Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and RSE

Our Jigsaw PSHE Curriculum

Jigsaw 3-11 is a comprehensive Programme for Primary PSHE including statutory Relationships and Health Education, in a spiral, progressive and fully planned scheme of work, giving children relevant learning experiences to help them navigate their world and to develop positive relationships with themselves and others.

Our Intent: Why do we use Jigsaw?

"Jigsaw holds children at its heart, and its cohesive vision helps children understand and value how they fit into and contribute to the world." Jigsaw Scheme of Work

The intent of our PSHE curriculum is to deliver a curriculum which is accessible to all and that will maximise the outcomes for every child so that they know more, remember more and understand more. As a result of this, they will become healthy, independent and responsible members of a society who understand how they are developing and it will give them confidence to tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up. We provide our children with opportunities for them to learn about rights and responsibilities and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society. Our children are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.

With a strong emphasis on emotional literacy, building resilience and nurturing mental and physical health, Jigsaw 3-11 properly equips schools to deliver engaging and relevant PSHE within a whole-school approach. Jigsaw lessons also include mindfulness allowing children to advance their emotional awareness, concentration and focus.

Pupil participation is integral to our school’s vision and ethos; there are clear structures in place to capture pupils’ voice and pupils have a range of opportunities to influence decisions which affect them. Our Jigsaw Scheme and our MindMate Champion lessons are integral to our curriculum. PSHE at Kippax Ash Tree is treated as a core subject in our school due to the context of our children and their needs and it is taught weekly. We use our curriculum to enable our children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of a society. It aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, and tackles many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up.

Implementation: How do we do what we do?

Jigsaw consists of six half-term units of work (Puzzles), each containing six lessons (Pieces) covering each academic year.

Term 1: Being Me in My World
Term 2: Celebrating Difference (including anti-bullying)
Term 3: Dreams and Goals
Term 4: Healthy Me
Term 5: Relationships
Term 6: Changing Me (including Sex Education)

Puzzles are launched with a whole-school assembly, with each year group studying the same unit at the same time (at their own level), building sequentially through the school year, facilitating whole-school learning themes.

The various teaching and learning activities are engaging and mindful of different learning styles and the need for differentiation and the Early Years (EYFS) planning is aligned to the National Early Years Framework (England).

Each lesson is built upon a Charter which underpins the behaviour and respect that is the basis for each lesson. The lesson is then split into 6 parts, all of which should be included in every session to ensure that the learning follows the optimum progression.

• Connect us – This is a game or activity designed to be fun and inclusive and to build and maximise social skills. ‘Connect us’ engenders positive relationships and enhances collaborative learning. It sets the atmosphere at the beginning of each Jigsaw Piece and can be used again at the end should the teacher feel the atmosphere needs to be lifted after some deep work during the lesson.
• Calm me – This section of the Piece helps children gain awareness of the activity in their minds, relaxing them and quietening their thoughts and emotions to a place of optimum learning capacity. This will also engender a peaceful atmosphere within the classroom. It is an invaluable life skill which also enhances reflection and spiritual development. This underpins the mindful approach advocated in Jigsaw
• Open my mind – The Reticular Activating System of the brain filters the many stimuli entering the child’s mind at any given time. It is designed only to allow in that which is significant. Therefore, it is important to engage this system with the most important aspects of learning intended for each Piece (lesson). If we do this well, it will enable children to filter out activity around them not significant to this learning intention, thereby improving concentration and learning.
• Tell me or show me – This section of the Piece (lesson) is used to introduce new information, concepts and skills, using a range of teaching approaches and activities.
• Let me learn – Following Piaget’s learning model, after receiving new information/concepts, children need to manipulate, use, and play with that new information in order for it to make sense to them and for them to ‘accommodate’ it into their existing learning.
• Help me reflect -Throughout Jigsaw, children are encouraged to reflect on their learning experiences and their progress. By reflecting, children can process and evaluate what they have learnt, which enables them to consolidate and apply their learning. They are also asked to stop and become aware of their thoughts and feelings in any given moment in Pause Points (brief pauses within the lesson where the children can have a couple of moments to just stop and be to consider whether what they are learning may be particularly meaningful to them).
• Closure – Each Piece needs safe closure. This will always include the teacher praising the children for their effort, positive attitude and achievement, as well as giving one or two sentences to summarise the key learning points for the children.

PSHE In Early Years

The 3-4 years Early Years Jigsaw Scheme supports the teaching of the Early Years Statutory Framework 2021. PSED Early Learning Goals are supported through examples such as: 

ELG: Managing Self: Throughout Jigsaw, children are challenged by new activities and challenges e.g. trying out how they might react in certain familiar or unfamiliar situations. In ‘Dreams and Goals’ they work towards specific challenging targets and are given the opportunity to demonstrate resilience and perseverance and strategies to support this. (e.g. Piece 1 – “I understand that if I persevere I can tackle challenges”. )

‘Being Me in My World’ supports children in understanding the school/ setting rules and why we have them, and the right of children to learn and play. They consider the impact of their behaviour on others and the need for everyone to work together to ensure that they have a safe and happy learning environment.

