learning for life
At Bannerman Road, our Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) curriculum is called Learning for Life. It centres around a child’s personal development, with strong links to safeguarding, SMSC development, our school values (Respect, Resilience, Responsibility, Curiosity, Collaboration), British Values and the 9 Protected Characteristics. Our Learning for Life vision is to equip all our children with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to manage their lives now and in the future. We aim to develop children who have a good understanding of themselves, who are healthy and who know how to keep themselves safe as they progress throughout the school. Alongside this sits the ongoing development of 5 key emotional literacy skills : self awareness, social skills, empathy, motivation & managing feelings.
Growing up in today’s world is complex and we believe it is crucial to begin developing a child’s sense of self and others from the outset. Every year we build on and develop our children’s awareness and understanding of being yourself, embracing difference and standing up for everyone’s human rights.
Our journey begins within the EYFS where provision is carefully planned to ensure the daily development of PSED (Personal, Social and Emotional Development). We support children to develop their social skills, emotional well-being and a positive sense of self. Our starting point obviously being the needs of the children on joining us. Our Learning for Life curriculum is underpinned by the Jigsaw sequence of teaching and learning. We use this flexibly to meet the needs of our school community and ensure lessons are always adapted so they are relevant and meaningful to the children. As a result, we are continually developing a bespoke curriculum matched to our school context and community. Every year group explores the same topic each term at an age-appropriate level. This spiral curriculum means familiar topics are revisited every year to build on and deepen knowledge from the previous year. This supports children to make links with prior learning and further develop their understanding of themselves and others socially and emotionally. We begin each term with an assembly to launch each topic and there are relevant, planned assemblies and visits / trips throughout each term to ignite and broaden children’s understanding.
The topics are : Term 1 – Being Me in My World, Term 2 – Celebrating Difference, Term 3 – Dreams and Goals, Term 4 – Healthy Me, Term 5 – Relationships, Term 6 – Changing Me.
Relationships & Sex Education (RSE) is taught within our Learning for Life curriculum in Terms 5 and 6. Teaching is carefully planned to empower children to keep themselves safe, to have the right information to understand the changes that are happening to their bodies (inside and outside), and contribute to helping them make healthy, informed decisions throughout their lives.
Our aim is that children should complete their Bannerman Road education as confident, independent and resilient learners, fully prepared for their next stage of education.