Week Beginning 03/02/25 PSHE - This week, across the school we celebrated World Mental Health Week with a focus on 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself.' We started the week off with a Whole School Assembly and for the rest of the week classes completed activities linked to promoting positive metal health. The activities were linked to thinking about ourselves; what we're good at and what we want to get better at; people that are special to us; things that make us smile and something that make us special.

January 2025: Everyone welcomed the RSPCA into school so all the children could learn about their work. On this occasion EYFS and Yrs 1-3 learnt about pets and how to look after and care them, whilst Yrs 4-6 learnt about hedgehogs. Both workshops included a craft activity to support the children’s learning. This is something that the children thoroughly enjoyed with an organisation that the school has had links with for a number of years.

Anti-Bullying Week 2024. This week in school we celebrated 'Anti-Bullying Week' which this year focused on Respect. Throughout the week, the children wore odd socks into school in recognition that we are all different and may have different views, opinions and beliefs. All classes across the school have been completing activities linked to anti- bullying and widening their understanding of behaviour that is not acceptable.

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education (SMSCE) is at the heart of everything we do at Corpus Christi. 

All pupils have one lesson of timetabled PSHE a week and using the Jigsaw Programme. 

Jigsaw consists of six half-term units of work (Puzzles), each containing six lessons (Pieces) covering each academic year. The units are; Being me in my world, Celebrating Difference, Dreams and Goals, Health Me, Relationships, Changing Me. 

• Every Piece has two Learning Intentions, one specific to Relationships and Health Education (PSHE) and the other designed to develop emotional literacy and social skills.
• The puzzles are launched with a whole-school assembly, with each year group studying the same unit at the same time (at their own level), building sequentially through the school year, facilitating whole-school learning themes. These assemblies initiate key learning messages that are then reinforced in the lessons and Weekly Celebrations (displayed in the main corridor). This helps maintain focus and intention for both children and staff.
• Jigsaw helps to teach children about the keeping themselves safe and promotes an ethos in school that strongly supports keeping children safe in many diverse situations.
• Children are taught about what to say and do if they don’t like something – from encountering strangers to bullying, and from unwanted physical contact to racism and being safe with technology.
• Jigsaw lessons are mapped against the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.
• Jigsaw makes a significant contribution towards ensuring that the curriculum and the learning environment that children experience lays down a grounding in which the ideological and emotional roots of extremist beliefs, attitudes and behaviours cannot flourish.
• Jigsaw maps SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural) across each Puzzle and across each year group to ensure balanced coverage.
• The RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) that we teach in Jigsaw has two main functions: to help children enjoy successful relationships (with friends, siblings, parents, etc.) and to keep them safe, now and in the future. The Jigsaw sex education Pieces (lessons) in the Changing Me Puzzle (unit) aim to give children their entitlement to information about puberty and human reproduction, appropriate to their age and stage of development. It is treated in a matter-of-fact manner to allay embarrassment and fear.
• Jigsaw helps children learn about mental health. Each lesson plan states clearly which of the five emotional literacy domains it contains so that it is clear of the purpose of that lesson in terms of children’s development, not just their ‘knowledge learning’. The practice of mindfulness, where children learn to be in the present moment without judgement, is taught in every Jigsaw lesson – through the Calm Me time, through visualisation and through breathing techniques.
• The Healthy Me Puzzle is where most of the ‘traditional’ health promotion lessons are. From the Eat Well plate and the importance of physical activity for a healthy body (and mind) in the earlier year groups, to the more sophisticated health messages about choice, lifestyle and mental and emotional health promotion in the older year groups.
• The latest guidance recommends that schools needs to teach social and emotional skills. Each lesson plan states clearly which of the five emotional literacy domains it contains so that it is clear of the purpose of that lesson in terms of children’s development, not just their ‘knowledge learning’. Additionally, everything that we do in Jigsaw can be linked to our positive behaviour policy.

Our Learning Mentor (Mrs Sander) works with individuals and groups of children to support varying needs including social, anger and emotional resilience. She also supports staff with PSHE delivery. This has been really useful during the implementation of Jigsaw to ensure staff feel confident and supported.

The learning mentor will also deliver sessions in class specific to their needs e.g. She has delivered sessions on safe use of social media with our Year 6 class and this also included a focus on respecting other peoples choices when the children were looking at which secondary school they would be going to.

Where relevant, outside agencies are used to deliver input on specialised areas e.g. Young Carers, NSPCC (rights and respect) and our PCSO’s (social media).

In Term 1 the NSPCC delivered assemblies to KS1 and KS2 on “Stay Safe, speak out”, they also delivered workshops to Year 5 and 6 as a follow up