Cloudside Academy Statement of Intent PHSE and RSE
At Cloudside Academy, we want our children to become responsible citizens, with a love of learning, who are intrigued by the world around them. We work towards enabling our children to be resilient, independent and life-long learners with skills that they can apply both within their time in education and beyond. We want children to enjoy learning about Personal, Social, Health, Economic (PSHE) and Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) and develop a sense of how important it is, how it relates to their everyday lives and their role within it. Children are encouraged to develop their own questions and interests and express their ideas clearly and confidently, but also challenge those views of others in a polite manner with justified evidence. They will also develop the ability to problem solve and work cooperatively by building and sharing their experiences and knowledge with others and to support each other regardless of their background to become effective communicators.
At Cloudside Academy, we know that we have an economically diverse community. At least 41% of our pupils coming from disadvantaged backgrounds and a growing number of our children have English as additional language, which, on entry, evidence suggests has impacted on the children’s academic, social and emotional achievements. Therefore, we have designed our curriculum to ensure that children learn about the importance of money and work every year, with a focus on aspirations and ensuring that all children fulfil their potential. The majority of our children come from a white British background, therefore their exposure to different ethnicities and cultures is limited which in turn has impacted on the children’s understanding of diversity, tolerance and empathy towards others. As a result of this knowledge, our PSHE curriculum has been designed to support our children in making progress with their social and emotional skills, as well as broadening their understanding of others. We do however, have an increasing number of children with English as an additional language which only highlights the importance of the social and emotional aspects of our PSHE curriculum.
Furthermore, we know that a proportion of our children live in households where they witness domestic violence or relationship struggles within families. We know that this has an impact on their understanding of relationship and their interactions with their peers and adults. Consequently, our PSHE curriculum ensures that relationships education is taught in every year group to equip children with the knowledge and understanding of positive, healthy relationships.
Our PSHE curriculum is designed as a question led, enquiry based subject and follows a spiral approach, where key concepts will be covered every year as the children move through school. This will enable the children to make links to their prior learning but this will also allow them to make good progress within the learning for their year group. Our intention, through our PSHE curriculum, is to support our children in becoming happy, successful and positive members of society in which they can make informed everyday-life decisions. We aim for our children to put the knowledge and skills gained in PSHE lessons into practice as they develop the capacity to make sound decisions when facing risks, challenges and complex contexts but also to know how and when to ask for help and to know how to access support.
Protected Characteristics
Lead Teacher: Miss Milson
PROMOTING THE NINE PROTECTED CHARACTERISITICS
The Equality Act became law in 2010. It covers everyone in Britain and protects people from discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Everyone in Britain is protected. This is because the Equality Act protects people against discrimination because of the protected characteristics that we all have. Under the Equality Act, there are nine Protected Characteristics:
Age
Disability
Gender reassignment
Race
Religion or belief
Marriage or civil partnership
Sex
Sexual orientation
Pregnancy and maternity
Under the Equality Act you are protected from discrimination:
When you are in the workplace
When you use public services like healthcare (for example, visiting your doctor or local hospital) or education (for example, at your school or college)
When you use businesses and other organisations that provide services and goods (like shops, restaurants, and cinemas)
When you use transport
When you join a club or association (for example, your local tennis club)
When you have contact with public bodies like your local council or government departments
The 9 Protected Characteristics are actively promoted in school through:
Our school statement of belief, AIP, and SEF
Our school core values- GROWTH
Our school behaviour policy
Conscious role modelling by all adults in the school community
Active engagement and communication with parents and carers
Assemblies
Discussion within curriculum subjects, taking a cross-curricular approach
Promoting articulation by building appropriate language and a coherent vocabulary
Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) sessions
Religious Education (RE) lessons,
Sporting, Art and Cultural Events
Pupil Voice
Educational visits
Real-life learning outside the classroom
Guest speakers
Developing links with local, national and international communities
Extra-curricular activities, after-school clubs, charity work and work within the local community
Embedding Protected Characteristics into the whole ethos of Cloudside Academy promotes:
Self-esteem, self-knowledge and self-confidence
Respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic process
Acceptance of responsibility for their own behaviour
Respect for their own and other cultures
Understanding of how they can contribute positively to school and home life and to the lives of those living and working in the locality and further afield
An understanding of Equality, Human Rights and Protected Characteristics
An understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process
An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety
An understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law
An acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour
An understanding of the importance of identifying and combating discrimination
Year 5 attended the Choices and Consequences workshop at the Galleries of Justice, which is in partnership with the Ben Kinsella Trust. This is an important visit where the children learn about how dangerous knifes can be.