At Smithdown Primary School, together we grow into confident, resilient, and compassionate individuals who are well prepared for life in modern Britain and the wider world.
Our PSHE curriculum empowers children with the knowledge, understanding, and emotional literacy they need to lead safe, healthy, and fulfilling lives. We want every child to develop high aspirations, a strong sense of self-worth, and the belief that they can make a positive difference to their community and beyond.
In an ever-changing world, we aim to help children:
Understand how to maintain good mental and physical health.
Build healthy, respectful, and safe relationships.
Recognise and manage emotions in themselves and others.
Develop the confidence to express their ideas and beliefs respectfully.
Appreciate diversity and value equality.
Make informed choices that support wellbeing, safety, and success.
Our PSHE curriculum underpins all areas of school life and supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development, preparing them to become active, responsible citizens.
Through our ethos of “Together We Grow,” PSHE ensures that every child develops the skills, values, and mindset needed to thrive personally and contribute positively to society.
In the Early Years, Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) is central to all learning. Following Birth to Five Matters and the PSED Early Learning Goals, children learn to form relationships, manage feelings, and develop a positive sense of self. The Jigsaw scheme of work enhances this through circle times, stories, and play-based experiences that build empathy, cooperation, and self-regulation.
In KS1 and KS2, PSHE is taught through the Jigsaw Programme, which provides a clear progression of knowledge, vocabulary, and skills. Lessons are sequenced to build emotional intelligence, resilience, and respect, helping pupils understand their role within their families, school, community, and society.
Each half term, pupils explore one of Jigsaw’s six themes:
Being Me in My World
Celebrating Difference
Dreams and Goals
Healthy Me
Relationships
Changing Me
This approach integrates mindfulness and reflective practices to help children manage emotions, improve concentration, and build self-awareness.
Our curriculum is personalised using Liverpool City Council’s PSHE planning, ensuring learning is relevant to our local context and responsive to the issues affecting our community.
Relationships and Health Education (RHE) is fully embedded within PSHE and delivered in an age-appropriate way. It ensures pupils understand body changes, consent, online safety, and the principles of positive, respectful relationships.
PSHE is also enriched through:
Forest School sessions and outdoor learning, developing teamwork, resilience, and wellbeing.
Parent engagement events, including campfires and shared outdoor activities.
Whole-school assemblies, where British Values, diversity, and kindness are celebrated.
Across all phases, teachers model and nurture social and emotional skills such as sharing, empathy, conflict resolution, and responsibility. Children learn to take an active part in school and community life, living out our values of respect, tolerance, and care for others.
By the time pupils leave Smithdown Primary School, they have developed the skills, attitudes, and values needed to lead healthy, happy and successful lives. They are able to:
Approach real-life situations with confidence, resilience, and empathy.
Articulate their thoughts and emotions clearly, using respectful communication.
Demonstrate understanding of diversity, equality, and British Values.
Maintain positive mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Recognise how to stay physically healthy and safe in a range of contexts.
Build and sustain healthy, respectful relationships.
Understand and manage change, including physical and emotional development.
Take responsibility for their actions, contribute to their community, and show respect for others.
Value themselves and others, showing pride and self-esteem.
Through PSHE, pupils leave Smithdown prepared to navigate the challenges of an ever-changing world. They know how to stay safe, make informed choices, and care for both themselves and others — embodying our school ethos of “Together We Grow.”
Detailed information for parents about each unit of work can be made available on request.
In line with statutory guidance, we conducted a thorough consultation process with parents on our RSE policy. Following this engagement, and taking their views into careful consideration, we decided to include Sex Education as part of our RSHE curriculum. Please click here to read the agreed policy along with details of the curriculum content.
Please click here to read the DFE guidelines regarding RHSE
Please speak to a member of staff to read about / discuss our teaching approach to LBGTQ
Please speak to a member of staff to read about / discuss our approach to gender identity
After learning about the rights of a child, we found out about children working in parts of the world without these rights and how they lived their lives, in particular children who work on cocoa plantations. We also refreshed our learning about Fair Trade and what it means for farmers and cocoa producers.
We were learning all about our emotions today and looking at the different inside out characters to support our understanding.
We discussed each of the rights presented and talked about if we would prioritize them, what would our list of importance look like.
What an amazing session with mini medics. We learnt all about DR ABC and first aid. The children loved it. 
We had First Aid training and learnt about DR ABC, how to put someone in the recovery position, how to give CPR and we had fun with bandages!
Year 5 enjoyed their ‘Racism Awareness’ Workshop today with Loti!
In PSHE we designed a superstar certificate for a friend as part of our work on rewards.
In PSHE we looked at what a nightmare school would look like. We are very lucky not to have a school like these and we have people around us to keep us safe, support us and help us grow.
Year 2 explored different pictures to decide if they were being responsible or irresponsible.
We have had a wonderful start to 5JH completing different tasks as a team. Resilience was needed throughout as some were quite challenging! 
We had a wonderful day yesterday celebrating 150 years of our school. The children loved playing traditional birthday games 🎁, having a boogie 💃🕺and they all enjoyed some ice cream 🍦
Smiles all round!
We have had an assembly and a workshop this week to inform the children about CO (carbon monoxide), the dangers of it, how it is produced, how it can be detected and what the symptoms of CO poisoning are.
Last week we had a performance based on the experiences of refugees. It was brilliant performed and we even had a Q&A session at the end. 
The children had lots of fun choosing what to send the Lighthouse Keeper for lunch. They choose what food and sent it down in a basket – all while trying to avoid the seagulls. We talked about what healthy choices we could make and choose his lunch very carefully. Oooooh! 🧺 🏝
Today, we were so happy to be reunited with a couple of our classmates who had been living in another city and were now back in Liverpool. They were welcomed with cheers, hugs and huge smiles by all their friends. Everyone showed kindness. So lovely to see!
