PSHCE Curriculum Intent - Key Stages 3 and 4

The intent of our PSHCE curriculum at Aston Academy is to give students the knowledge and skills required to keep themselves healthy and safe and to prepare them for work and life in modern Britain. Every member of staff at our academy plays a vital role in ensuring our students not only leave school with the attributes and skills needed to manage their lives in the future but also in promoting their immediate well-being. PSHCE is central to the academy’s curriculum because healthy and happy students are much more likely to thrive in other areas of school life. 

Our curriculum will seek to embed the PSHE programme for study suggested by the PSHE Association, the national body for Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education.  This will include a whole school programme to make provision for the two statutory core themes of ‘Relationships and Sex Education’ and ‘Health Education’ but also an effort to prepare students for ‘Living in the Wider World’.  Despite the latter not being included in the statutory requirements, the theme plays an important role in the PSHE Association’s curriculum model to schools as it intends to promote pupils’ personal development and economic well-being, as well as helping schools to meet the Gatsby Benchmarks for careers education.  At Aston, we also want our students to leave with the required knowledge and understanding to play an active role in society.  Citizenship Education is therefore an important part of our PSHCE curriculum and is included in the theme ‘Living in the Wider World’  Additionally, we will look to the results of the annual Lifestyle Survey to ensure our curriculum is adapted and revised to meet the specific behaviours and needs of our students.

Over time, we want our students to develop the interpersonal skills and confidence to form positive relationships with others in a range of different social settings.  We want them to be able to recognise what is right and wrong, to be able to identify risks or warning signs, to resist pressures and to make informed decisions based on objective, impartial information. We also want our students to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens of the UK, to respect people of different cultural and faith backgrounds, to value democracy and the rule of law and take part in all the opportunities society has to offer.  Our PSHCE curriculum therefore has an important role to play in the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development of our students. 

We believe that in order for our students to achieve their best learning in PSHCE, rather than delivering PSHE as a series of disconnected lessons, the curriculum must deliver topics of study that are engaging and enable students to see the connection between different issues.   The programme must seek to re-visit, reinforce and extend students’ knowledge and skills year on year by ensuring learning objectives and topics take into account students’ prior learning.  Our programme of study sets out how the three key themes will be delivered across the school in Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.  This will involve the use of tutor time sessions, assemblies, drop down days and weeks as well as taught lessons.  Whilst the programme distinguishes between the three themes, this does not mean they do not overlap and interact with each other (for example, parts of the ‘Health’ topic such as healthy online relationships also fall within the ‘relationships and sex education’ programme).   Students must also be taught by members of staff who are enthused to share with them their particular area of expertise.  HOFs and teachers will therefore require support and expertise from the RPE faculty in the planning of PSHE content relevant to their subject area.  Each faculty across the academy therefore have an important role to play in the overall fulfilment of the academy’s PSHCE curriculum intent. 

The teaching of PSHCE provides an excellent opportunity to stimulate and engage students through creative learning activities.  The progress our students make will be assessed every lesson using a range of strategies. At the beginning and end of each topic, each student will be asked to complete a self-evaluation form in order to track their progress.  The quality of the provision of our PSHCE programme will also be assessed via discussions with HOFs regarding evidence of schemes of work, learning walks to evaluate the delivery of certain PSHE topics and student voice.  The results from the annual Lifestyle Survey will also enable us to assess the impact of PSHE on student behaviours and habits to inform future planning.

PSHCE Learning Plans

Please click the links below to view our PSHE learning plans.

PSHCE Learning Plan 2021-20222

PSHCE Learning Expectations

Please click the links below to view our PSHE learning expectations.

These documents show the progress we expect students to make by the end of each term.

KS3 PSHCE - Learning Expectations