Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education
How do children learn to understand themselves, make good decisions and take responsibility for the way their choices affect others?
At Sikh Heritage Girls School, Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education prepares girls for the realities of everyday life.
Pupils learn to understand and communicate their emotions, build healthy relationships, look after their physical and mental health, recognise risk, manage money, respond appropriately in an emergency and know when and how to ask for help. As they grow, they take increasing responsibility for their choices and for the communities to which they belong. Self-awareness is an important part of this work, but it is not inward-looking. Understanding ourselves helps us recognise our strengths and needs, regulate our behaviour, make informed decisions and consider the effect our actions have on others.
Our curriculum is designed in-house and carefully sequenced from EYFS onwards. It meets the expectations for PSHE and Relationships Education within an independent school and draws upon current national Health Education guidance and the PSHE Association's 2026 Programme of Study.
Our detailed approach to Relationships and Sex Education is set out separately on the dedicated RSE page.
Intent
Our PSHE curriculum gives girls knowledge, language and practical strategies that they can use.
The curriculum develops progressively across emotional and mental wellbeing, physical health, relationships and personal safety, life online, financial and economic education, first aid, future choices, citizenship and community responsibility.
The emphasis is on application. Knowing that help exists is different from knowing how to ask for it. Understanding what a budget is is different from having to decide how limited money should be used. Knowing that an emergency is serious is different from being able to respond calmly and seek the right help.
We want pupils to leave SHGS with knowledge that is useful beyond the classroom.
Implementation
Foundations in EYFS
Personal, social and emotional development begins from the moment children enter Reception. Through routines, play, conversation and carefully modelled relationships, children learn to recognise and name emotions, wait, take turns, communicate their needs and begin to regulate their responses. They learn what it means to belong to a class, why simple boundaries exist, how everyday disagreements can be resolved and when they need adult help.
Independence grows through ordinary experiences: looking after belongings, managing personal needs, completing simple responsibilities, making choices and persisting when something is difficult. Children also begin to understand that another person may think, feel or experience a situation differently from them.
These foundations in self-regulation, managing self and building relationships prepare pupils for increasingly explicit PSHE learning as they move through the school.
Emotional literacy, mental health and help-seeking
Girls develop the vocabulary to recognise and communicate how they feel without being taught that every difficult emotion is something to fear or remove.
Younger pupils learn to identify common emotions, recognise what helps them settle and know which trusted adults they can approach when they are worried. As they mature, girls consider stress, disappointment, loneliness, change, loss, self-image, sleep and healthy ways of coping with challenge.
They learn that sadness, frustration, worry and disappointment are normal parts of life, while also developing the judgement to recognise when feelings are persistent, overwhelming or beginning to affect everyday life. Help-seeking is taught explicitly. Pupils should know who they can approach, how to explain a concern and why asking for appropriate support is a responsible decision.
Physical health and healthy routines
Physical and mental wellbeing are taught as closely connected. Girls develop age-appropriate knowledge of physical activity, sleep, nutrition, hygiene, dental health and the everyday routines that help bodies function well. They learn about germs and health protection, sun safety, the safe use of medicines and, as they grow, the risks associated with harmful substances.
Healthy eating is approached through knowledge and balanced habits rather than anxiety about food. Pupils learn why bodies need varied nutrition and how food, movement, sleep and rest contribute to health.
This learning connects naturally with wider school life, including sport, swimming, Cooking & Nutrition and our Healthy Eating provision, while PSHE gives pupils the knowledge to understand why these habits matter.
Relationships, safety and life online
Healthy relationships require more than simply telling children to be kind. Pupils learn about friendship, communication, respect, privacy and personal boundaries. They consider the difference between an ordinary disagreement and behaviour that is controlling, harmful or unsafe, and learn that some situations require help from a trusted adult rather than being managed alone.
Online life is treated as part of real life. The same expectations of respect, honesty, privacy and responsibility apply when technology is involved.
As girls grow, they learn about personal information, online pressure, scams, misleading or targeted content, harmful communication and the ways digital environments can influence behaviour and spending. They are taught to question what they encounter online and to know what to do when content, contact or behaviour causes concern. Our dedicated RSE curriculum provides the fuller progression relating to relationships, growing up and other statutory content.
Financial education, aspirations and future choices
Financial education is an important part of our commitment to equity.
A pupil's confidence with money should not depend upon how much financial language or experience she happens to encounter at home. Every girl should develop a useful foundation for making informed decisions later in life. Young children begin with simple ideas about money, needs and wants, choices and value. Later, pupils consider spending, saving, budgeting, different ways of paying, keeping money secure and the consequences of financial decisions. They also examine influences on spending, including advertising and peer pressure.
