PSD (Personal and Social Development)

Students have two lessons of PSD per 10 day timetable in Year 10 and Year 11. There is no final accredited examination. The course includes elements of:

Careers
Citizenship
PSHE
Religious Education

(SMSC - social, moral, spiritual and cultural - elements are involved in all these areas and there are individual ‘special day’ lessons added where appropriate eg. Halloween, Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day, Christmas, Holocaust Memorial Day).

The PSD course enables students to develop the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to keep themselves healthy and safe, and prepare for life and work in modern Britain.

Skills and attributes developed include: resilience, self-esteem, risk-management, team-working and critical thinking.

These skills and attributes are needed to manage many of the critical opportunities, challenges and responsibilities students will face as they grow up and in adulthood.

PSD covers relevant issues, such as: abuse, drugs, the impact of the internet, the dangers of extremism and radicalisation, relationships and sex education and the importance of physical activity and diet for a healthy lifestyle.

Legal Requirements

Ashby School ensures that a comprehensive programme of PSD is in place to respond to the demands of the Department for Education and the national curriculum that all state schools ‘should make provision for personal, social, health and economic education, drawing on good practice'.

Under section 78 of the Education Act 2002 and the Academies Act 2010, schools must provide a ‘balanced and broadly-based curriculum’ which promotes ‘the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life’.

Schools also have duties in relation to promoting student wellbeing and student safeguarding (Children Act 2004) and community cohesion (Education Act 2006). Paragraph 41 of statutory guidance on Keeping Children Safe in Education, the Department for Education states that 'schools should consider how children may be taught about safeguarding, including online, through teaching and learning opportunities.’

PSD makes a major contribution to Ashby School fulfilling these requirements.