Intent
Our aim at St. Augustine’s is to live out the Gospel values and celebrate the Catholic ethos as well as develop our young people to be resilient and make a positive contribution to their communities. Through the Relationship and Sex Education curriculum, we aim to provide children with the opportunities for learning in order to support their physical, cognitive, psychological and spiritual development which is rooted in the Catholic vision of education and the human person.
For our RSE/PSHE curriculum, we have adopted the ‘Life to the Full’ programme of study and our curriculum is further supplemented by resources and planning on the PSHE Association. This programme is an inclusive programme which not only involves the children, but also families and teaching staff. Within the programme, it acknowledges that families are made up differently and therefore celebrates the family unit in whatever form it takes. We, at St. Augustine’s, aim to build on the teachings to ensure that every child is assured and every family is affirmed. Within our teaching of RSE we emphasise the dignity of every person being created and loved by God.
Implementation of the RSE curriculum
At St. Augustine’s, we want to equip children with the knowledge and skills so that they have a depth of understanding that can support them not only now, but into their teenage and adult lives. Therefore, the programme adopts a spiral curriculum approach. This means that within each Key Stage, children will be able to revisit, develop and grow, with each stage building on the last.
Module One: Created and Loved by God
Created and Loved by God explores the individual. Rooted in the teaching that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it helps children to develop an understanding of the importance of valuing themselves as the basis for personal relationships.
In these sessions, we explore:
Key Stage One – that we are uniquely made by a loving God, that we have differences and similarities (including physical differences between boys and girls), key information about staying physically healthy, understanding feelings and emotions, including strong feelings such as anger, and the cycle of life from birth to old age.
Lower Key Stage Two – understanding differences, respecting our bodies, puberty and changing bodies (Year 4), strategies to support emotional wellbeing including practicing thankfulness, and the development of pupils understanding of life before birth.
Upper Key Stage Two – appreciation of physical and emotional differences, a more complex understanding of physical changes in girl and boys’ bodies, body image, strong emotional feelings, the impact of the internet and social media on emotional well-being, a more nuanced and scientific understanding of life in the womb and how babies are made (Year 6), and menstruation.
Module Two: Created to Love Others
Created to Love Others explores the individual’s relationship with others. Building on the understanding that we have been created out of love and for love, this unit explores how we take this calling into our family, friendships and relationships, and teaches strategies for developing heathy relationships and keeping safe.
This religious understanding is then applied to real-world situations relevant to the age and stage of the children:
Key Stage One – In the Unit ‘Personal Relationships’, children are taught to identify the Special People in their lives who they love and can trust, how to cope with various social situations and dilemmas, and the importance of saying sorry and forgiveness within relationships. In the Unit ‘Keeping Safe’, we explore the risks of being online by incorporating the ‘Smartie the Penguin’ resources from Childnet, the difference between good and bad secrets, and teaching on physical boundaries (incorporating the PANTS resource the NSPCC).
Lower Key Stage Two – The sessions here help children to develop a more complex appreciation of different family structures and there are activities and strategies to help them develop healthy relationships with family and friends; here, they are also taught simplified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques for managing thoughts, feelings and actions.
For the ‘Keeping Safe’ unit, there are some excellent NSPCC resources, as well as teaching on bullying and abuse through a series of animated stories.
Upper Key Stage Two – The sessions for UKS2 in the ‘Personal Relationships’ module aim to equip children with strategies for more complex experiences of relationships and conflict; this includes sessions that help children to identify and understand how to respond to spoken and unspoken pressure, the concept of consent and some practical demonstrations of this, and further teaching on how our thoughts and feelings have an impact on how we act.
Module Three: Created to Live in Community
Created to Live in Community explores the individual’s relationship with the wider world. Here we explore how human beings are relational by nature and are called to love others in the wider community through service, through dialogue and through working for the Common Good.
Our Relationship and Sex Education curriculum wants children to be prepared for their future as citizens in our world. The RSE curriculum works hand in hand with the PSHE curriculum, where we provide children with the knowledge and skills of being peacemakers in our world. Throughout the children’s school life at St. Augustine’s, the RSE/PSHE curriculum will provide children with a rounded education, where the whole person is developed and acknowledged, giving them the opportunities to enquire, discuss and apply their learning so that they can enter our community equipped.
Impact
Monitoring and assessment is an on-going process for RSE/PSHE; teachers’ use their assessment for learning as necessary, as well as monitoring and evidencing children’s learning in exercise books. Regular assessment activities, which are taken from the ‘Life to the full’ programme, take place within each module of the RSE curriculum. The implementation of RSE/PSHE, both inside and outside of lessons, plays an integral role to help develop our children’s growth mindset, self-confidence and an increased understanding of the impact that individuals’ actions can have on their own and others’ lives. Children demonstrate a progression of knowledge and skills throughout their school life, which they continuously build on and embed. At St Augustine’s, children are given every opportunity to develop fundamental life-skills necessary in order to become well-rounded people in the wider-world.
Please click below to find out more details of our RSE/PSHE curriculum coverage: