Character Education – PSHE and SMSC

Character education sits alongside our existing academic programme to ensure that students have access to a wide and balanced range of experiences throughout their time at school, giving them the opportunity to develop and embed our core values of ‘BeMore’ and to ‘ASPIRE’.

We believe that the way that we develop a young person’s character through a wide number of opportunities will enhance their journey through school. From the very first week in Year 7, we open our students up to as many possibilities as we can; from team building to becoming members of the Chaplaincy Team, taking part in numerous clubs, and sport enrichment opportunities which is part of the timetable and much, much more!

At St Thomas More, the Character Curriculum enables our students to become healthy, independent and responsible members of society. As well as tackle many of the moral, social and cultural issues that our students face growing up. We encourage our pupils to play a positive role in contributing to the life of the school and the wider community.

We believe the purpose of the Character Curriculum is to build where appropriate on the statutory content outlined in the PSHE National Curriculum. We also tailor our topics to reflect the needs of our students in our school setting. Topics include drugs and alcohol, finance management, mental health and internet safety. PHSE and RSE are both taught during our weekly Personal Development lesson.

Through our PSHE and SMSC curriculum at St Thomas More we recognise our duty to ‘actively promote’ and provide opportunity for our students to understand the fundamental British Values (Democracy, The Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance) first set out by the Government in the ‘Prevent’ strategy in 2014, for those with different faiths and beliefs in order for them to become fair, tolerant and confident adults in a forever challenging world. We strive to deliver our Character Curriculum, within the Catholic ethos of the school and aim to reflect our mission – ‘BeMore’ and ‘ASPIRE’.

Key Documents

Government Research On PSHE

Course description KS3 and KS4

PSHE is a non-statutory and non-examined subject, but at St Thomas More we value what it teaches our pupils about living and thriving in Modern Britian. It helps to give students the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy and independent lives. It aims to help them understand how they are developing personally and socially, tackling many of the moral, social and cultural issues that are part of growing up.

We are embracing the challenges of creating happy and successful adult life by giving pupils knowledge that will enable them to make informed decisions about their wellbeing, health and relationships.

We will deliver this teaching through Personal Development lessons, which are timetabled for 45 minutes each Wednesday. We have developed our curriculum with reference to the guidance given by the PHSE Association. Further information about this organisation can be found here: https://pshe-association.org.uk/

Personal Development lessons cover our PSHE, RSHE and Careers curriculum. Topics covered in the RSHE lessons are outlined below:

Ways to help my child succeed

Speak with your child about the topics they are studying in school and encourage them to read around the topic outside of school. There are a range of excellent websites, books and documentaries that will assist with this. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further ideas.

Assessment

It is important that students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning. At the end of the lesson or series of lessons, students will be given opportunities to demonstrate the progress they have made from their starting point. A variety of formative assessment methods will be used demonstrate progress, including questioning, class-discussion, written tasks and questionnaires. Teachers will provide whole class feedback in lesson and there will be no summative assessment.