At Godfrey Ermen Memorial School, we believe that high‑quality Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE), including Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE), equips all children with the essential knowledge, skills and understanding they need to lead confident, healthy and independent lives. Our curriculum is designed to help pupils build safe, respectful and positive relationships, develop resilience, and become responsible, active members of their community.
Throughout their time at Godfrey Ermen, pupils take part in a wide range of age‑appropriate experiences within and beyond the curriculum, supporting their personal development and preparing them for life in a diverse and rapidly changing world. Our PSHE and RSHE provision is closely linked to our school PRIDE values and our wider SMSC development, ensuring that children learn to respect themselves, others, and the environment. This aligns with the DfE expectation that RSHE should promote children’s wellbeing, safeguard them from risk, and reflect the realities of their daily lives.
Through our relational approach, we ensure that pupils feel safe, valued and supported. Creating secure, open classroom environments enables children to discuss sensitive topics confidently, which is a central expectation of the updated guidance.
Our PSHE and RSHE curriculum is delivered through a progressive scheme of work aligned with whole‑school themes, SMSC priorities and year‑group experiences. We use the Jigsaw PSHE curriculum as our main framework from Nursery to Year 6, ensuring progression, consistency and emotional literacy development. Jigsaw enables pupils to explore emotions, practise mindfulness strategies and engage in reflective discussions linked to our PRIDE values. In EYFS, Jigsaw is supplemented with Think Equal, a programme designed to nurture children’s social‑emotional skills, empathy, identity and emotional regulation through carefully structured stories and activities. Think Equal provides an enriched foundation for early emotional development, complementing Jigsaw by supporting children to understand their feelings, celebrate uniqueness and build positive relationships from the very start of their school journey.
All year groups follow the six Jigsaw themes—Being Me in My World, Celebrating Difference, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me—with statutory RSHE content integrated throughout, including correct anatomical vocabulary and puberty education.
How Jigsaw Ensures We Meet Updated DfE RSHE Requirements
We ensure that our RSHE curriculum reflects the updated DfE focus through the comprehensive and progressive Jigsaw PSHE Programme. Jigsaw enables pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and understanding they need in the following areas:
Online safety and wellbeing
Jigsaw teaches children how to manage their online lives safely and responsibly, including recognising harmful or misleading content, identifying risks such as scams, understanding privacy, consent and personal data. This aligns with the updated statutory guidance placing greater emphasis on digital safety.
Personal safety
Through Jigsaw lessons, pupils learn how to keep themselves safe in a range of environments. This includes recognising risk, staying safe near roads, water, railways and in public spaces, in line with new DfE expectations on personal safety education.
Recognising unsafe or unhealthy relationships
Jigsaw supports children to build positive, respectful relationships and develop the confidence to recognise when something does not feel right, both online and offline. Pupils learn how to seek help from trusted adults, reflecting updated guidance on safeguarding and relationship safety.
Understanding change and loss
Jigsaw provides structured opportunities for children to explore feelings linked to change, transitions and loss (including bereavement), helping pupils recognise a range of emotions and develop healthy coping strategies.
Understanding diverse families
Jigsaw helps pupils understand that families come in many forms, promoting respect and inclusivity. Children learn about a wide range of family structures including same‑sex parents, foster families, adoptive parents and kinship carers, which reflects DfE expectations for diversity and representation.
Our approach places safeguarding and wellbeing at the centre of RSHE delivery. Lessons are always age‑appropriate, and teachers are supported to respond sensitively to issues pupils may encounter earlier than expected.