PSHE & RSHE

At Coltishall Primary School, Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) and Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) are at the heart of our wider curriculum and school ethos.

We want children to become healthy, safe, confident, respectful and responsible young people who understand themselves, build positive relationships, make informed choices and know where to seek help when they need it.

Our teaching is closely connected to our School Values and Learning Dispositions, our safeguarding curriculum and the wider experiences children receive through the Coltishall Offer.

Our Approach

PSHE and RSHE are taught through a carefully planned spiral curriculum.

Important ideas are revisited as children grow, allowing them to build increasingly mature knowledge, vocabulary and understanding.

Our provision brings together:

• the MyHappyMind programme;

• Educator Solutions RSE resources;

• additional PSHE and safeguarding teaching;

• online safety;

• assemblies and national awareness events;

• visitors and community experiences;

• pupil leadership and citizenship;

• learning across subjects including Science, Computing and PE.

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We continually review our curriculum so that it responds both to statutory requirements and to the changing world in which our children are growing up.

MyHappyMind

MyHappyMind provides an important shared language for emotional wellbeing across Coltishall.

Children learn about how their brains work and develop practical strategies for understanding and managing their emotions, relationships and responses.

The five MyHappyMind modules are:

• Meet Your Brain

• Celebrate

• Appreciate

• Relate

• Engage

These are revisited progressively through the school.

Children learn about resilience, self-esteem, character strengths, gratitude, relationships, goal-setting and emotional regulation.

Understanding and Regulating Emotions

We want children to develop a rich emotional vocabulary and understand what happens when they become dysregulated.

Our current MyHappyMind work connects children's understanding of Team HAP – the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex – with practical approaches to recognising and regulating emotions.

Alongside this, children use the shared language of the Zones of Regulation to identify and talk about different emotional states.

We have also developed a simple whole-school language of:

• Happy Place – feeling calm, content and regulated;

• Middle Place – recognising that emotions are beginning to change;

• Busy Place – feeling overwhelmed, dysregulated or out of control.

Children learn to recognise how they are feeling, understand that all emotions are valid, and identify strategies that can help them regulate and return to a calmer state.

This shared language helps children, staff and families talk consistently about emotional regulation across the school.

Relationships

Children learn what healthy relationships look and feel like.

Teaching includes:

• friendships;

• kindness and respect;

• families and different family structures;

• resolving disagreements;

• boundaries and privacy;

• consent and appropriate physical contact;

• recognising unhealthy or unsafe relationships;

• peer influence and pressure;

• relationships online;

• knowing how and when to ask for help.

We explicitly teach children that families can take many different forms and that every child has the right to feel safe, loved and respected.

Growing and Changing

Learning is carefully matched to children's age and stage of development.

Children progressively learn about:

• their bodies;

• physical and emotional change;

• puberty;

• personal hygiene;

• reproduction within the statutory and agreed curriculum;

• identity and individuality;

• increasing independence and responsibility.

Teaching uses accurate, age-appropriate vocabulary and provides children with safe opportunities to ask questions.

Keeping Safe

Safeguarding education is woven throughout our PSHE and RSHE curriculum.

Children learn how to identify risk and seek help in situations involving:

• roads, railways and water;

• public spaces;

• medicines and household hazards;

• online communication;

• personal information and images;

• unwanted contact;

• peer pressure;

• emergencies and basic first aid.

These lessons are complemented by practical experiences including Bikeability, road-safety work, RNLI input and Year 6 Crucial Crew.

Our curriculum is regularly updated in response to emerging safeguarding issues.

Life in a Digital World

Children learn that online relationships and behaviour require the same principles of respect and safety as face-to-face relationships.

Teaching progressively explores:

• privacy and personal information;

• online friendships;

• appropriate sharing of images;

• harmful or misleading content;

• online influence;

• recognising when people may not be who they claim to be;

• knowing how to report something that causes concern.

Current curriculum development also reflects emerging issues associated with changing technology, including AI-generated material, deepfakes, online influencers and harmful online communities.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Children learn that everybody experiences a wide range of emotions and that there are practical ways to support their wellbeing.

Teaching explores areas including:

• recognising and expressing feelings;

• emotional regulation;

• resilience;

• self-esteem;

• loneliness;

• change;

• loss and bereavement;

• knowing when and how to ask for support.

This learning is supported by MyHappyMind and, where appropriate, wider pastoral provision.

The Happiness Hive

Our Happiness Hive provides children with a calm and welcoming space during lunchtimes.

Children can take part in activities such as arts and crafts, Lego, games or simply spend time talking and settling themselves.

