Personal, Social and Health Education and Relationships and Sex Education

What does PSHE & RSE look like at Brill?

At Brill Church of England School, Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) is at the heart of our commitment to helping every child flourish academically, socially, emotionally and spiritually.

We want children to understand themselves, build healthy relationships, recognise and manage their emotions, keep themselves safe and develop the confidence and resilience they need for life beyond Brill.

Our PSHE and RSE curriculum is underpinned by Jigsaw PSHE, a progressive whole-school programme from the Early Years to Year 6. Jigsaw provides a carefully sequenced approach to relationships, health, wellbeing and personal development, revisiting important themes in increasingly sophisticated and age-appropriate ways as children grow.

At Brill, much of our PSHE provision is delivered by our experienced and highly trained Pastoral Lead, working closely with class teachers and school leaders. This specialist pastoral expertise enables learning to be responsive to the needs of our children and our school community.

Our approach is trauma-informed and relational. We recognise that children’s experiences, relationships and emotional wellbeing can influence how they learn, behave and communicate. We therefore place safety, trust, connection and belonging at the heart of our approach.

PSHE at Brill is not simply a weekly lesson.

It is part of how we help children understand themselves, understand others and learn to navigate their world.

INTENT

Our PSHE and RSE curriculum is ambitious for every child.

We want children to leave Brill with the knowledge, emotional literacy, confidence and practical skills they need to make healthy choices, build positive relationships, recognise when something is not right and know where to seek help.

Through our PSHE and RSE curriculum, we aim for children to:

• develop a strong sense of identity, self-worth and belonging;
• recognise, name and manage a range of emotions;
• develop resilience and strategies for responding to challenge and change;
• build and maintain healthy, respectful relationships;
• understand friendship, families and the importance of care and respect;
• recognise appropriate and inappropriate behaviour within relationships;
• understand personal boundaries, privacy and consent in age-appropriate ways;
• know how to keep themselves physically and emotionally safe;
• understand how to seek help and identify trusted adults;
• develop an age-appropriate understanding of physical and mental health;
• understand how their bodies grow and change;
• make increasingly informed and responsible choices;
• recognise and respect difference;
• develop empathy and understand different perspectives;
• develop financial and economic awareness at an age-appropriate level; and
• become confident, compassionate and responsible members of their communities.

We want children to know that their feelings matter, their voice matters and asking for help is a strength.

We encourage children to be bold in being themselves, brave enough to speak when something does not feel right and Brill-iant in the way they care for themselves and others.

IMPLEMENTATION

Jigsaw PSHE

Our curriculum is underpinned by Jigsaw PSHE 3–11, providing a structured and progressive approach from the Early Years through to Year 6.

Jigsaw follows a spiral curriculum in which important themes are revisited each year, enabling children’s knowledge and understanding to deepen as they mature. It integrates emotional literacy, mindfulness and opportunities for reflection alongside statutory Relationships and Health Education.

The programme provides a consistent foundation, which we adapt appropriately to reflect the needs, experiences and context of our children at Brill.

This means our curriculum is carefully sequenced, but never impersonal.

Specialist Pastoral Leadership

A particular strength of our provision is the involvement of our Pastoral Lead, who delivers much of the PSHE curriculum across the school.

Our Pastoral Lead brings extensive experience and training in supporting children’s social, emotional and pastoral needs, enabling sensitive themes to be explored confidently, safely and appropriately.

Working across different year groups also provides valuable continuity. Relationships can be built over time, children’s developing needs can be understood and consistent language and approaches can be reinforced throughout the school.

Class teachers remain an essential part of this picture. Information and themes arising through PSHE can inform the wider support surrounding children, while teachers reinforce learning through everyday classroom relationships and experiences.

A Trauma-Informed and Relational Approach

At Brill, we understand that behaviour is a form of communication and that children come to school with different experiences, needs and ways of responding to the world around them.

Our trauma-informed approach means that adults seek to understand what may sit behind a child’s presentation rather than responding only to what can be seen on the surface.

This does not mean lowering expectations or removing boundaries.

Instead, we combine clear, consistent expectations with strong relationships, emotional safety and compassionate support.

Children are helped to recognise emotions, understand their responses, develop strategies for regulation, repair relationships and gradually build the skills to manage challenge with greater independence.

