R(S)HE Curriculum

The RSHE curriculum was updated in September 2026. New guidance builds positively upon what we already teach, with a stronger focus on the realities children face today, particularly online.

For primary-aged children, the key updates include:

• Enhanced Online Safety: Greater emphasis on navigating digital spaces safely, understanding age-restricted content, and recognising online boundaries.
• Mental Health & Emotional Wellbeing: Expanded focus on helping children identify and manage complex feelings, including building resilience, and understanding grief, loss, and loneliness.
• Practical Personal Safety: New, explicit content to help children recognise risks around roads, railways, fire, and water safety.
• Body Protection & Safeguarding: Reaffirming best practice by teaching children accurate anatomical vocabulary for body parts. This is a vital safeguarding tool that reduces stigma and empowers children to speak up if they ever feel unsafe.
• Diverse Families: Ensuring our lessons continue to reflect and respect the diverse family structures within our modern British society (such as single parents, same-sex parents, foster carers, and blended families).

At Hartley, we will also be teaching sex education in Year 6, as recommended by the DfE. Sex education is non-statutory, which means you have the right to withdraw your young person from these lessons.

Approach to Teaching

At Hartley Primary School, we use Oak National Academy's PSHE resources to support our high-quality personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education. These age-appropriate lessons help our children develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to make positive choices, build healthy relationships, stay safe, and support their emotional wellbeing. Using Oak Academy ensures a consistent and engaging approach that reflects our commitment to nurturing happy, confident and respectful learners.

1. Meets Statutory Requirements

The resources support the delivery of the statutory Relationships Education and Health Education curriculum for primary schools. Lessons are carefully planned to ensure children develop the knowledge and understanding expected at each stage of their education.

2. Supports Our Whole-School Approach

PSHE is embedded across school life at Hartley Primary School. The Oak resources complement our wider approach to promoting positive behaviour, wellbeing, safeguarding, inclusion and our school values, ensuring consistent messages are reinforced throughout the school day.

3. Promotes Children's Wellbeing

Lessons help children understand their emotions, build resilience and develop strategies for maintaining positive mental health and emotional wellbeing, enabling them to thrive both in and out of school.

4. Builds Positive Relationships and Keeps Children Safe

Children learn about respect, kindness, healthy friendships, family relationships, personal boundaries and how to recognise and respond to risks, including staying safe online.

5. Provides High-Quality, Inclusive Learning

Oak National Academy offers engaging, evidence-informed and age-appropriate lessons that support all learners. The progressive curriculum helps children build confidence, independence and the knowledge and skills they need as they grow.

Policy

Read our RSHE Primary policy, which includes the curriculum map and how we will communicate with families.

Contact Details

The RSHE Lead at Hartley Primary School is Stella Ogunsanya.

Please contact the school via info@hartley.lihtrust.uk if you have any questions.

Curriculum

At Hartley, we use resources from Oak National Academy to support the delivery of our high-quality Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education. These resources help ensure a structured, age-appropriate curriculum that supports pupils’ personal development and wellbeing.

During the Summer Term 2026, we consulted with parents, staff and pupils to review the PSHE curriculum, including the content and order in which topics are taught. This collaborative approach ensured that the curriculum reflects the needs and priorities of our school community. Feedback from this process was shared with Oak National Academy, who responded by adapting elements of their materials to better meet these needs.

View the curriculum.

If you have any questions about the curriculum, please email info@hartley.lihtrust.uk.

Consultations

Please find below the consultation slides that were shared with parents during the summer term 2026:

for website hps master parent consultation.pdf