This rare and atmospheric 17th-century house sits on the banks of the River Thames in Richmond. It is the creation of the tenacious Duchess of Lauderdale and her husband, the Duke, who together transformed Ham into one of the grandest Stuart houses in England.
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:
National Centre for Citizenship and the Law
Inclusion: NASEN
Venues for this Curriculum
Tucked away in a deep wooded valley, Berry Pomeroy Castle is the perfect romantic ruin with a colourful history of intrigue.
Clarence House is the official London residence of The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry. Here Their Royal Highnesses receive official guests from this country and overseas on behalf of the nation, and bring together people from all walks of life through official seminars, lunches, receptions and dinners.
Medieval hospital, Tudor ammunition store and church for the forces since the 1580s, the Royal Garrison Church has stood in Portsmouth for nearly 800 years.
Royal Garrison Church was constructed about 1212 as part of a hospital complex. Although the nave was badly damaged in a 1941 fire-bomb raid on Portsmouth, the chancel remains roofed and furnished.
This early Tudor timber-framed wool merchant's house (circa 1500) provides a fascinating insight into local history.
Its strong medieval character is enhanced by the appearance of arcaded stalls opening onto the street on the ground floor (recreated by the National Trust during the building's restoration).
Our exhibition of works from the collection of Doncaster Museum Service brings together a wide range of images of Doncaster and its surrounding area.
The Laing Art Gallery is home to an important collection of fine and decorative art. Our permanent collection and temporary exhibitions feature historic and contemporary art from internationally renowned artists.
Peckover House is a secret gem, an oasis hidden away in an urban environment. A classic Georgian merchant's town house, it was lived in by the Peckover family for 150 years.
The charming ruins of a small monastery of Premonstratensian 'white canons', picturesquely set above a bend in the River Tees near Barnard Castle.
Remains include much of the 13th century church and a range of living quarters, with traces of their ingenious toilet drainage system.
The hill forts of Lambert's Castle and Coney's Castle are less than a mile apart so you can easily explore them both in a day. Each one has a different character, but both have a rich past.
Set in a handsome, grade II listed townhouse on Swaffham’s Georgian Market Place, Swaffham Museum has elegant rooms housing rich collections and 21st century displays with lots for all the family to enjoy.
Find out how Swaffham man Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen and see remarkable archaeological finds from the local Swaffham area too.
No-one ever forgets their first sight of Oxburgh - a romantic, moated manor house.
Built by the Bedingfeld family in the 15th century, they have lived here ever since. Inside, the family's Catholic history is revealed, complete with a secret priest's hole which you can crawl inside.
Aydon Castle stands in a secluded woodland setting. Almost completely intact, it is one of the finest and most unaltered examples of a 13th century English manor house.
One of the largest and finest 13th-century tithe barns in the country, lying in the Worcestershire countryside.
If you're visiting Middle Littleton tithe barn make the most of your day by visiting nearby Croome Park, Lance 'Capability' Brown's first complete landscape garden or Hidcote Manor Garden, a celebrated 20th-century garden in the north Cotswolds.
Formerly the Grange Museum of Community History, Brent Museum has a collection consisting of objects relating to the local Brent area and the communities who live there.
The impressive ruins of Henry II's 12th century keep, on the site of a Roman fort guarding the approach to strategic Stainmore Pass over the Pennines.
The family home of Bess of Hardwick, one of the richest and most remarkable women of Elizabethan England, stands beside Hardwick New Hall which she had built later in the 1590s.
Though the Old Hall is now roofless, visitors can still ascend four floors to view surviving decorative plasterwork, as well as the kitchen and service rooms with our audio tour.
The ruins of a medieval palace (together with later additions) used by the Bishops and senior clergy of Winchester as they travelled through their diocese. Winchester was the richest diocese in England, and its properties were grandiose and extravagantly appointed.
The great 13th century circular shell-keep of Restormel still encloses the principal rooms of the castle in remarkably good condition. It stands on an earlier Norman mound surrounded by a deep dry ditch, atop a high spur beside the River Fowey. Twice visited by the Black Prince, it finally saw action during the Civil War in 1644. It commands fantastic views and is a favourite picnic spot.
Substantial remains of a small 16th century gun tower protecting Old Grimsby harbour, vigorously defended during the Civil War.
The Block House formed part of a series of forts built on the islands during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I, and followed the attempt to build a large artillery fort, known as Harry’s Walls, on St Mary’s.
A tall medieval octagonal tower, allegedly a lighthouse, built here in 1328 as penance for stealing church property from a wrecked ship. Affectionately known as the Pepperpot, it stands on one of the highest parts of the Isle of Wight. It is part of the Tennyson Heritage Coast, a series of linked cliff-top monuments. A later lighthouse can be seen nearby.
The remains of a large, wellbuilt Roman courtyard villa. The most important feature is a nearly complete mosaic tile floor, patterned in reds and browns. The remains are located in a peaceful rural landscape, within a loop of the River Evenlode, which flows gently past the site to the north and west.
A lovely and rare 14th-century circular dovecote with metre-thick walls, hundreds of nesting holes and original rotating ladder, nestled in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside.
The ruined church of an Augustinian abbey, reduced in size after fire and plague.
Creake Abbey probably had its origins in 1206 when Sir Robert and Lady Alice de Nerford established the small chapel of St Mary of the Meadows at Lingerescroft, bordering the tiny River Burn.
The ruined hall and chamber of a fortified manor house of the powerful Percy family, dating mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries. Its undercroft is cut into a rocky outcrop.
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