ELG Building Relationships: The inclusion of both adults and children in the Jigsaw circle and some directed activities, enables positive attachments to be formed. Adults may often be asked to role play a situation (e.g. being mean or dis-respecting resources) to ensure that the children understand that they can offer advice and support to the adults as much as each other and regulating emotions is necessary skill for everyone.

Relationship, Health and Sex Education (RSE)

RSE is an integral part of personal, social and health education (PSHE) and ensures that pupils receive the appropriate information, develop skills and explore attitudes at the time when they are able to best respond in order to grow in confidence with their bodies and their relationships. At Kippax Ash Tree, we follow the RSHE Jigsaw Scheme of Work. RSHE outcomes will also be addressed in other parts of the wider and national curriculum. For example, National Curriculum Science outcomes include naming body parts, understanding the human life cycle and human reproduction, and religious education includes work on families and values. Effective SRE is integrated across the curriculum but it is also important to deliver some identified SRE lessons so that pupils can learn about the human life cycle in the context of learning about themselves and their relationships. Our comprehensive SRE programme ensures we meet all the SRE statutory requirements. It is important that the content within the programme is age appropriate for pupils and that this is developed and built on as the pupils move up through the school.

The Right to Withdraw

“Parents have the right to request that their child be withdrawn from some or all of sex education delivered as part of statutory Relationships and Sex Education” DfE Guidance p.17
At Kippax Ash Tree Primary School, puberty is taught as a statutory requirement of Health Education and covered by our Jigsaw PSHE Programme in the ‘Changing Me’ Puzzle (unit). We conclude that sex education refers to Human Reproduction, and therefore inform parents of their right to request their child be withdrawn from the PSHE lessons that explicitly teach this i.e. the Jigsaw Changing Me Puzzle (unit).

The parents 'right to withdraw' form can be found in the appendix of the PSHE and RSE Policy 2022. This can be found on our Policies website page. 

MindMate Lessons

We are committed to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of all pupils at Kippax Ash Tree. Our PSHE curriculum is enhanced with MindMate Champions lessons. These lessons are divided in to units and they have been linked to our current PSHE unit themes. The following themes are taught across Key Stage 1 and 2:

• Feeling good and being me
• Friends and family
• Life changes
• Strong Emotions
• Being the same and being different
• Solving Problems

Within each strand, there are age appropriate topics for the different year groups. One topic per half term is taught to each year group (SRE is taught over a whole term in Y2, 4 and 6). Each topic consists of three lessons per half term and teachers are expected to teach a minimum of three lessons in each half term. Each PSHE lesson includes an overall learning intention and specific learning outcomes (based on knowledge and understanding, skills and the development of attitudes). Assessment has been included as an integral part of each topic. At the beginning of the topic pupils complete a pre-topic assessment activity, which is then repeated at the end of the topic. This enables pupils and teachers to understand and demonstrate the progress made. Pupils also complete a self-reflection sheet at the end of each topic; to encourage self-evaluation and reflection on learning within the topic as a whole unit of work.

We encourage our children to take part in a range of practical roles and activities that promote active citizenship: Pupil Parliament, Take Over Team, Pupil Leadership Team, reading buddies and engagement in school and local events. Children have opportunities to meet and work with members of the community, such as health workers, firefighters, police officers, librarians, sports coaches, secondary school pupils, artists, authors and representatives from the local church. We participate in and promote National events such as Democracy Week, Anti-Bullying Week and Internet Safety Week.

What is the Impact?

Our PSHE Curriculum supports our children to uphold our Ash Tree Values. We aim for all our children to strive to thrive by being:

• active participants in learning and life
• full of positive, ambitious energy and ideas, acting as role models and believing we can succeed
• respectful communicators who demonstrate that every person is a person of value

The PSHE leader monitors the teaching of PSHE effectively with scrutiny. Pupil voice discussions are carried out with the school's Pupil Parliament Team and the PSHE lead. This allows us to know exactly how the children feel about their learning and it's impact on their life. Assessment is used to evidence the impact and knowledge is assessed and tracked to ensure that children are building on their skills and knowledge over time. 

Assessment in Jigsaw is both formative and summative. The two clear learning objectives for each lesson (piece) allow the teacher to be mindful of the assessment elements within that session that can formatively help them pitch and plan subsequent lessons, and activities are included in each lesson to give the children the opportunity to self-assess using simple pictorial resources designed in a child-friendly, age appropriate manner. It also allows children of 6 and over the opportunity to identify areas for self-improvement. 

Each week we have two whole school assemblies which are themed around the half termly Jigsaw unit. Monday's whole school assembly launches the weekly theme and then our Friday 'Gold Book' Celebration Assembly praises that same attitude or behaviour, this brings the whole school together for Jigsaw assemblies.