PSHE
Personal, Social and Health Education
We believe that promoting the health and well-being of our pupils is an important part of their overall education at Harris Academy Chafford Hundred. We do this through our Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) provision, which looks at many topics including all kinds of relationships, physical and emotional health, and living in the wider world.
The aim of the PSHE course is to help our pupils make safe and informed decisions during their school years and beyond. For example, is important for them to know how diet and exercise choices impact on our lifestyle and general well-being as well as making informed financial and personal decisions.
Relationships and sex education
Relationships and sex education (RSE) is an important part of PSHE education at HACH. Relationships education is compulsory for all primary school pupils, and relationships and sex education (RSE) is compulsory for all secondary school pupils. Our Academy is committed to ensuring that all our students receive the appropriate provision to improve their knowledge and understanding of different types of relationships, sex and physical development, healthy living and economic well-being. Young people face complex pressures and dilemmas in developing mature relationships. The aim of RSE at Harris Academy Chafford Hundred is to equip our young people with the information needed to develop healthy, nurturing relationships of all kinds, not just intimate relationships. They need to face such tasks safely, and confident in their factual knowledge, as well as being given the opportunity to discuss and shape their feelings and attitudes.
To embrace the challenges of creating a happy and successful adult life, students need knowledge that will enable them to make informed decisions about their wellbeing, health and relationships and to build their belief in their own abilities. We facilitate lessons about RSE in an appropriate and timely manner based on student’s maturity levels; using the correct language to support their understanding. In addition to RSE, students will also explore ways of keeping themselves safe and healthy.
Students can also put knowledge encountered in PSHE into practice as they develop the capacity to make sound decisions when facing risks, challenges and complex contexts. Everyone faces difficult situations in their lives. This subject can support young people to develop resilience, to know how and when to ask for help, and to know where to access support. This helps with their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence.
Engaging our Stakeholders
The journey of our current PSHE curriculum began in 2019. Parents were consulted in shaping the original RSE policy. We aim to work in partnership with parents and carers in developing the best possible provision for our students, and as such we are undertaking further consultation this year. We endeavour to achieve this through consultation with the wider body of parents, including specifically looking at what we teach when and why and where we can provide further information to parents to supplement content covered at school. We also meet as a leadership team regularly to review contextual issues, and adapt a preventative curriculum over time.
We invite parents to look at the provision offered in our PSHE programme, along with an overview of the key topics being covered in the documents linked below. Our policy provides detailed information on our approach. An overview of content covered for each year group is detailed also. Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is an important part of the PSHE curriculum. We invite parents to share feedback via our parent consultation form
As above, relationships and sex education (RSE) is compulsory for all secondary school pupils, however, it is important to highlight that parents do have the right to withdraw their child from the ‘sex education’ element of this subject after discussion with the school. We provide further details regarding this in our policy. Even if a child is withdrawn, many pupils will discuss such issues with each other outside the classroom. We hope all students will have the opportunity to take part in our carefully planned lessons to support them in their understanding of what are often relevant and sensitive topics based on factual information in a safe setting.
Our RSE Policy can be found here
Link to Department for Education RSE Guides for Parents can be found here
