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

Have your own private visit to St Nicholas Chapel with its 15th century wooden roof and beautifully carved angels.

For over 600 years the wonderful carved roof angels, the dazzling stained glass and the history contained within St Nicholas' Chapel have inspired locals and visitors alike. 

The Pleasure Beach with its mixture of high-octane rides and traditional attractions sits at the top of Great Yarmouth’s Golden Mile dominating the seafront skyline with its famous Skydrop.

Imposing five-storey drainage windpump

The striking windpump provides stunning views over the coast and broadland landscape.

Set within the Broads National Park, the Horsey estate is an internationally important site for wildlife and offers a great spot for birdwatching and wintering wildfowl. Horsey Estate is managed by the Buxton family, from whom it was acquired.

St Seraphim’s is an Orthodox Chapel created in 1967 by Father David and Leon Liddament of the Brotherhood of St Seraphim in what was previously the booking office and gentlemen’s waiting room of Walsingham Railway Station. An onion dome and cross were added to the original 1857 building, but otherwise it remains relatively unchanged from its original design.

Cliff-top showcase for military might

There has long been a military presence at Weybourne, reflecting the village’s key defensive position. The remaining Weybourne Camp buildings now house Britain's largest private working military museum. 

Exhibits date from 1782 to the present day.  Highlights include the many tanks, guns, missiles and armoured vehicles, some outside but many in large indoor galleries. 

Grime’s Graves is the only Neolithic flint mine open to visitors in Britain. This grassy lunar landscape of 400 pits was first named Grim’s Graves by the Anglo-Saxons. It was not until one of them was excavated in 1870 that they were identified as flint mines dug over 5,000 years ago. 

A love of show business and steam

Thursford Collection is a working museum of mechanical organs, Wurlitzer shows, a silent movie theatre and old fashioned fairground carousels. There are also static displays of both fairground engines and road engines plus all kinds of related memorabilia. Ride on beautifully restored gallopers and gondolas and hear the music of the mighty Wurlitzer.

The museum houses the lifeboat Henry Ramey Upcher and other collections relating to the Sheringham lifeboats that were paid for by the local Upcher family and manned by the fishermen themselves.This atmospheric museum is housed in a historic fishing shed on Sheringham's seafront.

The partially excavated remains of a Roman 'Saxon Shore' fort, including wall and ditch sections and building foundations. Built around AD 200 for a unit of the Roman army and navy and occupied until the end of the 4th century.

Glorious steam and gorgeous gardens

A countryside extravaganza of delightful gardens, Dad’s Army memorabilia, Victorian fairground rides, steam trains and traction engines and more.

The wonderfully complete 14th century brick-vaulted refectory undercroft - later a cottage occupied until 1902 - of a small Augustinian priory.

It is dedicated to Olaf, the 11th century king and patron saint of Norway whose stark Christian message was ‘baptism or death’.

Caldecott Hall is a 400 acre country estate enjoying the scenic views stretching from an historic Viking burial ground to the Waveney Forest.

A Story of Crime and Punishment

Take a journey through crime and punishment in Great Yarmouth in one of England’s oldest prisons. Learn of the fates of thieves, smugglers, witches, pirates and murderers. Hear both gaoler and prisoners tell their stories of transportation, incarceration and execution. 

Visit one of Norfolk's best and largest extant marsh mills, built to grind a constituent of cement and in use until 1951, finally pumping water to drain surrounding marshland.

One of the largest, best preserved and most lavishly decorated keeps in England, surrounded by 20 acres of mighty earthworks.

Begun in 1138 by William d'Albini for his new wife, the widow of Henry I, in the 14th century it became the luxurious exile-place of Queen Isabella, widow (and alleged murderess) of Edward II.

Owned and managed by Lord Howard of Rising.

A Norfolk hero remembered

Coxswain Henry Blogg (1876-1954) was the RNLI's most decorated lifeboat man. During his 53 years of service Blogg was awarded three Gold and four Silver RNLI medals for gallantry, as well as the George Cross and British Empire Medal. 

The extensive remains of one of the most important East Anglian monasteries, the Cluniac Priory of Our Lady of Thetford and the burial place of the earls and dukes of Norfolk for 400 years.

Norfolk’s railways treasured

This museum tells the story of East Anglia’s railways and in particular William Marriott’s Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (or the ‘Muddle and Get Nowhere’ as it was affectionately known).   

Also known as the "Poppy Line", the North Norfolk Line is a preserved steam railway connecting the town of Sheringham to the picturesque Georgian town of Holt.

The North Norfolk Railway offers far more than just a train ride, experience yesterday tomorrow with a day out travelling through some of Norfolk’s stunning coastal countryside.

An essential introduction to the Norfolk Broads

Welcome to the only waterside museum of Broadland life in a tranquil and picturesque location at Stalham Staithe.

The Museum has a varied collection of objects, photographs and archive material connected to the Regiment which illustrates its 300 year history.

The Sainsbury Centre is a world-class art gallery at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Admission is free to the permanent collections, which feature outstanding world and modern European art. There are also special exhibitions changing every few months. 

Norfolk’s flying past and present

Over a dozen complete aircraft are on display ranging from the tiny wooden Evans VP-2 all the way up to a huge Vulcan B.2 and the Nimrod MR2. 

Displays showcase East Anglia’s rich aviation history taking in RAF and USAAF bases in World War II, helicopters, uniforms, link trainers and the search and rescue service.

Established in 1980 Britain’s most experienced summer holiday operator for children and teenagers aged 3-17 years. With a host of exciting and adventurous activities to choose from.

The ruins of the small Anglo-Saxon and medieval chapel of Stone-next-Faversham - the only Christian building in England to incorporate within its fabric the remains of a 4th century Romano-British pagan mausoleum.

It lay close to the probable site of the small Roman town of Durolevum and its Roman cemetery at Ospringe, finds from which can be seen at Maison Dieu.

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