PE, RE and PSHE inc RSHE

At London Colney, we don’t only place an emphasis on our children’s academic progress and achievement but we also strive to ensure that our pupils develop personally into confident, well-rounded and successful citizens. We aim to instil virtues and traits into our children so that they recognise and appreciate the variety of cultures, beliefs and diversities in the world we live in. Whilst we know that there are many factors that enable children to personally develop, throughout our curriculum we enable children to do so through the study of Physical Education (PE), Religious Education (RE) and Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) including Relationships and Sex Education (RSE).

Physical Education

Living a healthy lifestyle is a really important factor for us at London Colney to be able to personally develop. We place a strong emphasis on our pupils leading active lifestyles and making conscious, positive choices about how to be healthy. Our pupils are encouraged to wear an ‘Active Uniform’ to school as there maybe opportunities throughout the day to be active (even when our pupils aren’t expecting it!). As part of our curriculum, children engage in weekly PE lessons to support them with being active at school and exercising regularly. Our pupils have the opportunity to learn and develop skills across a range of physical activities including dance, gymnastics, athletics, invasion games, striking and fielding games and more.  Children in our Year 6 class also attend weekly swimming lessons throughout the year to develop their swimming ability. As well as our core package of learning, our pupils also have the opportunity to take part in extra-curricular sporting activities we offer. There are a range of before and after school sporting clubs here at London Colney which are based on the interests of our children. We also host our own inter-school competitions whereby our children compete in their houses. We are regularly working to prepare sporting teams to take part in cross-school competitions. We work closely with our children to help them understand about food, nutrition and diet and promote children to have healthy snacks and packed lunches.

Religious Education

Religion is an integral part of the world we live in and we believe can be a key aspect for children having the ability to personally develop. Whether our pupils belong to a denomination of faith or not, we believe that learning about and from different religions in the world can help children to reflect upon and develop the morals, virtues and attitudes that will live with them throughout their life. Here at London Colney, we use Hertfordshire’s Locally Agreed Syllabus to support our teaching and learning within RE. Our children learn about and from the six main presenting faiths in the United Kingdom (Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism) and explore the beliefs and practices of these religions, focusing on 8 different strands (as set out in our long term plan). We also believe in adapting our religious education curriculum to include other religious groups that our children or families may belong to.

By the time our pupils leave London Colney, we intend to;

• Instil a sense of respect, appreciation and community through the exploration of world religions, knowing that diversity is at the heart of our school and should be celebrated. Our children will learn about and from the six main world religions, making comparisons between them and relating religious teachings and aspects of religions to their own lives.
• Encourage our children to be curious and inquisitive about other’s religious communities, asking questions (including ultimate questions) and use a range of religious sources to be able to seek the answers to the questions raised. Our children will be able to recognise their own religious beliefs and communities as we recognise the diversities within our school and ensure that these are taught to reflect our children.
• Ensure that all children have religious experiences, including visiting places of worship and meeting key religious figures.

PSHE and RSE

At London Colney Primary and Nursery School, we teach Personal, Social, Health Education as a whole-school approach to underpin children’s development as people and because we believe that this also supports their learning capacity. Here at London Colney, we use The Jigsaw Programme to support our teaching and learning of PSHE. The Jigsaw Programme offers us a comprehensive, carefully thought-through Scheme of Work which brings consistency and progression to our children’s learning in this vital curriculum area. Here you can see a break down of what our pupils are taught.

At London Colney, we allocate 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, 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.

This also supports the “Personal Development” and “Behaviour and Attitudes” aspects required under the Ofsted Inspection Framework, as well as significantly contributing to the school’s Safeguarding and Equality Duties, the Government’s British Values agenda and the SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social, Cultural) development opportunities provided for our children.

From September 2020, schools will have a statutory duty to deliver a Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) to pupils. We use our Jigsaw Programme to support our teaching of this, with explicit teaching units on relationships and sex education. These are delivered in an age appropriate way and after consultation with our stakeholders. The elements of the RSE curriculum are also embedded in the other units of work.