Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) at Gravesend Grammar School aims to provide students with the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage their lives, now and in the future.
We aim to provide students with the understanding they need to lead confident, healthy independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens.
We believe the high-quality PSHE curriculum at GGS enables students to:
We follow a bespoke, tailor-made, PSHE programme that was developed to serve the different stages and ages of pupils as they develop. In its development, we considered national, local and school priorities as well as making sure the curriculum meets the requirements of the new statutory Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education guidance for schools.
We also cover a range of other carefully chosen topics and themes which have a strong emphasis on safeguarding, including online safety, bullying, mental health and well-being and personal safety. Where relevant we use professional organisations to support our delivery; from support to develop lessons to running sessions and delivering assemblies. Our ