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What is it?
The letters stand for ‘Personal, Social and Health Education’ and at St Angela’s this covers a wide range of topics, some of which overlap into other subjects. From September 2002, Citizenship will be included in PSHE lessons as this becomes a compulsory part of the National Curriculum. Citizenship will involve some new things, but will mostly involve the part of PSHE which used to be called ‘Social Awareness’.
When is it taught?
PSHE is taught by Form Tutors in a single lesson per week, which is designated ‘Tutor Period’ or ‘Form Period’ and is divided into Modules on:
- Personal Management – including Changing Schools, Coping with Change, Study Skills, Action Planning and Target Setting, Stress Management, Careers, Work Experience and Progression after year 11.
- Health – including Personal Safety, Safety and the Law, First Aid, Drugs Education, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Safety in the Home and Road Safety.
- Relationships – including Friendships, Family Roles, Sex and Marriage, Parenting, Bullying, and Resolving Conflict.
- Citizenship – including Our Environment and use of Natural Resources, Rights and Responsibilities, Society and Where we Fit In, The Media, Government and Democracy at all Levels, International Awareness (including issues such as Refugees, Human Rights, Women’s Rights etc.), Financial Awareness (the Economy, Being a Consumer, Managing Money etc.) and Active Citizenship – Getting Involved.
How do we learn it?
We can learn about PSHE/Citizenship in a variety of ways, some more gripping than others! Each Form Tutor has their own style which has developed through their own subject expertise, and each individual within each class has their own preferred method of learning. There are probably as many different learning styles within a class as there are individual students in that class and we try to cater for each one! We try to include opportunities for group work and rôle play, discussion and display, research and project work in every module, so everyone can learn in the way that suits them best.
For example, a module on Human Rights in Year 9 might include research work using the Internet – the Citizenship Foundation website www.citfou.org.uk has tons of onward links, as have the National Youth Agency www.nya.org.uk , Liberty www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk and the Institute for Citizenship www.Citizen.org.uk .
Having researched their background knowledge, the class might then go on in groups to draw up a bill of rights and set of laws for an imaginary community who have been shipwrecked on a desert island! The groups might use posters to do this, or make a Power Point presentation. Finally, each group would present their society rules to the rest of the class and invite their criticisms and/or plaudits!
Future Developments:
St. Angela’s, like every other school at the moment, is in the process of developing more materials for PSHE/ Citizenship, and we are constantly being bombarded with new resources! In the near future, you should be able to access through this page, a detailed version of our Scheme of Work for each year group, but at present, it is still being rewritten.
Information on the new Citizenship Scheme of Work is available from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) at www.qca.org.uk/ and from www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes
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