We read a book that helped us understand what refugees are and how they might feel and spoke about the possible reasons for why someone might need to become a refugee.
This year, the theme for Refugee Week is ‘Community as a Superpower’.
We created a backpack full of useful contents.
For Refugee Week, we talked about the different communities that we belong to. We also designed welcome baskets for people seeking asylum and refuge. We agreed that working together as a community is a superpower, and spreading kindness makes the world a better place.
We looked at how we change from babies and what things we can now do as a child compared to when we were younger.
Year 5 loved their workshop for 150 years and learning about the history of our local area. 
We absolutely loved going to Martin Mere for our immersive Viking experience. We took part in weaving, foraging, thatching and defending the village. 
Today we learnt about renewable resources and what we’re hoping for, for the future. We made websites to promote our ideas especially since it’s our future! 
Yesterday, we had an amazing trip to watch these athletes. The work they put into practising and training really inspired some students. Also, some children met the presenter of Newsround
and even got a picture!
A very important and informative message from Network Rail this morning. We learnt about the dangers on railways and how to stay safe.
We refreshed our awareness of rail safety today thanks to an online live assembly from ‘Switched On’
We loved sharing our languages last week and teaching children different words. Some children even wanted to record these so that we could share our language with others. We have some excellent little teachers in class! 
Today, the children started their new PSHE topic. We discussed new vocabulary such as; oxygen, heart rate, calories, energy and fitness. The children talked about how their bodies are effected when we do exercise and what happens to our heart rate. We set ourselves a new fitness challenge. We also created amazing posters to remind ourselves about exercise and movement.
We spent some time learning to recognise fake profiles, keeping passwords safe and identifying and knowing how to react to scam emails, pop-ups and text messages.
Year 5 have been looking at the poet Benjamin Zephaniah this week and yesterday we got the chance to read some of his poems. We all agreed that most of his poems have the message of justice and equality for all. 
We spent the morning learning about the world of work, environments and salaries.
Today we learnt about the global supply chain and the different stages our products take to get to us (the customer). We debated which part of the supply chain was the most important and how fair the pay was. Our class debate was very passionate! 
We had a great time shopping for pizza ingredients. Tomorrow we will make pizza!!
We had an amazing afternoon in our lion dancing workshop. Happy Lunar New Year! 
We have started our new unit which is all about celebrating differences between people. We are strengthening our awareness of how we all have different perceptions of normal, how we are all different, how some differences we can see and others we can’t and how people who have specific impairments in their lives, can live amazing lives and achieve varying successes.
Year 3 discussed their dreams and goals in our PHSE lesson this week. We talked about the importance of recognising the steps that are needed to achieve our goals. We recognised that no matter what dream we have, we need to work hard and overcome any challenge that pops up along the way. We linked our dreams to our school motto ‘together we grow’ and used a flower template to show how our dreams will grow. 🌸👩🏫👩⚕️🧑⚕️💃👨🎓👲
We have looked through all our clues for our upcoming book… Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. We will be discussing new vocabulary such as racism, segregation, civil rights, controversy and many more! 
An amazing Mario Kart tournament to celebrate the holidays!
As part of our ‘Being A Global Citizen’ unit, we learnt about ‘Fair Trade’ and what this means for farmers and crop producers around the world.Here are some of our completed posters.
We had the best time posting our letters this morning, Eddie the elf came with us too! I wonder where our letters will end up? 📫Thank you to those parents who were able to join us at this busy time.
Today we looked at different pictures of artefacts in museums around the world and how they were used during the transatlantic slave trade. We discussed the life of an enslaved person and the hardships they faced.
As part of our unit on ‘Being a Global Citizen,’ we are learning about ‘Fair Trade’ and what it means to cocoa farmers around the world.
For our PSHE lesson we are celebrating differences. In previous weeks we have spoken about racism, bullying and rumours and now we are researching a range of countries and what their culture looks like.
What a lovely morning with parents we had! We all had a toasted marshmallow, cup of hot chocolate and sang some songs.
Here are some of the amazing things the year 3 children came up with when we were discussing how we can help people who are being bullied. Some of the answers were incredible. Everyone enjoyed drawing around their hands and colouring their work. 😊
Yesterday we had a great time at the International Slavery Museum. We had a workshop in the ‘legacies of the transatlantic slave trade’ and then had time to explore the museum with our task sheets. 
What a fabulous way to begin Children in Need day – a Year 5 campfire with hot chocolate and smores : )
We took part in a workshop this morning discussing values which are important in life such as respect, patience, tolerance and understanding.
In PSHE we discussed how we should not make assumptions about people by how they look. We must not be judgemental.
We began discussing wants and needs which then led us into finding out about children’s rights.We then identified key words and illustrated them.
The next lesson in our PSHE led to us to discussing problems which exist in the world today and how we could help to heal the world – we had some really good suggestions which linked to the work we’ve been doing in English and Geography too.
In PSHE, we talked about what makes our school a dream school. The children gave answers such as,
“Our school has adults that listen.”
“We learn in our school.”
From this, we discussed that a nightmare school wouldn’t have the lovely things that Smithdown has. We created posters for our nightmare school. Some amazing imagination was used. 😊
We are having a lovely time with friends we know and also making new friends.
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Today we talked about what makes a good friend. We wrote about the different things we can do.
We took a trip to the Family and Civil Court to take part in a mock trial and meet some real life judges!
Our Wellbeing Champions have been working hard to learn strategies to support other children in class and on the playground. They’re doing a fabulous job
We created our own word art pieces after discussing the rights of the child in PSHE. We chose words which we thought were very important. 
