Personal, Social and Health Education - Exemplification in subjects - A Coherent Pedagogy for Secondary Schools

Personal, Social and Health Education
A Personal, Social and Health Education Lesson in Key Stage 3
Lesson focus: Establishing Ground Rules

Introduction
This lesson is fundamental to the effective teaching and learning of Personal, Social and Health Education, (PSHE).

Once negotiated Ground Rules have been established, referred to frequently and adhered to, teachers will be more confident in creating a safe environment in which neither they, nor pupils, will feel embarrassed or anxious about unintended or unexpected questions or comments.

Pupils will feel a sense of ownership of rules they have negotiated. The Ground Rules which have been agreed for PSHE will support broader class rules and school policies and procedures.

Using the Minimum Expected Year Group Standards to plan the progress of pupils' skills, knowledge, understanding and changes in values and attitudes, the teacher will enable pupils to work positively with their peers and observe PSHE Ground Rules while acknowledging particular aspects relating to confidentiality.

Committed and skillful PSHE specialists understand that the subject needs to be taught with a professionalism equal to any other.

There are boundaries to acceptable classroom practice.This lesson is where they are taught.

The lesson
The teacher deals with any administrative and pastoral issues as soon as the pupils arrive. The pupils know that they can sit where they like in PSHE lessons unless they are told otherwise.

In this lesson the teacher has identified friendship groups as appropriate for the Noughts and Crosses activity because it allows pupils to interact freely.

The pupils arrive in the classroom to find that the resources for playing Noughts and Crosses are ready on the desks and the instructions for the paired activity are on the board/screen.

Their curiosity is aroused and they are wondering why they've been given such an apparently simple activity!
The pupils sit down and start the activity immediately and are quickly motivated and engaged.

At the appropriate point, the teacher gives a familiar signal to indicate that the teaching is about to start.

This may be moving to a certain position, or making a formal greeting. The teacher explains the learning objectives and talks about PSHE which may be a new curriculum subject for some pupils.

Pupils are shown the PSHE programme outline showing how the topics are planned in half-termly modules. The teacher draws their attention to topics of potential controversy such as Sex and Relationship Education, Drug Education, Crime and Personal Histories.

By using the key vocabulary the teacher makes links with issues to be covered in this lesson. At the end of this introductory episode, pupils are prepared for their subsequent discussions.

Key vocabulary is displayed prominently to provide prompts as to the concepts to be dealt with, and for spelling purposes.

In the next phase of the lesson questions are used to encourage the pupils to consider the purpose of rules in the Noughts and Crosses activity.

Three pairs of pupils, identified by the teacher from observations of the pupils during the task and the questioning session as having clear ideas about this, will be asked to feed back their thoughts.

Without repeating pupils’ answers, the teacher models active listening and explains that this is important to encourage thinking and clear oracy skills.

Pupils are steered from talking about the specific rules of a game to developing a more generalised appreciation of rules, followed by an exploration of their more abstract application.

This involves a move from lower to higher order questions.To help them develop their understanding of the purpose of rules pupils are asked to imagine a game of football without rules, traffic movement without adherence to the Highway Code, the serving of school lunch without an orderly system.

This is demonstrated more powerfully when the teacher presents examples from literature, the media or politics, for example, the novel 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding, the film 'Home Alone', or the former apartheid laws of South Africa.

In this phase of the lesson, the teacher reinforces the concept by giving examples of the impact of rules, emphasising the point that rules must be seen to be fair for their meaningful adoption.

The teacher explains the term 'buzz groups' and how working in this way is used in PSHE because it is important to be able to share ideas and learn from those who are not necessarily chosen partners.

Pupils will benefit from this opportunity to encounter a range of views.

The horseshoe arrangement of seating lends itself to an easy re-forming of groups appropriate to a variety of tasks.

The teacher shows, using the formation of one buzz group, how the class will move to the next task as presented on the screen / board.

The role of scribe is explained, as is the need to adhere to the seven-minute time allocation and how to do this.

Pupils will work now in groups of about four, one being the scribe who will also feed back the group’s ideas as written on the separate cards.
Keeping the groups to time ensures that they stay focused on the task.

After seven minutes, scribes present their group’ ideas to the whole class and the teacher assists by grouping and recording the ideas to form summary statements about appropriate behaviour, respect, and ways of working successfully in PSHE.

This process ensures that the Ground Rules are pupil led. After the teacher writes up the summary Ground Rules on a large sheet, the pupils are asked randomly to give examples of how each rule will apply in their future work together.

Group work skills, such as listening, letting others contribute, negotiation and reflection will need to be taught in future PSHE lessons. Further reference is made to the learning objectives to acknowledge how these will link with future work or life situations.

The teacher explains confidentiality issues and emphasises that this will be looked at in more depth with pupils as needs arise in future.

Pupils are reminded that sensitive or controversial issues will be raised in PSHE lessons, and that they are expected to show respect and consideration for each other when they talk about experiences, values and beliefs which may arouse strong feelings.

The teacher uses this as an opportunity to explain the school's policy about confidentiality and disclosures to the pupils.

The signing of the Ground Rules sheet by all pupils, teachers and relevant others such as support staff, and its display, gives more credibility to this work and ensures it being carried forward to future lessons.

Pupils are asked to reflect on what they have learnt in this lesson and how they learnt it.

This enables the teacher to measure the responses against the learning objectives and strategies chosen and assess these for future planning.

Finally, pupils are given examples of how Ground Rules will be important to future PSHE lessons, and asked to consider, between now and the next lesson, further examples of the need for rules that they have identified in news events during the week.