PSHE & Jigsaw

Our PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) curriculum is a key part of our pastoral care.  We follow the Jigsaw PSHE programme which promotes a mindful approach to wellbeing.  We are delighted to be a Jigsaw Flagship School for the fifth year running, as we have again been recognised for successfully implementing and teaching the Jigsaw PSHE programme. This is an accolade held by only a few schools in the UK. Indeed, our Parkgate ‘resilience’ resources have now been incorporated into the Jigsaw PSHE programme, used by over 7000 schools in 20 countries. We have always been aware of the strong link between pupils being resilient and performing to the very best of their ability; we therefore developed our own scale for measuring pupils’ resilience along with a range of tailored intervention strategies to improve resilience further. 

A spiralling curriculum ensures consistency in PSHE from our Nursery to Prep 6 (Year 6) and each year our pupils develop their awareness, understanding and personal responses to a wide range of topics, including Dreams and Goals, Relationships, Celebrating Difference and Changing Me. Through the adoption of the Jigsaw PSHE curriculum as an embedded whole school initiative we are able to connect the ‘pieces’ of personal, social and health education to support our school values and our pupils’ wellbeing. This allows us to empower our pupils to understand and regulate their emotions and make appropriate choices and decisions, helping to develop their independence, confidence and self esteem. 

Understanding of others is important to personal development and character building.  Kindness, empathy and respect are instilled in our pupils from the time they start at the school and there are numerous opportunities in school life for pupils to demonstrate these values in words and actions.  This is also encouraged by our Virtues programme.

Older children are also educated about the CEOP reporting button which can be found on our school website and the role and function of services such as Childline if they have a concern they feel unready to share with their trusted adults. All children and parents are further supported through our sharing of ‘Wake Up Wednesday’ bulletins, where we share advice for managing different activities online. 

All children and parents also benefit each year from external professional workshops to supplement our PSHE curriculum and programme, particularly Relationships and Sex Education (delivered by Big Talk specialists).  

At Parkgate House, we are not content to only focus on mental health or online safety on specific national days. Instead, these issues are interwoven into our curriculum and school culture so that our children receive the detail and knowledge they need in order to be happy, safe, successful and confident individuals.