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

Last remaining galleried inn in London

Dating from the 17th century this public house, leased to a private company, is London's last remaining galleried inn.

Did you know?

In the Six Wells Bottom National Trust Valley, near Stourhead and King Alfred's Tower, stands the impressive Grade I listed St Peter's Pump.

Built in 1474, the pump originally stood near St Peter's Church at the west corner of Peter Street, Bristol and was used by residents as a main water supply.

This remote and dramatically-sited fort was founded under Hadrian's rule in the 2nd century.

Well-marked remains include the headquarters building, commandant's house and bath house. The site of the parade ground survives beside the fort, and the road which Hardknott guarded can be traced for some distance as an earthwork.

Medieval courthouse

The courthouse is a fine example of an early 15th-century timber-frame construction, set in an idyllic village. The ground floor (now tenanted) was the village poor house. You can visit an exhibition on the village in this property. Please note, there are very steep stairs.

The only surviving monastic fishery building in England, this housed the Abbot of Glastonbury's water bailiff and provided facilities for fish-salting and drying.

Much-restored Tudor house, park and garden with notable topiary

The culmination of a lifetime of dreams: salvaged objects and exotic pieces come together in a Jacobean meets Edwardian style. Beautiful, homely, warm and welcoming. We can't put it better than a visitor in the 1920s did: A house to dream of, a garden to dream in.

Constructed next to Durham Cathedral, Durham Castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Lindisfarne is a delightful, unspoiled, historic island lies just off the extreme Northeast corner of England near Berwick-upon-Tweed. The small population of just over 160 persons is swelled by the influx of over 650,000 visitors from all over the world every year.

This fine 17th century timber-framed octagonal market hall is a monument to Dunster's once-flourishing cloth trade.

This unique museum is situated in Nay, between Lourdes and Pau, in the heart of the Bearn.

It gives an insight into the history of beret manufacturing, from the earliest times to the present day.

One of the UK's first stone-built churches, St. Peter’s, built on land given by King Ecgfrith to St. Benedict Biscop in 673 AD, is the earlier of the twin site (along with St Paul's Monastery, Jarrow.) to come to life.

In a delightful woodland setting, these low, grass-covered ruins are the remains of a moated 13th century manor house built by Andrew de Cardinham.

Moated manor houses are found mainly in central and eastern England, but are rare in the south-west. Penhallam is therefore particularly unusual. 

Bristol Old Vic is a renowned theatrical company based in a restored Georgian theatre with red-and-gold tiers and modern technology. It also boasts one of the most successful and well-respected conservatoire drama schools in the UK.

Schools

Are you thinking about bringing a school group to Bristol Old Vic?

The National Archives looks after the UK government’s documents. It holds records dating back nearly 1,000 years from the time of William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book to the present day.

The Medieval Merchant's House is tucked away within walking distance from the busy city centre. Escape from city life and take in the history of Southampton’s “old town”.

The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) is an artist-led charity which supports artists and promotes engagement with the visual arts through a range of inclusive activities: exhibitions, workshops and demonstrations.

Rescued by English Heritage after years of neglect, this Grade I listed barn ranks alongside the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey for its exceptional architectural and historic interest. It was dubbed by the late poet laureate and heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman as the "Cathedral of Middlesex".

The Saatchi Gallery is geared towards introducing a younger audience of art students and enthusiasts to contemporary art. Come and discover the most innovative in contemporary art for free.

The remains of one of the first Augustinian priories in England, founded about 1100.

An impressive example of early Norman architecture, built in flint and reused Roman brick, the church displays massive circular pillars and round arches and an elaborate west front.

Later badly damaged by cannon fire during the Civil War siege of 1648.

The mainly 14th century remains of an abbey of Premonstratensian canons. Among Suffolk’s most impressive monastic ruins, with some spectacular architectural features.

The Romantic poet John Keats lived in this house and was inspired to write his most memorable poetry here. 

The grade 1 listed building is open to the public as a museum and literary centre, where Keats's memory lives on through events, creative activities and special displays.

The Gallery promotes knowledge of Spencer and his works in many ways.

Leighton House Museum is the former home of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). The only purpose-built studio-house open to the public in the United Kingdom, it is one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century, containing a fascinatingcollection of paintings and sculpture by Leighton and his contemporaries.

Iona is a tiny island off the southwest coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. It is only 1.5 miles wide by 3 miles long, with a population of around 120 permanent residents. Despite this, Iona has a special place in the heart of many people the world over. It is the burial place of many of the ancient kings of Scotland including both Duncan and Macbeth on the 'Street of the Dead'.

Leonard and Virginia Woolf's 17th-century country retreat

Nestled in the heart  of rural Sussex, Monk’s House is a tranquil 17th-century weatherboarded cottage inhabited by Leonard and the novelist Virginia Woolf from 1919 until Leonards death in 1969.

Get to know Leonard and Virginia Woolf and the wider Bloomsbury Group by visiting Monk's House. Full of their favourite things, the house appears as if they just stepped out for a walk.

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