This relational approach reflects our Christian vision and particularly our values of Honesty, Hope, Courage and Compassion.

Emotional Literacy and Wellbeing

Children need a vocabulary for their internal world before they can begin to manage it.

Through PSHE, children learn to recognise and name emotions, explore how feelings can affect their thoughts and behaviour and develop strategies that can help them regulate and respond.

Jigsaw incorporates mindfulness and reflective practice throughout its programme, supporting children to develop self-awareness, focus and emotional regulation.

We want children to understand that everybody experiences difficult emotions and challenging moments.

Our role is to help them develop a growing toolkit of strategies, relationships and sources of support to draw upon when they need them.

Relationships and Sex Education

Relationships Education is an important and carefully planned part of our PSHE curriculum.

Children learn, in an age-appropriate and sensitive way, about families, friendships, respectful relationships, boundaries, privacy, growing and changing and how to seek help when they are worried or unsure.

As children grow older, learning develops appropriately to prepare them for the physical and emotional changes associated with growing up.

Our teaching follows statutory guidance and our school’s agreed RSE policy, with learning sequenced carefully to ensure that content is appropriate to children’s age and stage of development. Jigsaw’s primary programme has been updated in line with the statutory RSHE guidance for implementation from September 2026.

We recognise the important role of parents and carers as children’s first educators and seek to communicate clearly about our RSE curriculum and the content children will encounter.

Safeguarding and Keeping Safe

PSHE is an important part of our wider safeguarding culture.

Children develop the knowledge and vocabulary to recognise when something may be unsafe or inappropriate and learn what they can do about it.

They are taught about trusted adults, personal boundaries, privacy, healthy and unhealthy relationships, online safety and asking for help in ways appropriate to their age.

Most importantly, we want every child to know:

There are adults at Brill who will listen to me.

Children are taught that they should never feel they have to manage a worry alone.

Difference, Respect and Belonging

Every child should feel that they belong at Brill.

PSHE provides opportunities to explore similarities and differences between people and to develop empathy, respect and curiosity.

Children learn that families, experiences, identities and communities can look different and that difference is a normal part of the world in which they live.

They learn to challenge unkindness, discrimination and prejudice and understand their responsibility to treat others with dignity.

This reflects our aspiration for Brill to be a community in which every child is known, valued and able to flourish.

An Inclusive and Responsive Curriculum

PSHE is for every child at Brill, but we recognise that children may experience the same lesson very differently.

Sensitive topics may connect with children’s own experiences. Our pastoral expertise enables teaching to be adapted and delivered with careful consideration of individual needs, including those of pupils with SEND and children who may have experienced adversity or trauma.

Adults are attentive to children’s responses and know when a child may require additional reassurance, explanation or pastoral support.

Where additional needs emerge, PSHE sits within a broader pastoral approach rather than operating in isolation.

The curriculum therefore provides universal provision for every child, with additional support where an individual child needs more.

IMPACT

By the end of their Brill journey, we want our children to be confident, compassionate and increasingly independent young people who understand themselves and know how to build positive relationships with others.

We want children to leave Brill able to:

• recognise and communicate their emotions;
• use strategies to support their own emotional wellbeing;
• demonstrate resilience when facing challenge;
• develop and maintain healthy relationships;
• recognise the characteristics of respectful and unhealthy relationships;
• understand and communicate appropriate personal boundaries;
• respect the boundaries and differences of others;
• make informed choices about their physical and emotional health;
• understand age-appropriate changes associated with growing up;
• recognise situations that may be unsafe;
• identify trusted adults and know how to ask for help;
• demonstrate empathy, kindness and respect;
• resolve difficulties and repair relationships appropriately; and
• approach the next stage of their lives with increasing confidence and self-awareness.

Most importantly, we want children to leave Brill knowing that they matter and that they belong.

We want them to understand that life will sometimes bring challenge and change, but that they have strategies they can draw upon, people they can turn to and a voice they are entitled to use.

Our Christian vision calls us to enable every child to live “life in all its fullness.”

Our PSHE and pastoral provision helps give children the emotional foundations from which they can do exactly that.

Be Bold. Be Brave. Be Brill-iant.