PSHE and RSE
Policy

Version |  September 2024

Revised: September 2024

Due to be updated: September 2025

Basic Information:

This policy covers our school’s approach to Personal, Social & Health Education (PSHE) and Relationships and Sex education and Health Education (RSE). The subjects will be taught as part of the planned PSHE curriculum programme in one hour a week lesson taught in tutor groups by form tutors. This policy has been produced by Charlotte Chambers.

A separate policy for Relationship and Sex Education will be made available by March 2021 following consultation with parents.

Co-op Academy Swinton aims and objectives of PSHE:

Our school’s overarching aims and objectives for our students are to develop their personal, social and health education. To them as individuals, each valued in his or her own right and promoting for each student a positive self-image. PSHE should support students to acquire the skills and knowledge that will assist them to make informed choices.

The Lifelong Learning for all Key Stages are the same. We want our students to know how to stay safe, how to be co-operative, be happy and healthy and build resilience.

Rationale:

PSHE is an important aspect of school life and is essential in the development of young people’s lives. PSHE education helps students to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage many of the critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities they will face as they grow up and in adulthood.

By teaching students to stay safe and healthy, and by building self-esteem, resilience and empathy, an effective PSHE programme can tackle barriers to learning, raise aspirations, and improve the life chances of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students. The skills and attributes developed through PSHE education support student academic attainment and attendance, particularly among students eligible for free school meals, as well as improve employability and boost social mobility.

The PSHE programme has been developed to address the needs, concerns and anxieties that face young people in their daily lives. It looks to provide a clear understanding for students within a positive and caring environment. It is positive in promoting responsibility for students’ own behaviour and the consequences of their actions.

Co-op Academy Swinton will ensure the best interests of students and young people will be maintained during PSHE lessons and will encourage students and young people to talk to their parents and carers about any issues they discuss.

The key themes that will be covered during PSHE:

• Health and Wellbeing
• Relationships
• Living in the Wider World

While promoting the aims and objectives above, we will ensure that students are offered a balanced programme. Students will have the opportunity to develop their understanding of the following topics through a range of activities.

Teaching Method:

The school seeks to provide a safe, secure learning environment for PSHE that enables students and young people to gain accurate knowledge, develop their own values and attitudes, and develop skills to grow into happy confident successful adults. The school seeks to ensure members of staff are good role models for positive healthy relationships.

Students will need to feel secure and valued. In order to support this, group agreements are negotiated and established during the initial lesson with Form Tutors. The teaching style will support the needs of the students taking into consideration school, home life and friends. This will allow the teacher to provide understanding and support for its students. Due to the sensitive nature of the issues discussed, students will be given an opportunity to leave the room if they need to.

Teaching will take into account the ability, age, readiness, and cultural backgrounds of our young people and those with English as a second language to ensure that all can fully access the PSHE programme.

The school will support members of staff delivering PSHE, understand the nature of some topics may be challenging for some teachers to deliver.

Support and Safeguarding:

The school recognises the importance for students, young people, families and the workforce having access to confidential services, including health services to support their physical and emotional needs. The following issues may occur as part of PSHE lessons and staff must follow the school’s safeguarding policy if any disclosures are made. If staff have any reason to believe a student is at risk, they are required to report this to the Safeguarding Officer.

Students should be made aware that some information cannot be kept confidential and if disclosures are made then the school safeguarding procedure must be followed including putting in a note of concern and following up by referring to the Safeguarding Officer/PPC/SENCO/Headteacher. At the same time, students will be offered sensitive and appropriate support.

How will we support students withdrawn from PSHE lessons?

Students can only be removed from PSHE lessons which cover Sex Education if a parent requests that their son or daughter are to be removed from these lessons. The school will provide support by ensuring they have an alternative appropriate activity to complete in Nurture during the lessons. If a child is withdrawn from lessons the school would be unable to prevent the student from asking their peers what they had learnt in the lesson. In the final term of Year 10, students may choose to overrule their parents and attend Sex Education lessons. In cases like this, the school will endeavour to give the student a full education, revisiting Sex Education topics missed in earlier years.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The evaluation and monitoring of PSHE takes place continually through learning walks during PSHE, PPC book checks and student voice questionnaires. Students’ learning will be assessed during the PSHE lessons using a variety of techniques including: baseline tasks in lessons, student questionnaires and an end of unit self assessment. In addition to this students are asked a range of questions about the usefulness of PSHE and given the opportunity to evaluate the benefits of each of the topics within the programme.

Co-op Academy Swinton aims and objectives of RSE:

The aim of this policy is to communicate to staff, governors, parents/carers, visitors and students the manner in which RSE will be delivered and supported at KPHS.

The aims are:

• To enable our students to better understand the nature of relationships
• To enable students to see the importance of marriage and stable loving relationships for the bringing up of children
• To prepare students for the changes that occur to their bodies, minds and emotions during adolescence
• To know about the risks of being online and how to stay safe
• To support all young people to stay safe and prepare for life in modern Britain.

Further information as to how we keep our students safe can be found in our Safeguarding Policy on the school’s website: 

Rationale:

Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is the right and responsibility of the parent/carer.  Co-op Academy Swinton provides RSE to support parents/carers in fulfilling their responsibility and to contribute to every students’ health, wellbeing and preparation for adult life.

The students at Co-op Academy Swinton come from diverse backgrounds, expressing a variety of beliefs and values. Together with our staff and parents, we have consulted and developed a familiarity with the beliefs and attitudes of our range of families towards issues such as:

• relationships and sex education
• abortion
• contraception
• LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans +)
• sex outside marriage
• mental health

What is effective Relationships and Sex Education?

