Excalibur Primary School uses Discovery Education Health and Relationships to teach the new RHE curriculum. Assistant Headteacher Daniel Hancock shares how the resources keep pupils engaged and help teachers to meet the new statutory guidance.
ENGAGING AND INTERACTIVE
We’ve been using Discovery Education Health and Relationships since the start of this academic year. When the new RHE curriculum was announced, we began looking for a programme to support our teaching. Health and Relationships was the most engaging, interactive and best value for money resource that we found. It ticked every box for us.
EASY TO TEACH
We use Health and Relationships in every year group, and cover a different topic each week. The digital content is quick and easy to access. At the start of each lesson we simply log on and click the relevant topic. Everything we need –videos, activities, worksheets and guidance – is in one place, differentiated by year group.
COMPLETE CURRICULUM COVERAGE
One of the best things about Health and Relationships is that it’s a complete scheme of work. With RHE there is always a risk that you might miss a topic or not cover it in enough depth. Having a programme which is easy to follow and mapped to the curriculum reassures us that we’re meeting the new guidance.
BUILDING TEACHER CONFIDENCE
Health and Relationships builds teacher confidence because it’s so easy to deliver. It’s a very useable resource with a clear structure which allows for flexibility. As a scheme it has exactly the right amount of content, helping teachers to feel supported without being overwhelmed. Teachers can sometimes lack confidence when delivering topics which might impact on children in their class. The programme will help us to handle these with confidence and bring school-wide consistency to our teaching.
ENAGAGING CHILDREN
We like the way in which Health and Relationships’ digital content appeals to children. Our pupils are more engaged with RHE than ever before. They love watching the videos presented by other children because they can relate to what they see. The follow-on activities are very hands-on. Pupils explore different issues through role-play and discussion and they enjoy this very much.
HAPPY FRIENDSHIPS
Teaching about friendships is central to the new curriculum and Health and Relationships covers this well. We particularly like the Year 6 content. Friendship worries can be an issue in Year 6 but these aren’t always talked about. There’s a really nice video where two pupils look back on their time in primary school, and discuss the challenges of keeping friends as they move up to secondary.
HEALTHY MINDS
Health and Relationships encourages children to talk about their feelings at any age. The videos explain how to recognise and deal with different emotions, and there are some lovely animated films which are very accessible. We’re always looking for ways to allow children to express themselves and it’s great to have a resource which helps us to do this. The programme also encourages resilience, which is one of the most important skills of all.
PUPIL PROGRESS
We like the fact that Health and Relationships is a progressive scheme of work. Children build upon their knowledge and it’s easy to track pupil progress. The programme also supports children’s personal development, because it creates opportunities to discuss issues for the first time. For us this is one of its key strengths. We use the digital resources as conversation starters that lead to important discussions.
TALKING TO PARENTS
The programme includes valuable guidance to help schools communicate with parents. There’s a helpful presentation and some good template letters. We used this to write our own letter to parents and hope this will encourage at-home support for what’s being taught in the classroom.
A RECOMMENDED RESOURCE
In summary, we’re very pleased with Discovery Education Health and Relationships. It’s a clear and well- structured programme, a complete solution which helps us deliver the new RHE curriculum with confidence. What’s more, our pupils love it. The interactive nature of the resources means they’re constantly engaged. We’d definitely recommend it to other schools.
