ELE Essence Curriculum (inc PSHE, RSE & Citizenship)
The Essence Curriculum
The Eccleston Lane Ends Essence curriculum is a bespoke curriculum written for any by our school. It incorporates all of the elements of the National Curriculum for PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education), RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) and the non-statutory Citizenship curriculum.
Intent
At Eccleston Lane Ends Primary School, we believe that our ELE Essence programme helps our pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage many of the critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities they will face as they grow up and into adulthood. It also helps them to develop the qualities and attributes they need as individuals, family members and also members of wider society. By teaching pupils to stay safe and healthy, and by building self-esteem, resilience and empathy, ELE Essence can tackle barriers to learning, raise aspirations, and widen the children’s horizons of the world in which they live. We believe that this programme ‘cements’ the bricks of our curriculum together, providing a well-rounded education for all.
Implementation
The programme is a driver for our teaching and curriculum events. Each half-term focuses on one of our whole school values and each term has a broad overarching theme: caring for myself, caring for others and caring for our world. These themes permeate throughout all areas of learning. They are delivered through carefully planned and sequenced ‘Essence’ sessions and also through collective worship.
Our bespoke PSHE curriculum is used to deliver all of the statutory content and this is supplemented by a variety of other programmes taught once per half-term (including Jigsaw, Picture News and E-Aware), to meet the needs of our school community.
Finally, year group specific events, such as our whole school Diversity Week, Mental Health & Wellbeing Week, Money Mentors in Year 5 and Year 6, and our Wellbeing Warriors programme, supplement our offer even further and ensure that our ‘Essence’ Curriculum is bespoke and completely tailored to meeting the needs of our community.
Impact
We understand that we may not see the true impact of our PSHE curriculum on our children as our PSHE curriculum is just the beginning of a lifetime of learning.
Our well-constructed and well-taught PSHE curriculum, once embedded, leads to great outcomes and contributes to positive behaviour and attitudes of our children. For example, Supporting our Well-being & Health is a key 'brick' within our curriculum. The starting point is nurturing a positive relationship with self to grow a sense of identity and self-esteem within individuals. Children learn about rights and responsibilities to themselves and others. They develop a high degree of empathy and social skills. Across the Essence curriculum students focus on their attitudes towards learning, motivation and resilience. The PSHE Reading Spine gives a vehicle for children to explore differences across the spectrum of global society, prejudice and discrimination, acceptance and understanding. Anti-bullying is also a core focus.
Students are also equipped with a range of strategies to safeguard themselves and others, and to know how and when to access support. Critical thinking, in units ‘Safe Relationships’ and ‘Keeping Safe’ provides pupils with the skills to assess different situations and scenarios. They can then act and behave appropriately affording respect towards others and upholding theirs and others’ rights. The impact of this should be pupils wanting to come to school as they feel safe and valued.
We ensure all groups of children are given the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. We strive to ensure that our children are equipped with the skills to fluently be able to retrieve key facts from their semantic memory and apply the skills to their own lives.
The quality of our children’s work, at every stage, is of a high standard. All learning is built towards an end point and at each stage of their education, we prepare our children for the next stage.
We ensure all our children read to a stage appropriate level and fluency. Reading at the heart of our Essence curriculum. Through disciplinary literacy in PSHE lessons, the impact of reading on the children’s learning is paramount.
The impact of Eccleston Lane Ends Essence (PSHE) curriculum is measured through the following:
- Assessment at the end of each unit of work (formative or summative)
- Vocabulary and knowledge are assessed at the end of each lesson and at the end of each sequence
- Pupil voice
- Progress evident in children’s books and record of experiences
- Seeking views of parents where appropriate
- The behaviour and attitude of our pupils
- Students are also equipped with a range of strategies to safeguard themselves and others
