“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken"

Oscar Wilde

Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) and  Relationships and Sex Education (RSE)

Children's emotional health and wellbeing has a huge impact on their ability to learn. and so a whole-school approach is vital to improving the emotional health and wellbeing of our school community, particularly so after the Covid 19 pandemic, helping to keep our children safe, improve behaviour and raise achievement. 

At Mattersey Primary we use Coram Life Education and their SCARF scheme to help us to deliver our PSHE curriculum. SCARF stands for: 

Safety

Caring

Achievement

Resilience

Friendship

We have specific PSHE lessons, as well as a regular SCARF weekly slot, and also use SCARF together as a whole school in assemblies. The Haven is our safe space in school and we use this space to work with small groups or one to one with an adult and it is an invaluable space for us to use when focusing on our emotional health and well-being. We also practice mindfulness with our Take Five programme of mediation. 

Our PSHE curriculum is mapped out in 6 units over the academic year: 

Me and My Relationships 

Valuing Difference 

Keeping Myself Safe 

Rights and Responsibilities 

Being My Best 

Growing and Changing

 SCARF as part of wider school life:

At Mattersey, we work together as a community to make sure we are all safe and happy.  Our Pupil Leadership team help Mrs Wilson and the other staff to make decisions.  We have visitors in school who also help us-  the Road Safety Team, the Big Talk team, DARE officers, Swim Safe and Fire fighters who help us to learn how to stay safe. We also want to help others and raise money for charities, such as Children in Need and Macmillan, as well as collecting for Bassetlaw Food Bank at our Harvest Service. 

Our pupils work together in enterprise groups to take part in the annual Fiver Challenge. This has been a great way for our pupils to learn  about budgeting, profit margins and experience running a small business. 

The Curriculum:

Please see our PSHE curriculum overview below for children from EYFS through to Year 6: 

DAaRT Programme: When pupils are in Year 5/6 at Mattersey, they complete the DAaRT Life Skills Programme. We feel this is the right age to learn about important issues such as: drugs and alcohol awareness, knife crime as well as further work on e-safety and peer pressure to ensure our pupils are well prepared on their journey of transition to secondary school. 

RSE- Relationships Education:

 In response to our changing society and the impact of the Internet, the Government have introduced statutory Relationship Education to Primary Schools, these lessons are not new and have been delivered in good Primary Schools since the last guidance in 2000, however some of the content has now been updated to help keep children safer.

We use Coram Life Education and their SCARF scheme to deliver our PSHE and Relationships curriculum in school. However; this year we have also decided to engage the support of the specialist organisation The Big Talk. 

Mandatary Subjects - Our definitions of Relationship Education (RE) is as follows:

Relationships Education is learning about the emotional, social and physical aspects of growing up. It is inclusive of all types of families, to help children understand about loving and caring relationships of all types. It should equip children with the information, skills and positive values to have safe relationships, to understand their bodies and to empower them to know they have choice. This subject can support children to develop resilience and to know how and when to ask for help.

Non-Mandatory Subjects - Our definitions of Sex Education (SE) is as follows:

Sex Education (SE) provides a safe environment for children to have a factual, age appropriate introduction to human reproduction and to ask questions related to this topic. It should enable children to access a safe source of information. Sex Education in this school will always form part of a broader scheme of work presented in conjunction with RE above, therefore will be referred to as Relationship and Sex Education (RSE).

1.2 School’s Legal Duty

The Relationship Education, Relationship and Sex Education and Health Education (England) Regulations 2019, made under sections 34 and 35 Children and Social Work Act 2017 make Relationship Education compulsory for all pupils receiving primary education in England. 

Please see below our school's RSE policy and links to the SCARF curriculum, as well as the curriculum content delivered through our work with The Big Talk Education: