PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)

PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education)

Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) can mean all things to all people, but in a positive way. It enables schools to analyse what they offer to students and to use PSHE programmes to provide the final rounded curriculum. This is not easy as PSHE is not so much a ‘subject’ as a group of learning experiences that need careful binding together lest they become amorphous.

PSHE at its best brings emotional literacy, social skills and healthy attitudes to the core studies of the history, economic state and social make-up of the local and wider community

Ofsted has praised some schools’ multi-faceted approaches to creating a caring and coherent school and reaching out to the local communities, and some schools for delivering sex and relations programmes effectively, and some for their commitment to equality and diversity. Visits and activities outside the classroom can act not only as focal points for a school’s work but as catalysts to reinforce the messages contained in the courses.

In some ways it does not matter where the visit is to. The importance is how well they are planned, the matching of the experiences to the aim, and the enthusiasm staff and students bring to it.

So, typically learning for PSHE takes place whilst undertaking other activities. Here we list a range of ideas which the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom suggest as activities which can engender excellent experiences to benefit students in this area.

Attitudes and values

  • Talking about an object in a museum, or visiting a place of worship can give insight into issues, other cultures or periods of history.
  • Creating your own work of art can give rise to explorations and understandings about the world and our place in it
  • A visit to a farm can stimulate debate about animal husbandry and food production, and provide a context for designing a Fairtrade enterprise.
  • Adventure education can provide opportunities to show different skills, such as leadership or teamwork.
  • Seeing a play on the stage can bring a text alive and stimulate conversations about the values and actions of the characters.
  • A residential can provide a different setting for conversations about what we believe and what we think is important.

Confidence and resilience

  • Learning a new skill, such as map-reading or how to look at a painting, builds independence and confidence.
  • Adventure education enables young people to test themselves in various ways and develop new aptitudes and dispositions.
  • For young people with disabilities, a residential trip can foster independence and give them a rare opportunity to build close relationships outside the family.
  • Planning their own experience or activity helps young people to gain confidence in a wide range of project planning skills.  It can develop resilience in dealing with conflicting opinions, and in finding solutions to project challenges.

Communication and social skills

  • A drama workshop requires teamwork and helps, to strengthen friendship groups.
  • A residential experience enables staff to get to know young people, and young people get to know each other, discovering different aspects of each others’ personalities.
  • An experience, such as visiting a power station, stimulates discussion and encourages young people to share ideas and opinions.
  • A musical performance gives young people a feeling of achievement and a sense of personal success.
  • Young people planning their own programme or activities gives them voice and choice and ensures their active involvement.
  • Undertaking voluntary work in the community gives young people a sense of making a positive contribution.

Knowledge of the world beyond the classroom

  • Young people who live in the country may encounter a town or city for the first time or vice versa.
  • Environmentalists, town planners, artists, curators, scientists, politicians, musicians, dancers and actors can all act as new and powerful role models.
  • Going to an arts venue can encourage young people to try the experience again.
  • Recording the reminiscences of older people gives young people new insight into their community, and brings historical events alive.
  • Going to a local civic institution like a town hall builds knowledge of how communities function.
  • A school or youth council enables young people to learn about and participate in democratic processes
  • Visiting the library enables young people to find out what they have to offer – apart from lending books.
  • Children and young people with profound learning difficulties and disabilities may not often experience visits to galleries, concerts or the countryside because of the difficulties of transport and personal care which parents have to consider and cannot always manage alone. Educational visits may provide the only means for these young people to have such experiences.

Physical development and well-being

  • Visiting a park, field studies centre or making a school garden all provide physical activity and develop an interest in the environment.
  • Participating in recreational activities help to develop physical well-being and the growth of confidence.
  • Many learning outside the classroom activities can also provide attractive alternatives to competitive sports and can lead to a lifelong interest in healthy physical recreation.

Emotional spiritual and moral development

  • An integrated dance workshop with able bodied and disabled participants can help young people empathise and develop awareness of disability.
  • Activities in the natural environment can encourage a feeling of awe and wonder, and an appreciation of silence and solitude.
  • Visiting a place of worship develops an understanding of religion, reflection and spirituality.
  • Engaging with young people in conversations about values and beliefs, right and wrong, good and bad supports their moral development.

Main organisations:

PSHE Association

National Centre for Citizenship and the Law

Inclusion: NASEN

Venues for this Curriculum

Offers a soft play frame that is designed for children up to 1.48m tall and we also have a specific toddler area for under 3s.

Paint Your Own Pottery - Great fun for kids, relaxing for adults. Choose from over 400 items - the biggest choice of any studio in the Herefordshire, Worcestershire & Gloucestershire area. Indoor kids' play area, plenty of free parking right outside our door, refreshments available.

This is a children’s indoor soft play centre suitable for children aged 0 to 12 years with a multi-level soft play frame and an under 4s' toddler area and party rooms.

Now has a gigantic multi level soft play frame that reaches a height of over 6 meters. 

A huge multi level adventure play area 5.5m high with loads of slides and other features, plus dedicated toddler and baby zones and equipment.

Multi level play equipment up to 6.5m including enormous slides, plus sports areas, toddler zones and more. New feature: activity assault course Bouncy Castle!

Bouncy castles, and an amazing soft adventure play area with classics including ball pools, plus 'The Drop' slide: 31 ft long. And one of the biggest indoor astra slides in the country!

Indoor play area with loads of slides and fun features plus dedicated toddler zone, attached to a family restaurant. Outdoor play too in summer.

This splendid 17th century baroque building housed a courtroom for assizes, raised on arches over a market space. It now houses the Abingdon Museum. On sunny days take in the lovely rooftop views overlooking the market square.

Boscobel House and its Royal Oak tree became famous as hiding places of King Charles II after defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Visitors can also see the dairy, farmyard, smithy and gardens.

The imposing ruins of Peveril Castle stand high above the pretty village of Castleton in the heart of Derbyshire’s Peak District.  Mentioned in the Domesday survey, Peveril Castle is one of England’s earliest Norman fortresses. The keep was built by Henry II in 1176.

A moated enclosure, probably the site of a manor owned by the Bishops of Llandaff during the 13th and 14th centuries. The site is composed of a large level area, roughly 39 metres by 45 metres, wurrounded by a wide moat, making the total size of the site an impressive 72 metres by 76 metres.

World-famous Stone Circle

A world-famous stone circle and on-site museum at the heart of a prehistoric landscape. 

With its huge circular bank and ditch and inner circle of great standing stones, covering an area of over 28 acres, Avebury forms one of the most impressive prehistoric sites in Britain.

One of the most important prehistoric archaeological collections in Britain, housed in the Stables Gallery, and including many artefacts from the World Heritage Site (WHS) monuments. The admission fee includes access to both the Stables and Barn Galleries. The Barn Gallery (belonging to the National Trust) tells the story of the WHS, its monuments, and the people associated with it.

The museum collection on display reveals an island community changing over the years to both external and internal pressures. Alderney has a fascinating history starting with extensive Stone, Bronze and Iron Age activity, with object evidence of historically important Roman activity at Longy.

The story of Aldershot Military Town and the civil towns of Aldershot, Farnborough and Cove.

Housed in the only surviving brick-built barrack blocks left in Aldershot, the museum tells the story of daily life for both soldier and civilian since 1854.

Activities for Schools

Although the Museum touches on other aspects of the National Curriculum the main core subject covered is History. Details are set out below as to how a visit to the Museum may benefit students in the various key stages of History.

The Royal Forest of Rockingham, a medieval hunting forest, is a beautiful patchwork of ancient woodlands and open agricultural land with historic features and attractive stone-built forest villages. Today the Forest offers visitors plenty of routes for walking, cycling and riding.

Schools

Has long provided the opportunity to become familiar with the country life of yesteryear. Its Historic Working Farm is a wonderful visitor attraction with daily activities and special events. You will see traditional 19th century farm life unfold daily, while the land around is worked by heavy horses.

One of the finest accessible examples of a Neolithic chambered tomb, with its multiple burial chambers open to view. Stoney Littleton is a chambered long barrow built during the Neolithic period (roughly 4000– 2500 BC).

Although this is the third largest collection of prehistoric standing stones in England, the three circles and three-stone 'cove' of Stanton Drew are surprisingly little-known. Recent surveys have revealed that they were only part of a much more elaborate ritual site. 

Erected to commemorate the heroism of a Royalist commander and his Cornish pikemen at the nearby Battle of Lansdown, 1643.

Pembrokeshire's County Museum is located in a traditional Victorian country house near Haverfordwest, surrounded by 60 acres of park and woodland and is completed by an award-winning eco-centre.

Period rooms, railway displays, farming exhibition, costume, stable/rural crafts, art exhibitions, World War II homefront exhibition. Picnic and play areas, shop and tearoom.

Abbot Hall Art Gallery hosts a collection of historic, modern and contemporary art, as well as a dynamic series of temporary exhibitions, within the unique setting of a Grade 1 listed Georgian building.

Abbey Pumping Station is Leicester's Museum of Science and Technology, displaying the city's industrial, technological and scientific heritage.

Situated adjacent to the National Space Centre, the two attractions tell the story of over 200 years of science and technology from the early days of steam and industry, to space exploration of today.

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