At Norfolk Community Primary School, we deeply value and respect each child for who they are. Our RSHE curriculum is designed to enable our children to build strong, healthy relationships, celebrate global diversity, cultivate mutual respect, and develop a deep sense of community.
We aim to help our pupils understand how they are growing and developing personally, socially, and emotionally, while tackling many of the moral, social, and cultural questions that are part of growing up in an increasingly complex world. Our mission is to ensure that all pupils leave Norfolk Community Primary School as considerate, respectful, and resilient individuals. We empower them with the knowledge and self-confidence to protect their physical and mental wellbeing, make informed choices, and actively appreciate the diverse world in which they live.
RSHE is taught on a weekly basis from Reception to Year 6. To ensure our curriculum equips children with highly relevant, age-appropriate, and cohesive content, we follow the Sheffield City Council – Learn Sheffield RSHE scheme.
Our curriculum structure places a strong emphasis on emotional literacy, building resilience, and nurturing mental and physical health. It is progressively mapped across seven core themes:
👨👩👧👦 Family: Understanding different family structures, commitment, and the caring relationships that support us.
🤝 Friends: Learning what makes a healthy, respectful friendship and how to resolve conflicts positively.
🏡 Community: Exploring our rights and responsibilities within our school, our local neighborhood, and the wider world.
💻 Online Safety: Navigating digital spaces safely, recognizing online risks, and understanding the impact of our digital footprint.
🧠 Mental Well-being: Developing emotional literacy, building self-esteem, and learning strategies to support healthy minds.
🍎 Physical Well-being: Understanding the importance of personal hygiene, active lifestyles, a balanced diet, and dental health.
🌱 Growing Up: Learning about the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty with sensitivity and respect.
To enrich this learning, our weekly RSHE curriculum is complimented by Philosophy for Children (P4C), British Values education, and the Project Evolve digital literacy framework.
As our pupils grow, they develop the social, moral, and emotional skills of empathetic global citizens. Our curriculum ensures that Norfolk citizens learn to:
Build healthy, fulfilling relationships both now and in their future lives, recognizing what respectful behavior looks like on and offline.
Understand and champion child rights and responsibilities, linking directly to our commitments as a rights-respecting school.
Make confident, informed choices about their personal safety, physical health, and environment.
Cultivate resilience and emotional intelligence, learning how to talk about their feelings and access support when needed.
Celebrate diverse cultures and communities, showing empathy and respect for all heritages, beliefs, and lifestyles.
Identify and challenge stereotypes, prejudice, and bullying, standing up for equity and fairness in society.
To give our curriculum deep conceptual coherence, our RSHE themes are explicitly anchored to our school's six Big Ideas, helping our pupils connect their personal development to wider global concepts:
🕊️ Peace & Freedom: Pupils learn the foundational skills of conflict resolution, active listening, and peaceful negotiation. They explore how boundaries, consent, and personal freedom are vital elements of healthy, safe relationships.
🌍 Sustainability & Environment: We teach children to respect not only themselves but also the world around them. Pupils investigate how our personal choices, resource consumption, and lifestyles impact local and global environments.
⚖️ Equity & Social Justice: Norfolk citizens explore their rights as children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We explicitly teach children about fairness, human rights, the law, and our responsibilities to protect the rights of others.
🤝 Diversity & Identity: We celebrate our school’s vibrant tapestry of faiths, cultures, and family dynamics. Through special events like Diversity Day and Eid Parties, our pupils learn to challenge stereotypes, appreciate differences, and build deep pride in their personal identities.
🗳️ Participation & Citizenship: Aligning with our rights-respecting commitments, children learn how to participate democratically, respect different viewpoints, and make valuable contributions to school life, local community initiatives, and wider society.
🍎 Health & Wellbeing: This thread sits at the absolute heart of RSHE. Pupils explore the interconnectedness of physical fitness, nutrition, digital safety, and positive mental health, learning how to make decisions that keep their minds and bodies safe and happy.
RSHE lessons at Norfolk are exploratory, inclusive, and tailored to meet the needs of all pupils:
High-Quality Stimuli: Most lessons are launched using an engaging hook—such as a high-quality picture book, video, or real-world image—to lower barriers to entry and stimulate curiosity.
Constructive Discussion: Lessons are structured around a central philosophical or moral inquiry question. Instead of simply following a list of rules, children are encouraged to question why boundaries and safety protocols exist, empowering them to make independent, moral decisions.
Built-in Flexibility: Our teachers are responsive to their classes. If a sensitive topic or a relevant current event arises, teachers safely follow these tangents to allow children to test their opinions, share experiences, and hear those of others in a structured, safe environment.
An Integrated Ethos: Beyond weekly lessons, RSHE is woven into the fabric of daily school life. Whole-school assemblies explore spiritual, moral, social, and cultural (SMSC) themes, and we actively celebrate key awareness events throughout the year, including:
Anti-Bullying Week
Safer Internet Day
Mental Health Awareness Week
RSE Day
Specialist Community Links: We regularly invite specialized guest speakers and local community leaders into Norfolk Community Primary School to deliver real-world perspectives on personal safety, health, and civic duty.
At Norfolk Community Primary School, we ensure that our RSHE curriculum is ambitious, highly inclusive, and structured to give all learners—especially those with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) and those who are disadvantaged—the support they need to succeed.
To guarantee that every child participates fully in RSHE:
We prioritize Quality First Teaching, scaffolded using visual aids, physical prompts, and vocabulary support.
We chunk and pace learning carefully to ensure children can digest complex social or emotional concepts comfortably.
We group children flexibly and collaboratively to build communication, negotiation, and peer support skills.
We adapt lessons to ensure they are highly respectful of, and sensitive to, the cultural, religious, and personal backgrounds of all our families.
Because of the deeply personal and reflective nature of RSHE, our lessons are highly interactive and informal.
We do not require formal, individual written workbooks. Instead, our learning journey is captured collaboratively. We use creative group activities, drama, roleplay, and structured discussions to explore topics, documenting our reflections, collective thoughts, and photographs of tasks in our Class Floor Books. This collaborative approach ensures that children focus on active participation, emotional literacy, and community cohesion without the pressure of formal writing.
Our Goal: Every child leaves Norfolk Community Primary School equipped with the emotional intelligence, vocabulary, and practical safety skills necessary to navigate the complexities of modern life happily, safely, and successfully.