At Etz Chaim, we intend for our children to become healthy, independent and responsible members of our modern society with the knowledge, skills and strategies to play a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.

Our aim is that when children leave Etz Chaim Primary School, they do so with the knowledge, understanding and emotions to be able to play an active role in today’s society. We want our children to have high aspirations, a belief in themselves and realise that anything is possible if they put their mind to it.

 We want the pupils to be able to:

• Develop a confidence in sharing their own thoughts and opinions with others
• Develop skills and attributes to keep themselves healthy and safe
• Develop an attitude of a responsible global citizen
• To show tolerance of others beliefs, religions and life choices
• To build positive, respectful relationships with other people

Children have access to key knowledge, language and meanings in order to understand PSHE and to use across the wider curriculum. The children have a variety of forums to discuss this including but not limited to whole school, key stage and class assemblies. There are also circle meetings which run on a regular basis and allow children time to meet with each other to discuss relevant topics.

As a school we use the zones of regulation as a self-regulator of emotions for anyone within the school. We teach the children what the different zones are and the tools they can use to get themselves back into the green zone so they feel ready to learn. We also use the HeadsUp kids programme to help children better understand themselves and their relationships with others.

There are a range of cross-curricular opportunities for PSHE to be integrated into the other subject areas, some examples are but not limited to Jewish Studies and the weekly Middah, Maths in which the value of money is explored and science in which information about the human body is taught.

We believe that a meaningful PSHE curriculum is the key to children becoming confident, tolerant and well-rounded adults.