon each year. Through this, we aim to:

• Give children the knowledge and confidence to make informed choices.

• Support the development of social skills and awareness.

• Help pupils understand and reflect on their personal experiences.

• Promote healthy lifestyles and good mental wellbeing.

• Foster caring and respectful relationships with others.

• Encourage a sense of responsibility for their environment.

• Teach strategies to manage emotions and build resilience.

• Explore how society works, including understanding rules, rights and responsibilities.

We recognise the strong link between children’s wellbeing and their ability to learn effectively. A strong PSHE education helps ensure our pupils grow into confident, capable learners who are ready to face life’s opportunities and challenges.

What is a good citizen?  

At Bussage, we believe that a good citizen is someone who understands and lives out the values taught in our PSHE curriculum. This includes being kind and respectful, helping others, following rules, and being honest. A good citizen also takes responsibility, cares for the environment, works well with others, and stands up for what is right.

These are the qualities we strive to instil in every child, helping them grow into thoughtful, caring members of society.

• Kindness and Respect
• Helping Others
• Following Rules
• Honesty
• Responsibility
• Looking After the Environment
• Being a Good Team Player
• Standing Up for What’s Right

Future Careers as a good citizen:

Showing good understanding of how to be a good citizen through experiencing the PSHE  curriculum opens the door to many exciting careers, including:

If you enjoy learning about PSHE – things like friendships, feelings, staying healthy, and keeping safe – there are lots of exciting jobs you could do when you’re older. You might become a teacher, helping children learn how to look after themselves and others. If you’re a great listener, you could be a mental health professional or a life coach, supporting people when they feel worried, confused or need help making good choices. You might choose to be a social worker, helping children and families through difficult times, or a youth worker, running fun clubs and activities that help young people feel confident and included. If you’re interested in the internet and how to stay safe online, you could become an online safety consultant, teaching others how to enjoy the internet safely. You could even work as a charity worker, helping children and families in need, or a public relations officer, sharing important messages with the public to help everyone understand big issues. There are so many ways to use your kindness, care, and curiosity to help others and make the world a better, safer place!

Our PSHE education is at the heart of our school’s mission to develop creative, resourceful learners who are not only academically successful but also emotionally intelligent and socially responsible. We aim to equip children with the skills to solve problems, negotiate, and assert themselves in a variety of situations, setting them up for future success.

Our Core Values:

The teaching of PSHE at Bussage is guided by our four cornerstones:

Hope: Nurturing optimism and resilience, empowering children to face challenges with confidence and look to the future with positivity.
Wisdom: Developing emotional intelligence, responsible decision-making, and the ability to reflect on choices and their impact on others.
Community: Strengthening relationships and social responsibility, helping pupils understand their role within school, local, and global communities.
Dignity: Promoting self-respect and respect for others, encouraging kindness, inclusion, and a deep understanding of diversity.

Through these values, we support children’s personal growth and wellbeing, preparing them to lead happy, healthy lives with a strong sense of identity and purpose.

Discover how PSHE at Bussage helps shape confident, compassionate individuals ready to contribute meaningfully to the world around them.

Our PSHE Curriculum

At Bussage Primary School, we use SCARF (Safety, Caring Achievement, Resilience and Friendship) — It is a whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing education that aims to build these core values in children. The program is used in primary schools to teach personal, social, health, and economic education through various themes and interactive lessons. 

In Reception, PSHE is taught through the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. Personal, Social and Emotional Development is one of the three key “prime areas” of learning, alongside Communication and Language, and Physical Development. These areas help form the foundations for curiosity, relationship-building, and lifelong learning.

Our PSHE curriculum is structured around six half-termly units, which are adapted where needed to suit the needs and context of our school. For example, we may include learning that uses the local environment or responds to topics raised by the school council. Pupil voice is an important part of our planning process.