Economic education connects naturally with aspirations and future choices. Girls encounter different kinds of work, begin to recognise their own developing strengths and interests and understand that education, decisions and opportunities can influence future pathways.
We want pupils' horizons to be widened rather than limited by assumptions about which subjects, roles or careers are considered suitable for particular people. This is not about asking primary-aged children to choose a career; it is about helping them understand that there are many possible futures and giving them the confidence and knowledge to keep those possibilities open.
First aid and practical safety
Practical safety knowledge is revisited regularly rather than taught through a single memorable workshop. Once each term, pupils take part in first-aid or emergency-response learning, with expectations increasing appropriately with age.
Younger girls learn how to recognise that someone needs help, alert a trusted adult and understand how emergency help is summoned. They develop simple knowledge of common injuries and safe responses. Older pupils build greater practical confidence in emergency situations, including age-appropriate CPR awareness and training and understanding the role of defibrillators, drawing on authoritative resources such as those produced by the British Heart Foundation where appropriate.
Regular revisiting matters. The purpose is for important safety knowledge to become familiar enough that pupils are more likely to recall it when it is needed.
Citizenship, contribution and service
PSHE also asks girls to consider what it means to belong to and contribute to a community. In the early years, this begins with fairness, responsibility, belonging and contributing to the life of the class. Older pupils explore rights and responsibilities, democratic participation, respectful disagreement and the ways decisions can affect other people.
School council, discussion and debate give pupils opportunities to contribute ideas and represent the views of others. Community work, including our links with local care homes and other groups, allows girls to meet people whose lives and experiences may differ from their own.
Service is therefore something pupils experience rather than simply discuss. Our motto, Born to Love, Live to Do, carries an expectation that concern for others should lead to thoughtful action. This connects closely with our core value of self-awareness: knowing ourselves better should help us recognise our responsibilities, notice the needs of others and judge how best to contribute.
Equity in PSHE
Equity has particular importance in PSHE because pupils arrive with very different experiences of talking about emotions, health, safety, money, relationships, online life and the wider world.
We do not assume that essential life knowledge will be acquired elsewhere.
Every girl therefore receives explicit teaching in areas that affect her safety, independence and future choices. Where pupils with SEND require additional support, teachers may use clearer language, visual prompts, repetition, rehearsal, practical scenarios or smaller steps. Sensitive or complex concepts may need to be revisited several times.
The important knowledge remains an entitlement for every pupil.
As girls move through SHGS, PSHE should contribute to increasing independence. Pupils should become better able to recognise a situation, draw upon what they have learned and make an appropriate decision without always waiting for an adult to tell them what to do.
Assessment
Assessment in PSHE is concerned with what pupils know, understand and can apply. It is not used to judge a child's personality, family circumstances or private experiences.
Teachers check understanding through discussion, scenarios and appropriate written or practical tasks. Pupils may be asked to explain how they would seek help, respond to a friendship difficulty, make a financial choice, identify a safer online response or describe what they would do in an emergency.
This allows misconceptions and gaps in important knowledge to be identified and revisited.
Impact
By the time girls leave SHGS, we want them to know themselves increasingly well and to possess practical knowledge that supports growing independence.
They should be able to recognise and communicate emotions, maintain healthy relationships, understand personal boundaries, make informed choices about physical and mental wellbeing and know when a situation requires help.
They should have useful financial knowledge, practical experience of first aid, an understanding of online and personal safety and a growing awareness of the opportunities available to them in later education and work.
They should understand that being part of a community brings both rights and responsibilities. We want girls who can contribute without always needing to lead, disagree without disrespect, help without taking over, and recognise when their own behaviour needs to change.
Most importantly, pupils should understand that confidence and responsibility belong together. Self-awareness should give them a stronger foundation from which to make decisions, care for themselves and contribute thoughtfully to the lives of others.
Research-Informed Practice
Our curriculum reflects the current Department for Education guidance on Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education, which came into effect on 1 September 2026 and applies to independent-school proprietors as well as other school sectors.
As an independent school, SHGS is also required through the Independent School Standards to provide PSHE that reflects the school's aims and ethos and encourages respect for other people, with particular regard to the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.
The PSHE Association's 2026 Programme of Study informs our wider curriculum thinking by bringing statutory relationships and health content together with economic wellbeing and careers education.
Our EYFS foundations reflect the statutory emphasis on self-regulation, managing self and building relationships, while our first-aid provision draws on authoritative emergency-response guidance and resources, including those of the British Heart Foundation.
Selected References
Department for Education. Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education: Statutory Guidance.
Department for Education. Independent School Standards Guidance.
PSHE Association. Programme of Study for PSHE Education, 2026.
Department for Education. Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework.
British Heart Foundation. CPR and emergency-response education resources.