PSHE, RE and Languages

Overseen by H-M Jones
PSHE: L. Watkins
RE: M. Penn and Z. Wilson
Languages: C. Rodgers and V. Barnett

PSHE Curriculum Intent

Today’s children and young people are growing up in an increasingly complex world and living their lives seamlessly on and offline. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, but also challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way.

The Park Schools Federation will be following the ‘Jigsaw’ scheme of work that closely aligns with ‘Discover: RE’ scheme of work that the school is using.

• The aim of introducing this scheme is to ensure that all children are receiving an ambitious and well-sequenced PSHE education that develops their understanding and confidence of themselves and the wider world from EYFS to Year 6 and beyond.
• The regularity of this scheme ensures the children will build on their knowledge over the long-term and experience complex issues delivered in a clear manner by teachers who feel confident in their subject knowledge.

RE Curriculum Intent

The Principal aim of RE in Derbyshire schools is to enable pupils to participate in an on-going search for wisdom, through exploring questions raised by human experience and answers offered by the religions and beliefs of the people of Derbyshire and the wider community, so as to promote their personal development.

The Park Schools Federation follows the ‘Discovery: RE’ scheme of work to ensure all pupils receive an ambitious curriculum, designed to increase their cultural capital in a well-sequenced scheme of work, that supports their future success in school and in the wider community, in line with the Derbyshire syllabus.

• Currently, the curriculum scheme is designed to build links between the children’s own knowledge, based on the religion of Christianity they are likely to encounter in their community, to other world religions that the children are less likely to encounter in Derbyshire.

The school is providing enrichment opportunities linked to the local Christian community:

• attending church for Christmas and Harvest
• working with the local vicar to support RE in school
• performing a Christening for Reception
• come to school to discuss the Easter Story

The ‘Discover: RE’ scheme of work shows a clear progression and sequencing of knowledge so that children build their learning from EYFS to Year 6. An example of this is how the topic of Christmas is developed from making links between the birth of Jesus and the child’s community in EYFS to discussing the significance of Mary as Jesus’s mother in Year 6.

Languages Curriculum Intent

OFSTED state that ‘languages are an integral part of the curriculum. Learning a language is a liberation from insularity an provides an opening to other cultures. It helps to equip pupils with the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. It encourages pupils to appreciate and celebrate difference…It should provide the foundation for learning further languages. It should enable pupils to study and work in other countries…having a potential positive impact on business and the economy.’ (OFSTED Languages Report)

• Through La Jolie Ronde (Our languages scheme of work), the teaching of French will become a more integral part of the curriculum due to its flexible design. It will support our school community to appreciate and understand French language and culture, thus challenging to insular nature of the local area. This scheme will also support pupils as they progress to KS3.
• We intend to show pupils the relevance and importance of languages and to positively impact their self-efficacy in languages. We will do this by providing language learning opportunities where they can be successful, teaching them how to sound out words in French, ensure that the building blocks of language are in place and allow them to see non-native speakers communicate effectively.
• Beyond La Jolie Ronde, we encourage French learning both intentionally (within lessons) and incidentally (through spontaneous language use) without overloading the beginning language pupil. Through this we will increase the amount of time pupils are exposed to the language to support retention and spontaneous use of key phonics, vocabulary and grammar knowledge across contexts. We provide a range of age-appropriate and targeted French language books (e.g. targeted to specific sounds or topics as in English topics, reading and writing), so the children can be surrounded by the language too.