Personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education is an important and necessary part of all pupils' education.

Although PSHE is a non-statutory subject, the Department for Education believe schools should tailor their PSHE lessons to reflect the needs of their pupils.

At Tanworth in Arden Primary School and Nursery, we endeavour to equip our pupils with the knowledge, understanding, healthy attitudes and practical skills needed to live healthy, safe, productive and fulfilled lives.

After the review of PSHE, the government has made relationships and health education compulsory in primary schools. Sex education in primary schools is not compulsory but we feel it is very important to include this in our curriculum at Tanworth in Arden.

Please read about our sex education consultation for parents on our parent page for further information. Our PSHE and RSE policy can also be found under 'key information'. 

At our school we ensure we meet the statutory health guidelines and teach our pupils about mental wellbeing, internet safety and harms, physical health and fitness, healthy eating, drugs and alcohol, health and prevention and First Aid.

Jigsaw PSHE

At Tanworth, we use a whole school PSHE scheme called Jigsaw. Jigsaw combines PSHE, emotional literacy, mindfulness, social skills, internet safety and spiritual development. The scheme ensures PSHE is embedded throughout the school in a progressive, spiral format. Jigsaw is designed as a whole school approach, with all year groups (except Nursery) working on the same theme (called a puzzle) at the same time. 

There are six puzzles are each made up of six lessons (called pieces) and one puzzle is taught per half term. Every year group studies the same puzzle at the same time allowing for whole-school themes and a clear build-up of knowledge and skills. Lessons are delivered in an age and stage-appropriate way so that they meet children's needs. The six puzzles are below:

Autumn 1 – Being Me

Autumn 2 – Celebrating Difference

Spring 1 – Dreams and Goals

Spring 2 – Healthy Me

Summer 1 – Relationships

Summer 2 – Changing Me

The Jigsaw approach is underpinned by mindfulness. Mindfulness is being able to observe your own thoughts and feelings as they happen, in the present moment, applying no judgement. Jigsaw teaches children to understand their thoughts and feelings, helping to develop their awareness, and their capacity to be mindful human beings.

Protective Behaviours

Tanworth in Arden is part of a county-wide initiative to keep children safe.

We teach Protective Behaviours to our children during the autumn term and revisit the themes regularly through the school year.

Protective Behaviours is based on two themes, which are used to teach and reinforce the basic concepts on which the process is based.

WE ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO FEEL SAFE ALL OF THE TIME.

THERE IS NOTHING TOO AWFUL (OR TOO LITTLE) WE CANT TALK ABOUT IT WITH SOMEONE.

Rights, Responsibilities and Choices

The first theme reinforces not just our individual right, but our responsibility to make sure other people feel safe with us. This helps us to think about the idea of responsible citizenship and encourages thoughtfulness of our own safety, as well as the safety of others.

Support Networks

The second theme introduces the idea of personal support networks of people we could go to when not feeling safe and a process for how we might identify these people. We often revisit this idea before school holidays as the children's networks often change during holidays.

Feeling Safe and Early Warning Signs

Feeling safe is generally something we don't think about until the feeling has gone away and we start to feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Protective Behaviours helps the children to identify what feeling safe is like for them and teaches the ability to recognise the difference between feeling safe, having fun, scary feelings, risking on purpose and feeling unsafe. When we stop feeling safe, our bodies prepare us for action with a rush of adrenaline and many other physical changes. These are called the body’s 'Early Warning Signs'.

Family Time

In Year 6, the children have the opportunity to become a Family Time Leader and to deliver fun but also educational activities (linked to current events) to the other children in KS1 and KS2. The families are named after inspirational people from a variety of backgrounds, who have done inspiring things because of their faith.

The year 6 Leaders learn all sorts of skills that will help them with their transition to secondary school such as teamwork skills and leadership skills. They also grow in self-confidence, with the experience hugely improving their self-esteem.

The younger children in the family group have role models they can look up to and they themselves develop new skills e.g. making new supportive friendships with other children of different ages.

In accordance with The Department for Education we aim to actively promote British values in our school so that we ensure our children leave Tanworth in Arden prepared for life in modern Britain.