PSHE
Personal, Social, Health and Education (PSHE) enables pupils to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding to lead confident, healthy, independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens.
Pupils learn about themselves as growing and changing individuals with their own experiences and ideas, and as members of their communities. They become more mature, independent and self-confident. They learn about the wider world and the interdependence of communities within it. They develop their sense of moral responsibility and they learn how to make more confident and informed choices about their health.
Pupils at St Paul's are encouraged to play a positive role in contributing to the life of the school and the wider community. They learn how society is organised and governed and they experience the process of democracy through the school council. Emphasis is placed on the qualities of care, consideration, confidence and courtesy. St Paul's School strives to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all its pupils.
Promoting British Values
As a staff, we have agreed to teach discrete lessons on British Values each term in order to embed them within St Paul’s. The five fundamental British values are: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
More information about how we teach these values can be found on the Promoting British Values page.
Promoting Positive Mental Health (MOLAR)
We have also decided to have at least one lesson on mental health using our term ‘MOLAR’ which we set up in 2015 as part of us earning our Silver Healthy Schools Award. Each letter stands for a particular area to support positive mental health:.
M: Mindfulness O: Others L: Learning A: Active R: Relationship
Learn more about MOLAR.
Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL)
At St Paul’s, we are still dipping into the SEAL programme which covers a wide range of themes. Year groups decide which are most suitable for the cohort on a year by year basis. Themes include: New beginnings, Getting on and falling out, Say no to bullying, Going for goals, Good to be me, Relationships and Change.
Barnet Scheme of Work
At St Paul's, we use and adapt some of the units from the Barnet Emotional Well-being and PSHE Framework. There are three core themes to choose from: Health and Well-being, Relationships and Living in the Wider World.
Well-being Days
From September 2016, we have introduced new off-curriculum days to help promote positive mental health.
Great Outdoors Well-being Day
On Wednesday 22nd May, the whole school took part in a well-being day which focused on the enjoyment and benefits of getting active in the great outdoors.
The day started in style with some whole school Bollywood style dance on the playground! During the day, classes took part in dance workshops, obstacle courses on Dinton Field, bird and tree surveys in Richmond Park, natural art, team games and much more...
Superbugs Competition
This year, pupils from KS2 entered the 'Superbugs: Join the Fight' Competition. The children had to come up with a creative, sharable campaign idea to let people know about the issue of superbugs and antibiotic resistance and what they can do about it. There were so many amazing entries. Anna and Kaniha, in Year 6, even made it onto the judge's shortlist, receiving a letter of commendation for their hard work.
Past Events:
Walking Challenge
The school has been participating in the 'Living Streets' Month-Long Walking Challenge'. Class teachers have recorded how members of their class have been travelling to and from school each day and encouraging children to walk where possible. In class, we have been exploring the benefits of walking to school which include improved health and fitness, reduced congestion in the local area, less pollution, improved road safety awareness and time to build on relationships with family and friends.
Wellbeing Day – Worries
The whole school participated in a Wellbeing Day focused on finding strategies to overcome our worries. In assembly, we looked at ‘zones of regulation’ and how having an awareness of the ‘zone’ of which we are in can help us firstly recognise these feelings and then build up a toolbox of strategies to combat them. Year 5 discussed what happens to their bodies when they are worried and then made worry books where when reviewing their worries, they could either choose to face them, fix them or forget them! Year 3 created worry boxes and decorated each face of their box with something which they could do to overcome their worries. Across the school, children took part in mindfulness activities such as colouring and mindful minutes.
PANTS Campaign
Every year, across the school, the children are reminded of the PANTS campaign by PANTOSAURUS! They are also asked to identify trusted adults both at home and school, who they can talk to should they need to. Find out more here.
Road Safety Week
This year the theme of Road Safety week was ‘be bike smart’ and highlighted the risks to bike users on our roads. The whole school had a lesson where they discussed ways in which to be safe on the roads and revised their green cross code. Year 5 looked at the science of stopping and carried out an experiment to look at the effect of distractions, such as conversations, mobile phones and music, on their reaction time. They found it took them longer to get back to the safety of their virtual pavement when they were distracted which on the road would put them in greater danger. Year 2 looked at and discussed the meanings of road signs and signals.
PC Smudge
Year 1 had a visit from PC Smudge to discuss keeping safe both around roads and also on bonfire night.
Civil Rights
Year 5 have been learning about Civil Rights and in particular focused on the campaigners Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. They looked at standing up for what you believe is right just as Rosa Parks did. Then they created a roleplay of the incident that led to the bus boycott in Alabama. They also created their own roleplays based on Malorie Blackman's book 'Noughts and Crosses' and created their own leaflets on Martin Luther King.
Road Safety
The whole school have had a lesson and assembly on road safety. Year 1 had a community officer come in to chat to them about what you should and should not do near roads.
SugarSmart
We are now a 'SugarSmart' school! St Paul's recognises that for the first time in history that there are more people who are overweight than underweight and children today are predicted to be the first generation to live shorter lives than their parents due to diet and inactivity. 1 in 3 children enter secondary school overweight or obese and St Paul's wants to encourage a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, all classes are encouraged to participate in 'The Golden Mile' - an initiative to run as many miles as possible over the course of a school year - and to monitor the amount of sugar we eat.
A whole school 'SugarSmart' competition was launched where children were able to create a project that offered healthy alternatives to some sugary treats. Check out our entrance hall display for some of the winners!
Each class participated in lessons that looked at being 'SugarSmart'. Some classes looked a food labels, others had homework which required finding lower sugar alternatives to food sucha s yoghurt and baked beans and some classes even made their own low sugar treats!
You can find out more information on the SugarSmart website -https://www.sugarsmartuk.org/
Well-being Day - Overcoming Adversity
The whole school participated in a Well-being Day that tackled overcoming adversity! One of our governors, Jo Hayman, came in to talk to us about how our brain reacts to certain situations and how we can learn to deal with tricky situations. Year 4 learnt about people who had faced adversity and overcome it such as Stephen Hawking, Year 5 created their own life graphs to see what they had already overcome despite feeling like they would not be able to overcome it at the time, Year 6 looked at how to be self-aware and socially aware and made their own 5-point scales so they could recognise when they were finding things tricky and how to move on from this.
Teamwork, Turn-taking and British Values
Reception have been working hard to improve thier communication and social skills. Here are some photos of their visit to Richmond Park; they had to make the log bounce and work together without excluding each other. They did very well and managed to all stay on the log!
They have also tried hard to take turnswithout interrupting each other which you can see they have done during music and story telling.
Community Jigsaw
Year 3 and 4 made a jigsaw all about themselves and how as a class, despite their differences, fit together and make a community.