PSHE Blog
Here you will find the latest PSHE news, examples of student work and interesting facts.
PSHE BLOG - KS3
Autumn Term
We’ve had a busy year in KS3 PSHE at Marland secondary school.
We started the year with some social skills exercises to develop trust and positive relationships within the group and followed this with some important discussions on what PSHE means and why it might be important. We investigated important questions about personal health, including physical and emotional well-being, healthy eating and puberty. We discussed the physical and emotional changes that happen to boys and girls in their teenage years and made some plans on how to manage these changes in positive ways. After this unit, we looked at careers and planning for the future, including identifying our skills and interests, our learning styles and our future opportunities and aspirations.
Spring term
We returned after the Christmas holidays to consider issues of diversity, discrimination and rights and responsibilities. Jan 16th was Martin Luther King Jr day, so we spent some time discussing racism and standing up for your rights and the rights of others. We then took a look at some personal safety discussions and some life skills like shopping, catching a bus or train, and where to go for help in different situations. We handled money and thought about what to do in certain situations if things did go as planned (the bus didn’t turn up, we didn’t have enough money for what we needed to buy etc).
Summer term
The start of the summer term has seen us re-visiting relationships, with a focus on what a healthy or unhealthy relationship might look like (friendships or romantic relationships). The boys have learned the skills to identify positive healthy behaviours in themselves and others and developed their empathy skills to consider how they might support a friend who was in a relationship that they found challenging. Finally, as we move towards the summer holidays, we will carry out some work on finances and money management, including how we earn, save and spend, and towards the last few weeks of term we will consider how we keep ourselves safe, healthy and happy over the summer holidays.
PSHE BLOG – KS4
Our KS4 students have spent this year working towards their BTEC in PSHE. This has involved completing elements of the SWEET course including having discussions, creating posters and presentations, and filling in the Sweet coursework booklets. Our focus has primarily been diversity, identity and discrimination, although the summer term has seen us move on to maintaining our physical health and wellbeing, and the risks associated with alcohol, drugs and smoking. Some of our year 11 students have now successfully completed their booklet and gained their qualification – Well done to those boys!
Stand Against Violence - Visiting Speaker
This morning at Marland Secondary we were lucky enough to have a visit from Alex Cutler, a specialist speaker from the charity Stand Against Violence (SAV). SAV work with schools around the UK to deliver messages surrounding violence, weapons, gangs and bullying.
Alex delivered three impactful and engaging sessions to our boys. Groups F and C contemplated the potentially devastating effects of bullying, and Group B discussed how violence and weapons can ruin their own and others’ lives. The sessions were hard-hitting and provided real-life case studies and testimonies from the families of those affected by violence, and opened up a series of frank and meaningful discussions between the boys.
As a result of the sessions, we are now hoping to put some copies of “When September Ends” by Adam Fouracre in the library – the story of serious violence against a young man from Taunton.
All of our students conducted themselves with dignity and respect, and our speaker was very impressed with our Marland school students – well done!
