PSHE letter

November 2023

Dear Parents and Carers, 

As a part of your child’s education at Biddenham International School, we promote personal wellbeing and development through a comprehensive Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education programme. PSHE education is the curriculum subject that gives young people the knowledge, understanding, attitudes and practical skills to live safe, healthy, productive lives and meet their full potential. Our PSHE lessons are taught every Tuesday, the students’ form tutor delivers each session. 

What is taught in PSHE education?

PSHE education covers many topics, which are usually organised into three themes: ‘health and wellbeing’; ‘relationships’, and ‘living in the wider world’ (which focuses on careers, media literacy and economic well-being). Topics in school PSHE lessons include age-appropriate teaching about healthy lifestyles (e.g. diet, fitness and maintaining good mental health); relationships, including friendships and families; personal safety (including online); growing and changing; sex education; study skills; media literacy and digital resilience (including how to recognise fake news); managing risk and personal safety; money, careers and preparing for the world of work. If your child is receiving PSHE lessons, then the school website’s curriculum information should include details of what is covered and an outline of the planned PSHE education curriculum for each year group. This will give you an overview of what your child is being taught, and what is considered age-appropriate for them to be learning in PSHE education. 

PSHE education is taught throughout the school in every year group and is monitored and reviewed regularly by the staff and governing body. Please visit the school’s website: https://www.biddenham.beds.sch.uk/subjects/pshe/ for more detail about our PSHE curriculum. All PSHE teaching will take place in a safe learning environment and is underpinned by our school ethos and values. 

What role can parents and carers play? 

As a parent or carer you may have talked to your child about (or had to support them with) many of the topics and issues covered in PSHE education, so you may also wish to supplement this learning with further discussions of your own. Sometimes PSHE education conversations with your child will arise incidentally, when you are playing or cooking together, when you are watching television or films, or through news stories. In such cases, we cannot always control the stimulus for the question or conversation, only how we manage it. Other times, you may wish to initiate a conversation about a topic you feel is important to approach.

As a school community, we are committed to working in partnership with parents; recent parental feedback has indicated that the overwhelming majority of parents continue to be supportive of the relationships and sex education programme. If you would like to find out more, we would urge you to look at the PSHE website https://www.biddenham.beds.sch.uk/subjects/pshe/

Yours sincerely, 

Mrs H Wilthew

Subject lead for PSHE education 

Hannah.wilthew@biddenham.beds.sch.uk