PSHE Curriculum Intent Statement 

Marlborough St Mary's is committed to providing an outstanding Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education to our pupils. Our intent is to deliver a high-quality curriculum that enables all pupils to develop the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary to manage their lives now and in the future, become active citizens within their community and make a positive contribution to society. Our PSHE education programme is designed to ensure that all pupils receive a developmental, age-appropriate and holistic curriculum. We strive to ensure that every pupil is equipped with the knowledge, skills, and understanding that they need to thrive, including promoting their mental and physical wellbeing, developing positive relationships and equipping them for the challenges of the wider world.

Curriculum Implementation: 

The PSHE curriculum is underpinned by four core drivers that guide learning and development at Marlborough St Mary’s: Read, Talk, Pride, and Marlborough. These drivers ensure that every child is engaged, valued, and supported in their journey to personal growth and understanding. 

• Read: Through thought-provoking texts and relevant resources, pupils explore real-life experiences, enhancing their literacy and critical thinking skills. Reading is embedded into lessons to deepen pupils' understanding of themselves and the world around them. 

• Talk: Open discussions and respectful dialogue are central to our approach. Pupils participate in think-pair-share activities and group work, building confidence as they express their own ideas and listen to others. Disadvantaged learners are especially encouraged to share their unique perspectives, building self-esteem and a sense of belonging. 

• Pride: At Marlborough St Mary’s, we celebrate each child’s achievements and progress. With low-stakes activities that value every opinion, children build confidence. Every class maintains a "floor book" where key learning is recorded, allowing all pupils to revisit and take pride in their growth over time. 

• Marlborough: As part of the Marlborough community, children learn the importance of caring for each other, celebrating diversity and respecting differences. Our PSHE curriculum nurtures a strong sense of belonging, with a particular focus on making sure disadvantaged learners feel fully included, valued and supported. 

 

Jigsaw covers all areas of PSHE for the primary phase including statutory Relationships and Health Education. The Jigsaw Programme offers us a comprehensive, carefully thought-through Scheme of Work with learning broken down into small steps which brings consistency and progression to our children’s learning in this vital curriculum area. The overview of the programme can be seen on the school website. 

The table below gives the learning theme of each of the six Puzzles (units) and these are taught across the school; the learning deepens and broadens every year. Children’s knowledge is both embedded and deepened year after year through a well thought out curriculum delivered through engaging and practical lessons, which include the reading of various life experiences that they may encounter and discussions of such subjects.  

 

Term	Puzzle (Unit)	Content
Autumn 1:	Being Me in My World	Includes understanding my own identity and how I fit well in the class, school and global community. Jigsaw Charter established.
Autumn 2:	Celebrating Difference	Includes anti-bullying (cyber and homophobic bullying included) and understanding.
Spring 1:	Dreams and Goals	Includes goal-setting, aspirations, who do I want to become and what would I like to do for work and to contribute to society.
Spring 2:	Healthy Me	Includes drugs and alcohol education, self-esteem and confidence as well as healthy lifestyle choices, sleep, nutrition, rest and exercise.
Summer 1:	Relationships	Includes understanding friendship, family and other relationships, conflict resolution and communication skills, bereavement and loss.
Summer 2:	Changing Me	Includes Relationships and Sex Education in the context of coping positively with change.

 

At Marlborough St Mary’s School we allocate 45 minutes to 1 hour to PSHE each week in order to teach the PSHE knowledge and skills in a developmental and age-appropriate way.  

These explicit lessons are reinforced and enhanced in many ways: 

• Assemblies and collective worship 

• Praise and reward system 

• Class Learning Charter 

• Through relationships child to child, adult to child and adult to adult across the school. We aim to ‘live’ what is learnt and apply it to everyday situations in the school community. 

Class teachers deliver the weekly lessons to their own classes using a range of resources which encourages reading of specific thought-provoking texts and taking part in many thoughtful discussions. Disadvantaged learners will have the opportunity to share their unique perspectives on all topics enabling them to build self-esteem and pride. All children are encouraged to share their opinions and experiences through group work and think, pair, share exercises. Tasks are designed to be accessible for all children, building confidence and self-esteem with low stakes activities where their opinion is always heard. 

Each class has a floor book which is used to record key learning from each term. As the floor book is displayed in each class, all children have the opportunity to revisit learning and contribute to the work in each book enabling them to feel proud of themselves.  

Relationships Education in primary schools will cover ‘Families and people who care for me’, ‘Caring friendships’, ‘Respectful relationships’, ‘Online relationships’, and ‘Being safe’. 

The expected outcomes for each of these elements can be found further on in the PSHE/RSE policy. The way the Jigsaw Programme covers these is explained in the mapping document: Jigsaw 3-11 and Statutory Relationships and Health Education. 

It is important to explain that whilst the Relationships Puzzle (unit) in Jigsaw covers most of the statutory Relationships Education, some of the outcomes are also taught elsewhere in Jigsaw e.g. the Celebrating Difference Puzzle helps children appreciate that there are many types of family composition and that each is important to the children involved. This holistic approach ensures the learning is reinforced through the year and across the curriculum. Teachers will draw upon prior knowledge learnt from previous experiences and lessons taught throughout all year groups. This helps with teacher assessments of each child’s knowledge and understanding of the objectives of the puzzle piece being taught, 

Parents should also be aware that the Church of England states in “Valuing All God’s Children”, 2019, that Relationships and Sex education should: “Make it clear that relationships and sex education is designed to prepare all pupils for the future, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. RSE must promote gender equality and LGBT equality and it must challenge discrimination. RSE must take the needs and experiences of LGBT people into account and it should seek to develop understanding that there are a variety of relationships and family patterns in the modern world.” (Page 34) 

The PSHE lead will monitor the teaching of the lessons across the school and the learning undertaken by the children with regular learning walks. However, every teacher after every term, will assess their pupils so there is an understanding of what went well and what needs to still be addressed in further lessons. 

The Teaching and Learning Committee of the governing body monitors this policy on an annual basis. This committee reports its findings and recommendations to the full governing body, as necessary, if the policy needs modification. The Teaching and Learning Committee gives serious consideration to any comments from parents about the PSHE (RSHE) programme and makes a record of all such comments. Governors scrutinise and ratify teaching materials to check they are in accordance with the school’s ethos.  

Impact: 

Here at Marlborough St Mary’s School, we value PSHE as one way to support all children’s development as human beings, to enable them to understand and respect who they are, to empower them with a voice and to equip them for life and learning.  

In conclusion, Marlborough St Mary's delivers an outstanding PSHE programme that enables all children to achieve the school vision.  PSHE and RSE is underpinned by a clear intent, well-designed curriculum and effective implementation that produces impressive outcomes for all pupils. Our whole-school approach ensures that PSHE remains at the forefront of our school's agenda, and we continue to strive to improve our provision based on ongoing evaluation and feedback from our pupils, parents and stakeholders.