PSHEE at St Mary's

This year we have revitalised our PSHEE programme to be delivered through a combination of interactive ‘drop-down’ study days, form time sessions and assemblies.

We have worked hard to create a bespoke scheme of work for our school with age-appropriate lesson plans and resources, always being conscious that we need to interweave our themes with our school ethos and HEART habits whilst at the same time being methodical in ensuring all statutory themes are thoroughly covered.

To ensure students obtain specialist advice as well as pastoral care, learning has taken place via a combination of external speakers, our in-school experts, for example our school nurses and our mental health and wellbeing leads, and form tutors, as appropriate. Form tutors use Thursday registration times to deliver PSHEE sessions and the Director of Christian Life, Daniel Bennett ensures that there is a spiritual element and time for reflection in each session.

Visiting speakers

This year we have been lucky enough to benefit from a number of external speakers, including:

• Year 7: British Transport Police - travel safety 
• Year 8 and 9: Alcohol Education Trust (AET) - drugs and alcohol
• Year 8: Charlie Waller Trust - healthy relationships, consent, body image and wellbeing
• Year 9: Charlie Waller Trust - healthy relationships and consent
• Year 10 and 11: Charlie Waller Trust - consent 
• Year 10, 12 and 13: Peter Hall, Wasted Youth - alcohol and drug addiction
• Sixth Form students also heard from the local police about drugs, gangs and county lines and spent an afternoon with first aid trainers from ProTrainings gaining their Junior First Aid certificate.

All students have had advice on future skills and careers, whether that was a day with an external company such as Bright Futures or Form the Future, or bespoke sessions with our excellent in-house Careers Team. Years 7, 8 and 10 have also gained a basic first aid certificate online in form times.

Tooled Up Education

We are proud that St Mary’s is now part of the ‘Tooled Up Education’ community, which means we can provide parents and staff with exclusive evidence-based resources covering areas such as aspiration, resilience, mental health and behaviour.

Parents who sign up have access to topical resources such as webinars, podcasts and articles on a wide range of topics from supporting autistic children in schools to overcoming anxiety, understanding sleep or developing resilience.

Members receive regular newsletters containing new research and dates for relevant webinars to choose from. We recently hosted a webinar about Raising a Child in the Digital Age with Dr Kathy Weston, the founder of Tooled Up, which was extremely well received.

We look forward to continuing to develop the ways in which we arm our students with vital life skills in the years to come.

Rebecca Landshoff, Senior Tutor

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Tooled Up Education