PSHE

Subject Lead : Mrs Maeve Baird

PSHE helps students understand themselves and others. It covers topics like emotional wellbeing, relationships, and identity, which are essential for navigating everyday situations - friendships, conflict, stress, and decision-making. It also plays a big role in keeping young people safe. Topics like online safety, consent, mental health, and substance awareness give students the knowledge to recognize risks and make informed choices rather than relying on guesswork or peer pressure.

PSHE introduces practical knowledge and life skills - managing money, understanding careers, and making responsible choices - which directly impacts independence in adulthood.

PSHE promotes respect, empathy, and inclusion, helping reduce bullying and discrimination while encouraging positive communities both in school and beyond. Citizenship education is delivered within the PSHE programme and gives pupils the knowledge and skills to understand, challenge and engage with democratic society, including politics, the media, civil society, the economy and the law. It promotes fundamental British values. The PSHE provision in The Holy Cross School follows the RSE framework and the citizenship curriculum.

PSHE is taught in a timetabled lesson once a week and is taught by form tutors. It is scaffolded across KS3 and KS4 with lessons taught at appropriate age levels. Appropriate signposting is provided throughout for the students.

Year 7:

Snapback includes settling into secondary school, friendship and resilience and puberty.

Looking after yourself includes Sleep ,dental health, road safety, diet health and exercise, fire safety, road safety, mental and physical wellbeing.

Citizenship includes an introduction to democracy, law, society and rights.

Friendship and empathy includes recognising bullying, empathy challenges and recognising and respecting differences.

Year 8:

Community and belonging includes violence against women and girls,online behaviours protected characteristics as described in the Equality Act 2010, extremism/radicalisation and hate crime.

Finance Introduction to financial independence including bank accounts and saving.

First Give A philanthropic project run by Jack Petchy. Includes identifying a social issue and a charity who work in that field. They work with the charity and at school raising social awareness and compete in a speaking contest for a prize.

Resilience Breal :BReal aims to engage young teenagers and equip them with the knowledge and practical skills to drive their own brain development in a positive direction that promotes good mental health. The project aims to inform, inspire and empower teenagers to cultivate stress resilience skills and thus enable them to better manage their own minds.

Committed relationships and family life which focuses on different types of relationships, how these can change over time, and how young people can seek support for navigating changes to relationships, including in families. They also focuses on the roles and responsibilities of different family members, as well as how people make decisions regarding relationships and parenting.

Year 9:

Confident me: programme based on building confidence and resilience including unrealistic appearance ideals,the impact of social media, celebrity culture and advertising,how to reduce appearance-focused conversations and comparisons and body activism and positive behaviour change.

CPR, first aid and health: Students have a practical lesson using resus dummies and BHF Classroom reviver, includes recovery position and defibrillators. There is also a session in general first aid including choking, burns and anaphylaxis. Students also examine their rights to healthy lifestyles and medical treatment.

Exploitation includes lessons about Female Genital Mutilation, Child Sexual exploitation, Child criminal exploitation and Forced Marraige. This is designed for students to understand and recognise any of these dangerous situations and thier legal rights, places to access help. 

Risky Behaviour: includes teaching lessons on alcohol, drugs, tobacco and vaping with the target of supporting them in delaying first substance use, reducing harm, and preventing the development of harmful patterns of substance use in adulthood. This is to reduce the health (physical and mental) and social consequences that can impact upon an individual’s quality of life and future aspirations,and to promote positive health and wellbeing.

Relationship behaviour: Send me a pic : includes a series of lessons which centre around films depicting fictional online chats. The chats show young people requesting, receiving, and discussing issues related to the sharing of nude images.The lessons help young people to:recognise principles of healthy interactions online and offline, understand what nude image-based abuse is,identify and respond to pressure and coercion and critique harmful social norms around sharing nude images in groups.

Personal safety: includes: water safety including peer pressure and techniques if you find yourself in water and consent and personal safety.

Govt and politics includes types of government, ways to choose how to vote, elections and voting, parliament and government and laws.

Year 10:

Mental health and wellbeing includes transitions in school and new challenges,reframing negative thinking, recognising ill mental health and where to get help, change,loss and grief and promoting emotional wellbeing.

Belonging and community:Tolerance and extremism.This is based on preventative education and includes valuing diversity,understanding and preventing extremism,how people are drawn into extremist groups and recognising online misogyny.

Relationship behaviour includes family conflict, taking others; perspectives, identifying healthy and unhealthy relationships, managing conflict in relationships and finding forgiveness, staying safe and sexual health and addressing relationship abuse. 

Finance: Financial harms. This includes Making money online, Rights,risks and cryptocurrencies,controlled and uncontrolled online spending and financial exploitation online.

Rights and responsibilities includes lessons on voting and legal and human rights.

Pornography includes how and why pornography is regulated and technology and consent.

Year 11

Organ donation NHS Blood and organ transplant ,students learn about blood, organ and stem cell donation.

Health includes the importance of checking and personal rights and responsibilities around health.

Gangs and risk taking includes reasons why people may join, risks and consequences and ways to try to get out.

Wellbeing and connections include physical and mental wellbeing, making positive connections and resilience.

Modern families includes legal rights within relationships in families.