Character Curriculum – RSHE

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!

High quality RSHE helps create safe school communities in which students can grow, learn, and develop positive, healthy behaviour for life, and for the following reasons:

RSHE plays a vital part in schools fulfilling their statutory duties to protect and safeguard their students. Ofsted is clear that schools must have a preventative programme that enables students to learn about safety and risks in relationships.

Schools maintain a statutory obligation under the Children Act (2004) to promote their students’ wellbeing and under the Education Act (2002) to prepare children and young people for the challenges, opportunities and responsibilities of adult life. A comprehensive RSE programme can have a positive impact on students’ health and wellbeing and their ability to achieve, and can play a crucial part in meeting these obligations.

Key Documents

RSE Guidance Curriculum

RSE Secondary Leaflet for parents

RSHE Statutory Guidance DfE

STM RSE Policy

Course description KS3 and KS4 

The STM Character programme, will teach Relationship, Sex and Health Education within the context of a Christian understanding of human sexuality rooted in the wisdom and teaching of the Catholic Church.

PSHE and RSHE are statutory but non-examined subject.  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. These lessons cover both our PSHE and RSE curriculum. Topics covered in the RSE lessons are grouped in three core strands: Health and wellbeing, Relationships, and Living in the wider world. These strands run through Year 7- Year 11.

Year 7

Health and Wellbeing

The focus of the curriculum will be transition to secondary school and personal safety in and outside school, including first aid. Pupils will then look at the importance of healthy routines, influences on health, puberty, unwanted contact, and FGM.

Living in the wider world

Students will work to develop their skills and spend time thinking about their aspirations. Careers, teamwork and enterprise skills. Finance is a key skill and invaluable tool for all pupils to have. Pupils will look at some of the financial decisions that will need to be made along with saving, borrowing, budgeting and making financial choices and raising aspirations;.

Relationships

Diversity- Diversity, prejudice, and bullying. Building relationships Self-worth, romance and friendships (including online) and relationship boundaries

Year 8

Health and Wellbeing

Pupils will look at the importance of looking after themselves and the dangers of Drugs and alcohol, misuse and pressures relating to drug use.  In the world we live in it is so important for our young people to look after their emotional wellbeing and to understand factors that can affect our mental health such as body image and coping strategies.

Living in the wider world

Community and careers – Equality of opportunity in careers and life choices, and different types and patterns of work. In the fast developing world technology digital literacy and online safety play a great part in young people’s lives. With this comes risks and the need to be safe online. Topics to include: digital literacy, media reliability, and gambling hooks.

Relationships

Identity and relationships Gender identity, sexual orientation, consent, ‘sexting’, and an introduction to contraception.

Year 9

Health and Wellbeing

Pupils will explore how peer influence, substance use and gangs Healthy and unhealthy friendships, assertiveness, substance misuse, and gang exploitation can all have a great impact on our lives.

Pupils will study the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle, and how this can be achieved through diet, exercise, lifestyle balance and healthy choices, and how to look after ourselves and others through the use of first aid.

Living in the wider world

Pupils will learn the importance of setting goals learning how to identify their strengths and areas for development. This will guide the when looking at their career options and goal setting as part of the GCSE options process. Employability skills Employability and online presence.

Relationships

Pupils will look at relationships and how to have respectful relationships. Families and parenting, healthy relationships, conflict resolution, and relationship change all play a part in our lifestyles and pupils will discuss how to deal with issues that may arise.  Relationships and sex education in line with the Catholic teachings to include consent, contraception, the risks of STIs, and attitudes to pornography.

Year 10

Health and Wellbeing

Mental health and ill health play a huge part in the world we live in. Topics such as stigma, safeguarding health, including during periods of transition or change will be discussed to enable pupils to gain knowledge and understanding in order to make informed decisions in the future. . Exploring influence, the influence and impact of drugs, gangs, role models and the media.

Living in the wider world

Financial decision making is part of all our pupils’ personal development and their ability to look after their money now and in the future. Pupils will look at the impact that financial decisions, debt, gambling and of advertising on financial choices and outcomes. Pupils will then work with our own Careers adviser alongside informative lessons on work experience and preparation and readiness for work.

Relationships

Healthy relationships. Relationships and sex expectations, myths, pleasure and challenges, including the impact of the media and pornography. Addressing extremism and radicalisation Communities, belonging and challenging extremism.

Year 11

Health and Wellbeing

Building for the future Self-efficacy, stress management, and future opportunities. Independence Responsible health choices, and safety in independent contexts.

Living in the Wider world

Next steps Application processes, and skills for further education, employment and career progression.

Relationships

Communication in relationships Personal values, assertive communication (including in relation to contraception and sexual health), relationship challenges and abuse.  Different families and parental responsibilities, pregnancy, marriage and forced marriage and changing relationships.

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.

If you want to explore the curriculum and resources we use for RSE at St Thomas More, you are able to log on to our online parent portal, provided to us by our partners, TenTen. For parent access, please contact the school office for your log on details.

 

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.

 

Useful links

The DfE’s guide for secondary parents

The full RSE curriculum and statutory requirements

DfE’s Frequently Asked Questions 

 

Parent Voice

Relationships, Sex and Health Educations is fully embedded in our curriculum at all levels and key stages, and as such the delivery is carefully mapped across a range of mediums to ensure outstanding provision that supports the development of confident, healthy, happy children who are equipped to make a positive contribution to the community. This includes taught lessons, enrichment opportunities, Celebrations of the Word, small group workshops delivered by local service providers and form tutor sessions, all planned by subject specialists. Parent voice and feedback as well as student voice has been sought and informs the development of this curriculum and will continue to guide our provision each year.

Parents are able to provide further feedback by accessing the following online form:

https://forms.office.com/e/m751pVVKSw