Learning for Life

Intent, Implementation and Impact 

Intent:

At Martham Academy and Nursery, we care for everyone and celebrate everything that makes us who we are. We want our pupils to have the skills and resilience to leave school ready to successfully face the challenges of the next stages of their lives. We aspire to ensure that pupils’ personal, social and emotional development  is at the core of everything we do in school. In doing so, our children are encouraged to blossom into confident, independent, reflective and responsible members of the ever changing world around them. We strive to ensure that children are challenged intellectually, socially, spiritually and morally. We aim to enable our children to grow and develop in a safe and nurturing environment, where they are able to express themselves articulately, gain a further understanding of themselves as unique people and to build resilience. Martham Academy and Nursery encourages children to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community. In order to ensure that we meet the expectations of both the PSHE curriculum and the new RSE curriculum, we use a combination of both the Jigsaw PSHE scheme, and the more recently published Educator Solutions RSHE resources. Learning for Life lessons are taught as a weekly timetabled session, with British Values and our learning behaviours (‘bees’) and behaviours for everyday life (Queen Bees) being further embedded throughout assemblies and the recognition and celebration of nationally recognised annual events.

Implementation:

At Martham Academy and Nursery, our whole school approach to PSHE and RSHE is down to the belief that success in these areas will facilitate excellence throughout the wider curriculum. At Martham, we deliver the statutory RSE curriculum through the use of the published Educator Solutions materials, supplemented appropriately via the relevant sections of the Jigsaw PSHE scheme. We have an overarching theme per half term, i.e Healthy Relationships in  Autumn 1, Managing Relationships in Autumn 2, Health & Wellbeing in Spring 1, Living in the Wider World in Spring 2, Keeping Safe in Summer 1 and Growing and Changing in  Summer 2. The curriculum equips our children with meaningful content that places an emphasis on building resilience, nurturing both mental and physical health and communication and language skills. The schemes are tailored by class teachers to meet the specific needs of the children in our school. Each taught session is recorded through the use of a floor book. Classes complete their learning in a variety of ways including the use of drama, circle time, whole class or small group discussion, and some written or art activities. Evidence of these is gathered and then displayed within the floor book for children to access to facilitate their recapping of previous learning. Where occasions arise within individual classes where teachers feel that an extra PSHE session may be appropriate to address a specific issue this is encouraged. At Martham, we actively seek opportunities for our children to challenge their social, spiritual and moral perspectives, via the recognition and celebration of annual nationally recognised events, such as Anti-Bullying Week, World Mental Health Day, Black History Month etc. Work done on such themes contributes to whole school displays, as well as being recorded in each class’ floor book.

Impact:

Through the Learning for Life curriculum at Martham, our learners become well-rounded individuals with a clear understanding of more complex life values, for example equality, friendship, trust, tolerance etc. Consequently, they are able to develop a character that prepares them for their later lives, cooperating respectfully within a diverse community. We measure this not just by the work our children produce, but within the behaviours we observe daily in all aspects of school life: including, but not limited to, their interactions with others in lessons, their play at break and lunchtimes and the manner in which they welcome and interact positively with external visitors to our school, many of whom do actively praise our pupils for their behaviour and good manners.

Thanks to our Thrive ethos, our learners are guided by all staff on how to manage life’s challenges, how to deal with powerful emotions and how to overcome barriers. Children are thus empowered to to be resilient learners and to be more independent and trusting of their own intuition.

At Martham, our pupils are motivated by a strong personal sense of morality. They make decisions for the right reasons and in the best interests of their wider school community. Supported by their trusted adults, they are generally able to make positive choices, whilst being reflective and eager to rectify occasional errors of judgement, appreciating the learning opportunity available to them in such instances.

In conclusion, our children really thrive at Martham!

Overview

Progression in Learning for Life