The PSHE subject leader works closely with class teachers to make sure everyone has the training, knowledge, and resources they need. SCARF provides a wide range of support materials, including guidance documents and short training films. If a teacher would like additional support, they can speak with the PSHE lead to arrange this.

Teachers follow the six suggested units from SCARF each year. These can be taught as standalone weekly PSHE lessons or linked with other subjects. Lesson plans clearly outline learning objectives and offer guidance on how to deliver content confidently. Teachers often meet informally to discuss and reflect on how lessons are going.

We chose the SCARF programme because it builds on children’s prior learning and offers age-appropriate progression as pupils move through the school. It ensures that all children are appropriately challenged and supported at every stage of their development.

The Early Years Foundation Stage

In the Early Years Foundation Stage, PSHE is closely linked with play and child-led activities. It helps children build connections and develop important life skills like dressing themselves, eating independently, and using the toilet. PSHE is taught through a mix of planned topics and personalised support, helping children grow in confidence and social awareness.

Positive experiences are encouraged throughout the day—whether through sharing stories, playing in small groups, or taking part in school-wide activities. These moments help children feel part of the community and start to understand how to care for themselves and others.

Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2

From Years 1 to 6, our SCARF programme follows six themed units across the academic year:

• Me and My Relationships – Children explore emotions, friendships, and how to resolve conflicts.

• Valuing Difference – Lessons focus on respect, inclusion, and understanding British values.

• Keeping Myself Safe – Pupils learn about health, safety, and making sensible choices.

• Rights and Responsibilities – Children explore money, community life, and caring for the environment.

• Being My Best – Focuses on staying healthy, developing resilience, and setting personal goals.

• Growing and Changing – Explores physical and emotional development, the human body, and keeping safe.

These units encourage children to reflect on their own experiences, understand how their behaviour affects others, and see themselves as valuable members of a wider community. They learn how to play, learn, and collaborate with peers, and make informed choices about their health and the world around them.

As part of National Curriculum Science, Year 2 pupils learn that animals, including humans, have offspring that grow into adults. While the concept of reproduction is introduced, the specifics of how reproduction occurs are not covered at this stage. In Year 5, children revisit the life cycles of humans and animals, and learn about the changes from birth to old age—including puberty and reproduction.

To help support children as they prepare for secondary school, we also include age-appropriate sex education, as recommended by the Department for Education. (More details can be found in our RSE Policy.)

At Bussage our PSHE programme (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) is designed to support our children's personal and social development, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive.

At Bussage, our PSHE education, as recommended by the DfE, provides a framework though which key skills, attributes and knowledge can be developed and applied. This promotes positive behaviour, good mental health and wellbeing, resilience and achievement, helping children to stay safe online, develop healthy and safe relationships, making sense of media messages, challenging extreme views and having the skills and attributes to negotiate and assert themselves now and in the future.

The school’s PSHE provision supports the school’s aims of developing confident citizens and successful learners who are creative, resourceful and able to identify and solve problems. The social and emotional development of pupils is embedded throughout the entire school’s curriculum and culture. The school has a powerful combination of a planned thematic PSHE programme, built around a spiral curriculum of recurring themes, designed to:

1. Give pupils the knowledge and develop the self-esteem, confidence and self-awareness to make informed choices and decisions;
2. Encourage and support the development of social skills and social awareness;
3. Enable pupils to make sense of their own personal and social experiences;
4. Promote responsible attitudes towards the maintenance of good physical and mental health, supported by a safe and healthy lifestyle;
5. Enable effective interpersonal relationships and develop a caring attitude towards others;
6. Encourage a caring attitude towards and responsibility for the environment;
7. Help our pupils understand and manage their feelings, build resilience and be independent, curious problem solvers;
8. Understand how society works and the laws, rights and responsibilities involved.

We know there is a proven link between pupils' health and wellbeing, and their academic progress. Crucial skills and positive attitudes developed through comprehensive Personal, Social, Health and Economic education are critical to ensuring children are effective learners.