Learning for Life (PSHE & RSE)
Crucial Crew - 26th June 2024
We welcomed the emergency services to school this week as part of our 2nd annual Crucial Crew - an event aimed at Year 6 to teach them some important life skills including what to do in an emergency, what to say during a 999 call, basic first aid including the recovery position, fire safety and talks from the Police about issues such as anti-social behaviour and peer pressure. The rest of the school were also treated to a quick tour of the Ambulance and the Police Cars!
Feedback from the children and staff was unwaveringly positive with highlights being wearing the fireman and paramedic gear, learning CPR and getting to use the hoses! This is the second Crucial Crew that we have managed to organise and hold at Pixmore for our children and we thank the members of the East of England Ambulance Service, Hertfordshire Fire Service and Hertfordshire Constabulary for taking the time to help us teach these important lessons to our pupils.
Road Safety Week - 25th-29th September 2023
In September, we had a Road Safety week that focused on teaching the children to be safe and courteous pedestrians. The children created a 'Pupil Code of Conduct' to follow when they are walking to and from school events as we practiced our road crossing skills on the roads around the school.
Be Bright, Be Seen - 8th January - 15th February 2024
This half term we are focusing on Being Bright and Being Seen. As the days get shorter and darker, we are going to be reinforcing our road safety skills and focusing on teaching the children the importance of being bright so they can be seen by drivers as they walk to and from school. We will be running a design a bag competition for the children to enter.
Parents can support the messages we are teaching in school by talking to your child about road safety and the importance of keeping themselves safe by being seen.
Your child might also like to click on the link below to play a 'Be Bright Be Seen' game:
At Pixmore we strive to support all learners to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to prepare them for life in the wider environment. This supports the school’s curriculum aim: ‘Include, achieve, inspire’.
Our Learning for Life, or PSHE curriculum, is a fundamental part of our core curriculum offer and has significant links with personal development and our ethos. We recognise our role in ensuring that we prepare our children for life in the wider world, as part of their own unique families and communities, and beyond these experiences when they leave school and enter the wider World as individuals having to make their own decisions. Our key message is that we are ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’.
Learning for Life (PSHE) education, which includes RSE (Relationships and Sex Education), contributes to personal development by helping pupils to build their confidence, resilience and self-esteem, and to identify and manage risk, make informed choices and understand what influences their decisions.
The overarching aims for Learning for Life (PSHE) and RSE education Pixmore School is to provide pupils with:
- accurate and relevant knowledge of three core areas, Health and well-being, Relationships, and Living in the wider World.
- opportunities to turn that knowledge into personal understanding
- opportunities to explore, clarify and if necessary challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities
- the skills, language and strategies they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balance.
We use the 3D Dimension Scheme of Work to inform planning for PSHCE as this scheme includes all of the elements of learning for life skills that we feel our children will need to prepare them for life.
This curriculum is divided into Core Learning Themes:
- Core Theme 1: Health & Wellbeing
- Core Theme 2: Relationships
- Core Theme 3: Living in the Wider World
The resources are appropriately pitched to the level we feel is appropriate for the children. Teachers use their discretion when managing the needs of children whose experiences and circumstances may require a different approach. In these situations, parents/carers will be consulted. The scheme has been updated to include the compulsory components of the sex and relationships specified by the government and effective from September 2020.
In addition, in Year 3, the children do the NHPCC Pants Programme, which teaches them about body awareness and keeping themselves safe. Please find a link below to the programme should you want me information about what Year 3 children learn during the programme.
As part of our Learning for Life (PSHE) programme, we do Protective Behaviours work with all children every term in class, and through assemblies. We teach the children the key messages that everyone has a right to feel safe, that others have a right to feel safe with us, and that there is nothing too small or too awful that they can’t talk to someone about it. This is an important part of our safeguarding as we recognise that empowering children to be self-aware can help them to discriminate between safe and unsafe behaviour in their lives, and to recognise that adults in school will listen to them if they have a problem, no matter how big or small.
Mindfulness
At Pixmore, we promote wellbeing through the use of mindfulness. We use the book 'Alphabreaths' by Christopher Willard and Daniel Rechtschaffen to teach the children breathing techniques to support them to regulate their emotions and promote a positive state of mind.
Each class has a copy of the book and children are taught the different breaths throughout the Autumn term.
Useful Links and Information for Parents:
NSPSS Pants Programme:
