SPHERE

SPHERE Curriculum Intent & Information

The Sphere Curriculum aims to equip students with essential skills for life; it intends to develop the whole child through carefully planned and resourced lessons that develop the knowledge, skills and attributes children need to protect and enhance their well-being. Through these lessons, Students learn how to stay safe and healthy, build and maintain successful relationships and become active citizens, responsibly participating in society around them.

The core units of Mental Health & Wellbeing, Relationships, Sex and Health Education and Living in the Wider World aim to cover a wide range of the social and emotional aspects of learning, enabling students to develop their identity and self-esteem as active, confident members of their community. The themes and topics support social, moral, spiritual and cultural development as well as equality and diversity. It also provides students with protective teaching on essential safeguarding issues, developing their knowledge of when and how they can ask for help.

The curriculum is prioritised for the context and needs of our local area to provide relevant knowledge for all students to both broaden and deepen their understanding of local and national issues. It is also important that students recognise this within their SPHERE lessons and can see how the knowledge acquired through looking at one issue can be transferable to other contexts.

SPHERE Key concepts:

● Identity (their personal qualities, attitudes, skills, attributes and achievements and what influences these)
● Relationships (including different types and in different settings)
● A healthy (including physically, emotionally and socially) balanced lifestyle (including within relationships, work-life, exercise and rest, spending and saving and diet)
● Risk (identification, assessment and how to manage risk rather than simply the avoidance of risk for self and others) and safety (including behaviour and strategies to employ in different settings)
● Diversity and equality (in all its forms)
● Children’s Rights (including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), responsibilities (including fairness and justice) and consent (in different contexts)
● Change (as something to be managed) and resilience (the skills, strategies and ‘inner resources’ we can draw on when faced with challenging change or circumstance)
● Power (how it is used and encountered in a variety of contexts including persuasion, bullying, negotiation and ‘win-win’ outcomes)
● Careers (including enterprise, employability and economic understanding)

Curriculum Information:

Sphere is taught through weekly timetabled lessons at both key stages 3 and 4, plus additional opportunities across the curriculum and enrichment activities including external visitors and theatre productions. The curriculum is spiral in design with each key concept revisited in each year group using age-appropriate content.

Citizenship Curriculum Intent & Information

The curriculum also helps to provide students with knowledge, skills and understanding to prepare them to play a full and active part in society. In particular, citizenship education allows students to develop an awareness and understanding of democracy, government and how laws are made and upheld. It also prepares students to take their place in society as responsible citizens, manage their money well and make sound financial decisions.

Curriculum information:

The Curriculum aims to ensure that all students:

● acquire a sound knowledge and understanding of how the United Kingdom is governed, its political system and how citizens participate actively in its democratic systems of government
● develop a sound knowledge and understanding of the role of law and the justice system in our society and how laws are shaped and enforced
● develop an interest in, and commitment to, participation in volunteering as well as other forms of responsible activity, that they will take with them into adulthood
● are equipped with the skills to think critically and debate political questions, to enable them to manage their money on a day-to-day basis, and plan for future financial needs.

Healthy Schools Excellence Award