PSHE

In the context of PSHE, this speaks to how the subject isn’t just about facts—it’s about sparking curiosity, empathy, resilience, and self-awareness. It lights the fire that helps young people grow into thoughtful, confident, and compassionate individuals. 

At Whitby we use the PSHE association to help guide our curriculum offer across all key stages. The top priority of the powerful knowledge that is embedded into our curriculum is to promote the health and wellbeing of our students, in line with our goals for personal development, allowing our students to leave us with a toolkit to help them deal with situations as they arise in their lives.  

PSHE is a subject that is ever changing, truly reflective of the world in which our students find themselves in. As a school we are exceptionally proud of the ways in which we’ve been able to adapt our content in order to reflect changes on a local, national and global level, for example, the increasing use of AI and what that can mean for our mental well-being and personal relationships.  

The three core strands of our knowledge base allow for a clear trajectory as pupils progress through the key stages. This helps us to ensure that the content delivered is done in a timely manner, appropriate to the needs of our students as they develop both emotionally, physically and mentally.   

Relationships 

Within the relationships strand of the subject, students are encouraged to develop their understanding of relationships in general, familial relationships, friendships and romantic relationships. Within the newest Department for Education guidance, this includes a thorough understanding of how the virtual world can impact on the relationships that we have. Students learn how there are interconnected patterns in the expectations of relationships and the significance of values within the relationships they hold or will hold in the future.  

Health and Wellbeing  

Much of the content in our health and wellbeing strand is complemented brilliantly by the physical education and science curriculum in school. The knowledge that students gain within this part of the subject allows them to understand the importance of physical wellbeing for mental wellbeing, first aid and health protection. Students receive an extensive understanding of the risks of alcohol, drugs, tobacco and vaping as well as understanding how media representation of these things can be hugely influential on young people in modern society.  

Living in the Wider World  

The focus of the knowledge gained within this strand is to enable our students to be in the best possible position for making those big decisions regarding finance and careers. Our careers specialist has tailor made a careers curriculum that helps students to understand the broad spectrum of choice they have in our locality when it comes to training providers, colleges and sixth form as well as pushing students to see just how far their aspirations can take them. In terms of our financial choices, it is imperative that our students are equipped with the knowledge to make good financial decisions from an early age, and this strand is well supported by our maths department who also utilise some of this content within their curriculum area.   

The curriculum has been developed with a conscious effort to spiral key themes, concepts and language across the key stages. This allows key ideas to be revisited, built upon and applied in new situations, which helps to further embed students’ understanding of the topics covered. For example: In year 7 pupils complete a unit about transition to secondary school which involves them thinking about ways to keep safe e.g. when walking to and from school and avoiding risks if they are socialising with friends, in year 8 this progresses to the dangers of things such as drugs, tobacco and vaping and in year 9 they move onto protecting themselves from risky behaviours including things such as knife crime and drug addiction.  

In PSHE we also have a keen focus on the importance of literacy. We prioritise reading wherever possible and have developed different strategies to help engage students in their learning through a variety of sources e.g. poems which encourage students to dig deep to find meaning and understanding.  We work with students to help them develop their understanding of where to find literature on a range of topics that they may need in the future e.g. the use of NHS guidelines to help with medical issues.