At Mawnan CE VA Primary School, Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE), including Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE), is an essential part of our ambitious curriculum and our commitment to enabling every child to flourish.
Rooted in our Christian vision, we recognise that every child is created in the image of God and is deserving of dignity, respect and compassion. Through PSHE and RSHE, we help children develop the knowledge, language, confidence and skills they need to:
build healthy, caring and respectful relationships;
understand and manage their emotions;
care for their physical and mental health;
recognise safe and unsafe situations;
understand personal boundaries and consent;
stay safe online and offline;
challenge prejudice and harmful stereotypes;
seek help for themselves or others; and
prepare confidently for the next stage of their education and life in modern Britain.
Our approach is faith-sensitive and inclusive. It is underpinned by the belief that every child should experience “life in all its fullness” and learn to treat themselves and others with compassion, dignity and respect.
Relationships Education and Health Education are statutory in all primary schools.
Relationships Education teaches the fundamental building blocks of positive relationships, including:
families and people who care for us;
caring friendships;
respectful relationships;
online relationships; and
keeping safe.
Health Education includes learning about:
mental wellbeing;
internet safety and online harms;
physical health and fitness;
healthy eating;
drugs, alcohol and tobacco;
health and prevention;
basic first aid; and
the changing adolescent body, including puberty and menstruation.
Children also learn about personal boundaries, consent, privacy, respectful behaviour and how to recognise and report harmful or unsafe behaviour. Age-appropriate teaching helps pupils understand online risks, including cyberbullying, grooming, misinformation, manipulation, image sharing and exposure to harmful content.
PSHE and RSHE are taught through a carefully sequenced programme based on the PSHE Association’s Programme of Study and Curriculum Model. This provides a progressive, evidence-informed framework from Reception to Year 6.
Key knowledge and concepts are revisited at increasing levels of depth as children mature. The programme is adapted to reflect the needs of our pupils, our local context and our Christian vision.
Learning is supported through appropriate links with Science, Computing, Religious Education, Physical Education and the wider personal development curriculum. We also use carefully selected, high-quality picture books and quality-assured teaching resources to promote positive relationships, diversity, equality, safety and our Mawnan values.
Lessons are normally taught by class teachers or appropriately trained staff who know the children well. Agreed ground rules establish a safe and respectful environment in which children can ask questions and explore sensitive subjects. Staff respond using factual, age-appropriate language and follow the school’s safeguarding procedures whenever a question, comment or disclosure raises a concern.
Teaching is adapted where necessary so that pupils with special educational needs or disabilities can participate fully. This may include visual support, pre-teaching vocabulary, adapted resources or additional individual and small-group support.
Biological aspects of human development and reproduction are taught through the statutory National Curriculum for Science. Learning about puberty and the changing adolescent body forms part of statutory Health Education.
At Mawnan, additional, non-statutory sex education is taught in Year 6. This supports pupils’ understanding of human reproduction, conception, pregnancy, foetal development and birth, and helps prepare them for secondary school.
This teaching is factual, sensitive and appropriate to pupils’ age and developmental stage. Parents and carers are informed before puberty and sex education lessons take place. Information about the content and the materials to be used is shared in advance through ClassDojo, and parents are welcome to discuss the teaching with the school.
RSHE is an important part of our safeguarding curriculum. Children learn:
that their body belongs to them;
the importance of privacy, consent and personal space;
how to recognise unsafe or inappropriate contact, behaviour and communication;
the difference between safe surprises and unsafe secrets;
how to identify trusted adults;
how and where to report a worry;
that harmful or abusive behaviour is never acceptable; and
that abuse is never the fault of the person who experiences it.
Children are taught to use accurate vocabulary, including the correct anatomical names for body parts. This enables them to communicate clearly, ask questions and explain when something is wrong.
Any safeguarding concern arising during a lesson is reported and managed in accordance with the school’s Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy.
Our curriculum reflects the diversity of families and communities in modern Britain. Children learn that families may take many forms, including single-parent, adoptive, foster and LGBT-parent families, and that all families should provide children with love, security and care.
Teaching is factual, respectful and non-judgemental. It promotes equality, challenges discrimination and harmful stereotypes, and supports pupils to respect people whose lives, beliefs and backgrounds may be different from their own.
Parents and carers are the first educators of their children, and we greatly value a strong and open partnership with families.
Our RSHE policy and curriculum information are published on the school website. Parents may request to view the teaching resources used by the school and are encouraged to contact their child’s class teacher, the PSHE lead or the Headteacher if they have any questions or concerns.
Parents do not have the right to withdraw their child from:
statutory Relationships Education;
statutory Health Education, including puberty; or
the National Curriculum for Science.
Parents may request that their child is withdrawn from some or all of the additional, non-statutory sex education taught in Year 6. Requests should be made in writing to the Headteacher. The Headteacher will meet with the parent or carer to discuss the curriculum content and their concerns before confirming the arrangements.
Where a child is withdrawn, the school will provide appropriate and purposeful alternative learning.
The PSHE and RSHE curriculum is monitored throughout the year through reviews of planning and pupils’ learning, lesson visits, pupil voice and feedback from staff and families.
The curriculum and resources are reviewed regularly to ensure that teaching remains current, inclusive, age-appropriate and responsive to pupils’ needs and safeguarding priorities.
Please see the documents below for further information, including our full Relationships, Sex and Health Education Policy and curriculum overview.