The Hive complements our wider wellbeing curriculum by giving children an opportunity to put into practice some of the strategies they learn for managing feelings, relationships and regulation.

Happiness Heroes and Breaktime Buddies

Pupil leadership is an important part of wellbeing at Coltishall.

Children in Years 3–6 can apply to become Happiness Heroes.

Happiness Heroes help run the Hive at lunchtimes, organise activities, play and talk with other children and help pupils feel settled and calm.

Our Breaktime Buddies, drawn from Years 4 and 5, provide short games and activities during breaktimes, helping other pupils to play, connect and feel included.

These roles give children genuine responsibility for contributing to the wellbeing of their school community.

Citizenship and the Wider World

PSHE extends beyond weekly lessons.

Children learn about citizenship through real participation in school life, including opportunities such as:

• School Council;

• Eco Council;

• pupil leadership;

• Buddy Groups;

• community projects;

• fundraising and enterprise;

• assemblies and visitors.

They learn about rights and responsibilities, rules and laws, democracy, diversity, equality and the contribution individuals can make to their communities.

Money and Future Life

Our curriculum also helps children develop early understanding of economic wellbeing.

Children explore:

• needs and wants;

• saving and spending;

• different ways of paying;

• making choices about money;

• value for money;

• financial risk;

• how spending choices can affect other people and the environment.

Opportunities such as enterprise activities and the ROAR project help make this learning purposeful.

Children also begin exploring careers, aspirations and the different routes people may take through education and employment.

Inclusive and Responsive Teaching

Our PSHE and RSHE curriculum reflects the diversity of modern Britain.

Children encounter different families, cultures, beliefs, identities and experiences and are taught to approach difference with respect, understanding and curiosity.

Teaching is factual, age appropriate and non-judgemental.

We regularly review provision through pupil voice, staff feedback and consultation with families so that it remains relevant to our children.

Working with Families

We believe PSHE and RSHE are most effective when school and families communicate openly.

Parents and carers are kept informed about curriculum content and can access information about the resources we use.

Our PSHE/RSHE lead is also available at designated parent events to discuss RSHE, PSHE and MyHappyMind, answer questions and show families the materials children encounter.

MyHappyMind also provides resources that families can use at home.

PSHE in the Early Years

Personal, Social and Emotional Development is central to children's experience in Reception.

Children learn to recognise and communicate feelings, develop friendships, manage increasingly independently, follow routines, resolve difficulties and understand the needs of others.

MyHappyMind language and strategies begin in Reception, providing children with foundations that are revisited throughout their time at Coltishall.

Our aim is for children to leave Coltishall understanding themselves, their relationships, their responsibilities and how to keep themselves and others safe, with the confidence to ask questions and seek help whenever they need it.

We are proud to announce that we are a myHappymind Silver Accredited school!
This means that as a school we consider the mental health and wellbeing of our children
as one of our top priorities.

We have created a whole school culture that helps build our
children's resilience, confidence and self esteem as well as teaching them how to self
regulate in those stressful times. 
This Accreditation badge has been awarded thanks to all the effort our staff, children,
governors and parents have put in to bring the lessons of myHappymind to life all
around our school!

In the spring term of 2026, we introduced the MyHappyMind, Our Places, these are strategies the children can use when they are feeling dysregulated. All of the children have chosen these strategies for themselves and use them as and when they need to. Moving from teacher-led intervention to self-directed use is a huge milestone in their emotional development.

Zones of Regulation

RSE - Educator Solutions 

Our school prides itself on delivering effective, age-appropriate relationships and sex education (RSE) that meets the needs of all our pupils within an inclusive and supportive learning environment; using non-biased resources. RSE is taught by experienced and skilled teaching staff, who are supported and scaffolded by using the Educator Solutions resource for teaching relationship and sex education. We are committed to preparing your child to live and learn safely in the modern world, negotiating the transition into increasing independence with the development of knowledge, values and skills to make positive, healthy and safe choices.

RSE is delivered as a spiral curriculum that enables pupils to build on their prior learning by revisiting some themes to further develop knowledge, values and skills in an age and stage-appropriate manner. As such, some themes are repeated to enable a deeper exploration of the related issues.

We can reassure you that none of the teaching materials or strategies should shock pupils. All lessons will be taught in a strictly non-judgemental and non-biased manner, to allow your child the opportunity to consider the information and develop their own values, attitudes and opinions about the topic. We would encourage you to discuss your child’s relationships and sex education with them at home.

If you would like to know more information about our programme of relationships and sex education, please feel free to come in and talk to any member of staff.