Effective RSE involves lifelong learning about physical, moral and emotional development. It is about the understanding of the importance of a stable and loving relationships. It is also about the teaching of sex, sexuality and sexual health, and included the preparation of students for opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. It is not about the promotion of sexual orientation or sexual activity – this would be inappropriate teaching. Our curriculum is designed to support children growing up in an increasingly complex and digital world. Whilst the internet is an overwhelmingly positive development in our lives, it does present significant challenges, particularly for young people. We are mindful of the dominance of social media, the prevalence of cyber-bullying and the risk that children learn about relationships from untrustworthy sources – we aim to support children to make the right decisions and keep themselves safe and happy.

Attitudes and values

Students are helped to examine the value of family life, marriage, and stable and loving relationships for the nurture of children. They are also encouraged to explore and consider moral dilemmas. RSE can also help students to develop a good self-image, high self-esteem, personal responsibility and the ability to make informed decisions.

Personal and social skills

RSE encourages students to manage emotions and relationships confidently and sensitively whilst developing self-respect and empathy for others. Students are taught to make choices based on an understanding of difference, with an absence of prejudice and learn how to recognise and avoid exploitation and abuse. It also provides opportunities to develop communication skills and assertiveness within a range of different situations.

Knowledge and understanding

RSE focuses on understanding physical development at appropriate stages. The students will explore human sexuality, reproduction, sexual health, emotions and relationships. Students will also be provided with information on contraception and the range of local and national sexual health advice support services. Students will look at the reasons for delaying sexual activity, the benefits to be gained from such delay and the avoidance of unplanned pregnancy.

This will provide an objective and balanced view of sexual matters, correcting any misconceptions and misinformation students may have gained.

Delivery of RSE

How is relationships and sex education organised?

RSE is not an isolated subject; it permeates the whole curriculum and the pastoral system. Citizenship, Religious Education, Life Learning and Science provide a focus for exploring some elements of RSE.  

How is relationships and sex education taught?

The content of the school’s programme is based on the Science National Curriculum, the RE curriculum, Citizenship curriculum and the PSHE curriculum. We recognise the need to create a supportive and secure atmosphere where students can develop the confidence needed to talk, listen and think about sex and relationships. In order to do this, teachers will:

• Establish ground rules with students
• Emphasise the importance of mutual respect
• Encourage reflection
• Make students aware of the relevant persons to approach in the school.

We will be drawing on a range of teaching methods in order to encourage exploration of attitudes, values and beliefs, using active learning methods which involve students and help them to personalise information.

We understand that teaching RSE in a secondary school should build on the learning at primary school. Through our network of feeder primary schools, we will be working together to establish a benchmark for RSE provision to ensure that this learning will be built on developmentally.

Specialist support

The school recognises that some aspects of RSE must be taught by specialists. From time to time the school will invite professional health experts in to deliver sessions relating to specific RSE issues.

These will be asked to conform to the following:

• Visitors contributing to RSE will do so at the invitation of the school and will be qualified to make an appropriate contribution
•  Visitors must agree with the aims of the school in delivering its policy on RSE
• When in class visitors will be supervised by a teacher who will be present at all times
• Visitors will follow the schools Child Protection Procedures if a disclosure occurs within the classroom setting
• Visitors will know and understand where their contribution fits into the school’s programme for RSE and Social Science.

Dealing with sensitive issues

All teachers are given training on handling controversial topics, are made clear about confidentiality boundaries and know where/who to refer students to for confidential advice and support.

RSE is part of the school’s provision for Spiritual, Moral Social and Cultural development. The following are protocols for discussion based lessons with students:

• No one (teacher or student) will have to answer a personal question
• No one will be forced to take part in a discussion
• Meanings of words will be explained in a sensible and factual way
• Teachers may use their discretion in responding to questions and may say that the appropriate person to answer that question is the parent/carer
• It is expected that teachers’ personal beliefs and attitudes will not influence their teaching of RSE
• If at any point a disclosure is made by a student it is the responsibility of the member of staff to follow the schools’ safeguarding policy and notify the school’s Designated Safeguarding Lead.

Further information as to how we keep our students safe can be found in our Safeguarding Policy on the school’s website.

Parental right to withdrawal from RSE

RSE is part of all students’ education and it is hoped that all will participate. Some parts of RSE are compulsory – these are part of the National Curriculum for Science. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from the (non-statutory/non-science) components of sex education within RSE up to and until 3 terms before the child turns 16. After this point, if the child wishes to receive sex education rather than being withdrawn, the school will arrange this. It must be noted that parents cannot withdraw their children from all other aspects of the RSE curriculum.

Requests for withdrawal should be put in writing and addressed to the Headteacher. The Headteacher will discuss the request with parents and take appropriate action. When the Headteacher receives such a letter they will invite the parents/carers to a meeting, at which the Headteacher will explain clearly what the school’s policy is and seek to accommodate the wishes and/or concerns of the parents/carers. If that is not possible the pupil will be withdrawn from RSE and placed in another class where suitable work and supervision will be provided.

Procedure for Monitoring and evaluating RSE

The policy and its implementation will be reviewed every 12 months. RSE will be monitored by the whole school RSE lead, Charlotte Chambers, whose responsibility it is to:

• Ensure that RSE is covered in the schemes of work in Social Science
• Monitor the use of teaching and learning styles
• Monitor the use of teaching materials
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the schools programme
• Ensure the content is age appropriate.