Ilchester Community Primary School

What is Jigsaw, the mindful approach to PSHE, and how does it work?

 Jigsaw is a whole-school approach and embodies a positive philosophy and creative teaching and learning activities to nurture children’s development as compassionate and well-rounded human beings as well as building their capacity to learn. Jigsaw is a comprehensive and completely original PSHE Education programme for the whole primary school from ages 3-11. Written by teachers and grounded in sound psychology, it also includes all the statutory requirements for Relationships and Health Education, and Sex Education is also included in the Changing Me Puzzle (unit).

Jigsaw has two main aims for all children:

• To build their capacity for learning

• To equip them for life Jigsaw brings together PSHE Education, compulsory Relationships and Health Education, emotional literacy, mindfulness, social skills and spiritual development.

It is designed as a whole school approach, with all year groups working on the same theme (Puzzle) at the same time at their own level. There are six Puzzles(half-term units of work) and each year group is taught one lesson per week. All lessons are delivered in an age- and stage-appropriate way so that they meet children’s needs. The six pieces are: 

Relationships & Sex Education

An important part of the Jigsaw PSHE programme is delivered through the 'Relationships' and 'Changing Me' puzzle pieces which are covered in the summer term. 

There are four main aims of teaching RSE:

• To enable children to understand and respect their bodies
• To help children develop positive and healthy relationships appropriate to their age and development
• To support children to have positive self-esteem and body image
• To empower them to be safe and safeguarded.

Each year group will be taught appropriate to their age and developmental stage. At no point will a child be taught something that is inappropriate; and if a question from a child arises and the teacher feels it would be inappropriate to answer, (for example, because of its mature or explicit nature), this information with be shared with you by your child’s class teacher. The question will not be answered to the child or class if it is outside the remit of that year group’s programme.

Below is a summary of RSE coverage within the Jigsaw scheme for each year group:

Health/Sex education
• Foundation Stage - Growing up: how we have changed since we were babies
• Year 1 - Boys’ and girls’ bodies; naming body parts
• Year 2 - Boys’ and girls’ bodies; body parts and respecting privacy,  ‘PANTS’  (which parts of the body are private and why this is )
• Year 3 - How babies grow and how boys’ and girls’ bodies change as they grow older
• Year 4 - Internal and external reproductive body parts, body changes in girls ( and menstruation )
• Year 5 /6 - Puberty for boys and girls, and conception to birth of a baby

Relationships

Further information about how the school approaches the teaching of Relationships and Sex Education through the Jigsaw can be found by clicking below

British Values

Jigsaw contributes, as a good PSHE programme should, to the British Values agenda very significantly, both through the direct teaching of information and through the experiential learning children will enjoy.

The 5 strands of the British Values agenda have been mapped across every Puzzle and every Piece (lesson).

We link our whole school assemblies to the Jigsaw Themes and Values being taught and applied through the PSHE curriculum. We are proud of the way we promote emotional wellbeing for all our pupils through our Jigsaw programme which underpins the whole of our curriculum.

Promotion of British Values ​ ​                                                                                                                                                                          

 Through the promotion of our own school values, the jigsaw programme, the wider curriculum and extra-curricular opportunities we aim to:

• enable children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence; 
• enable students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England; 
• encourage children to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely; 
• enable children to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England; 
• further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling children to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures; 
• encourage respect for other people; 
• encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England. 

The list below describes the understanding and knowledge expected of our pupils as a result of promoting fundamental British values:

• an understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process; 
• an appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety; 
• an understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law; 
• an acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour; and 
• an understanding of the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.