Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Personal, social and emotional development underpins everything that we do at Oakwood School.  It takes places consistently throughout the school day as a core area of learning and takes places as a whole school, whole class and on an individual basis.  

PSHE

Our Personal, social and emotional development curriculum is informed by the needs of our children and takes into account the views of children, families and school staff.  We are dedicated to ensuring our curriculum meets the needs of the whole-school community.  

Personal, social and emotional development including relationships is taught daily as part of the wider curriculum at Oakwood School.  In addition to the personal target we also have a termly focus: 

• Wonderful Me – my special qualities, my family, my special people and celebrating diversity, including anti-bullying. 

• This is Me – all aspects of physical and mental health, including building self-esteem and confidence. 

• New Me – changes ahead and my aspirations for my next steps and the future. 

Classes will focus on the same theme each term at their own level, building sequentially throughout the school year, facilitating whole-school learning themes. Each topic builds on the last topic to ensure practice of key skills and repetition core messages and vocabulary. 

Learning is celebrated at the end of each theme in class and whole school sharing assemblies.  

We recognise and respect that our children develop at different times in their lives so in order to meet the needs of our children we provide bespoke teaching to support our children and families.  These themes may include puberty, social acceptable behaviour, etc.  

Religious Education 

At Oakwood, we children learn about their own religion and other people’s religion as well as skills from religions such as those of consideration, tolerance, empathy and respect. We join together in celebrating key events from all over the world.  For children on our Advenutuers (Bridging) Pathway will access units from the Walsall Locally Agreed Syllabus.  

Pupil Leadership  

At Oakwood our pupils experience, grow and develop their skills as leaders across our school in order to support developing their personal and social development. We provide exciting opportunities for all pupils to fully engage in choosing how our school is lead and embrace the chance to help develop areas of school priority and importance. At Oakwood all our pupils engage in Pupil Leadership through focusing on our termly topics based on looking for ways to improve school life and our school environment for all and often are part of our important whole school projects.  

A*Stars Travel Training   

At Oakwood we engage in a fun and exciting programme called A Stars, the activities and sessions are designed to encourage sustainable travel and road safety on journeys to and from school, as well as helps assist our children to safely access the wider community and develop healthy lifestyle and valuable social skills to help prepare our children for later life.  

The sessions and workshops our children take part in are based on walking, cycling, scooting and road safety initiatives as well as A Stars helps support our school develop and promote safer, healthier lifestyle choices for all our special children.  

The Benefits of the A*STARS Programme: 

• To help support pupils and their families using all forms of safe, sustainable travel on the journey to and from schools.  

• To promote and support developing healthy lifestyles, road safety and sustainable travel by providing education, training and encouragement.  

• Provide a safer, cleaner environment in the vicinity of schools to benefit everyone. 

British Values 

At Oakwood School we reinforce these values regularly through whole school initiatives and class teaching which is underpinned by strong links to the ethos of SMSC in the following ways:

Democracy

Several behaviour reward systems operate within classes and in the wider school community whereby individual pupils and groups are rewarded regularly through sticker charts, certificates, individual praise techniques.

In our celebration assemblies, we celebrate children's successes, positive behaviour and effort.

We actively promote diversity through our celebrations of different faiths and cultures. Religious Education and PSHE lessons reinforce messages of tolerance and respect for others.

Children have many opportunities for their voices to be heard. We have a school council, facilitated by teachers, teaching assistants and Governors, who meet regularly to develop initiatives in school. 

The Rule of Law

Through our whole school positive prompts "Our Golden Rules" and the teaching of PSHE, children learn that rules keep us safe and help us to learn. The importance of Laws, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced throughout regular school days, as well as when dealing with behaviour and through school assemblies. Pupils are taught the value and reasons behind laws, that they govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken. Visits from authorities such as the Police and Fire Service and PSHE lessons help reinforce this message.

Individual Liberty and Equality

Within school, pupils are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school, we educate and provide boundaries for young pupils to make choices safely, through provision of a safe environment and empowering education.  Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and advised how to exercise these safely, for example through our Online Safety and PSHE lessons. Pupils are given the freedom to make choices, whether it be through choice of learning challenge, of how they record, and of participation in our creative curriculum. 

Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs

At Oakwood School, mutual respect is at the heart of our values. Children learn that their behaviours have an effect on their own rights and those of others. All members of the school community treat each other with respect. 

Oakwood is situated in an area which is not greatly culturally diverse, therefore we place a great emphasis on promoting diversity with our children, drawing on the diversity of our school ommunity. Assemblies and collective worship are regularly planned to address this issue either directly or through the inclusion of stories and celebrations from a variety of faiths and cultures. Our RE and PSHE teaching reinforce this. Members of different faiths or religions are encouraged to share their valuable knowledge to enhance learning within classes and the school. Children visit places of worship that are important to different faiths.

At Oakwood, we will actively challenge pupils, staff or parents expressing opinions contrary to fundamental British Values, including ‘extremist’ views.