At St Joseph’s we plan and share many whole-school opportunities (for example assemblies and weekly celebrations) to reinforce and extend our PSHE curriculum work, enhancing the positive ethos of the whole school community, with strong and meaningful links to the events in our SMSC calendar. As a school, we deliver the objectives of the National Curriculum for PSHE using the 'Jigsaw' program for Autumn and Spring term learning, with the RSE focus areas of the curriculum being delivered using the 'Life to the Full - Ten Ten’ scheme of learning (a comprehensive and fully resourced scheme of work in statutory Relationship Education within a Catholic context) during the Summer term.

Jigsaw

The Jigsaw curriculum is a whole-school approach with many layers above and beyond the lessons themselves, supporting children to feel a strong sense of belonging and community by taking part and making contributions through shared learning. Jigsaw is a progressive programme with a full set of attainment descriptors and an assessment process embedded throughout.

Jigsaw brings together Personal, Social, Health Education, emotional literacy, social skills and spiritual development in a comprehensive scheme of learning. This helps teachers to focus on tailoring the lessons to their children’s needs and to enjoy building the relationship with their class, getting to know them better as unique human beings. Jigsaw works as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (puzzle) at the same time. Integrating this personal and social development work into a comprehensive curriculum gives the relevant context to build skills, attitudes, self- esteem, resilience and confidence, all of which are taught explicitly as well as nurtured implicitly, all structured through the progressive program.

The Puzzles (Themes/Units of work)

• Being Me in My World
• Celebrating Difference (including anti-bullying)
• Dreams and Goals
• Healthy me

Each ‘puzzle’ works towards an ‘end product’, with opportunities for pupils to assess and review their learning as they progress. Each Piece has two learning objectives, one is based on specific PSHE learning and the other based on emotional literacy and social skills development. The whole school works on the same theme at the same time, meaning that each can be launched with a whole-school assembly and learning can be celebrated by the whole school in a meaningful way.

Mindfulness in PSHE:

Through our provision, we support the pupils to develop the skills to:

• be aware of their thoughts and feelings as they arise
• be able to focus their minds on what they choose to focus it on both outside and within themselves.

Thoughts and feelings motivate and determine our actions, responses and behaviours. If we are caught up in thoughts and feelings and are not aware of them as they happen, the responses that follow may not be under our control, and may not be in our best interest or appropriate in the situation. We believe that mindful children can more readily choose their responses to situations rather than react while caught up in the thought-flows and emotions, thus minimising potential behaviour issues, helping concentration and lessening stress and anxiety. In Jigsaw, the mindful approach to PSHE, mindfulness is developed in 3 main ways:

a) through the ‘Calm Me’ time, which consists of breathing techniques, awareness exercises and visualisations, enabling pupils to quiet their minds and become aware of the activity within them and manage it positively

b)  through the taught curriculum. Lessons help pupils to explore their thoughts and feelings, to expand their emotional vocabulary, explore thoughts-feelings-consequence sequences, build their confidence and express themselves in a safe environment

c)  through the ‘Pause Points’ in lessons, which ask pupils to ‘Stop and look inside’ in order to practice observing their thoughts and feelings relating to what they are learning about in that lesson.

Through our PSHE curriculum, we aim for our pupils to

• improve their social skills to better enable collaborative learning (Connect us)
• relax their bodies and calm their minds to prepare them for learning (Calm me)
• focus on specific learning intentions (‘open my mind’)
• initiate new learning (‘tell me’ or ‘show me’)
• Facilitate learning activities to reinforce the new learning (‘let me learn’)
• Support them in reflecting on their learning and personal development (‘help me reflect’).

Throughout Jigsaw, pupils are encouraged to reflect on their learning experiences and their progress. By reflecting, our pupils can process and evaluate what they have learnt, which enables them to consolidate and apply their learning.

The Jigsaw Charter

Each class begin with creating their own Jigsaw Charter during the 'Being Me in My world' theme at the start of the year.

The children are referred-back to their charter during all Jigsaw lessons, so creating a unique one for each class is an important first step.

Jigsaw Characters

Here are some examples of what we have been learning in our PSHE lessons so far!

Values Education

Our special values underpin every aspect of school life. Each half term we focus on two important life values to think about and develop, not only through our PSHE work but throughout our lives both in and out of school. These are celebrated with 'value beads', which pupils are awarded each time they display worthy actions and thoughtful behaviour. Our values are explored and discussed during collective worship times and permeate every part of school life.