PSHE
PSHE Coordinators: Mrs C. PITOCCO & Dr M. Dimmock
Key PSHE Strands:
| Health & Well Being | Relationships and Sex Education | Living in the Wider World |
 |
 |
 |
Vision and Overview:
The driving motivation behind the carefully designed Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education offer at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School, is to provide all of our students with the knowledge and skills required to nurture phronesis. In practice, this refers to our overarching aim of developing the skill of practical wisdom – providing students with both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary to become effective decision-makers. In a world beyond the classroom, where they will be confronted with real-life dilemmas in unpredictable and novel situations, making effective, informed relational and self-care decisions, discerning both risk and opportunitiy, will always be a key responsibility for us as a school.
Thus, our PSHE offer supports the personal well-being and development of students as individuals at their current stage of life through age appropriate provision of information, discussion and practical skills. It also feeds into equipping students to be confident as young people Living in the Wider World – one of our three key areas of focus, along with Health and Well-Being and our statutory Relationships and Sex Education (RSE). These three areas of focus are mutually supportive and form the basis of identifying the specific provision for students across their PSHE experiences.
A graduate from TBGS will have been supported in many ways across both their wider curriculum and extra-curricular opportunities towards the goal of acquiring the skills necessary to live a healthy, safe, productive, and fulfilled life as they take their next steps into the world. However, their specific PSHE experience will be an essential component in this process. In their engagement with PSHE at TBGS, students become equipped to face the challenges of living in our modern-day global society and they should develop a confident understanding of their own identity on individual, local, national and international levels, alongside recognition of their place in a community of individuals holding to a range of personal perspectives and worldviews.
In practice, our model of PSHE delivery allows subject specialists to deliver content during specifically focused off-timetable days for each year group, as well as embedding relevant content and discussion within regularly timetabled lessons across a range of distinct subjects. The Philosophy & Applied Ethics (P&AE) Department coordinates this process and ensures the highest standards of student experience, often incorporating our 6th Form run PSHE Student Ambassadors to deliver ideas in both the classroom and in student-run assemblies. The curriculum provided gives a more detailed outline of how and when this occurs, and we always contact parents/carers via a letter home prior to each off-timetable PSHE enrichment day in order to ensure parents/carers are confident and aware of the topics their child will be considering.
From September 2020, all secondary schools in England are required to teach young people about Relationship and Sex Education (RSE). The new guidance also includes a change to parents right to withdraw young people from RSE, please see more here.
Please find our Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) policy here.
If you would like further advice or guidance to support having sensitive conversations at home please find some useful links provided in the document found here.
If you have any questions, concerns or would like to discuss any aspect of the PSHE offer at TBGS, please contact either Mrs C. Pitocco or Dr M. Dimmock
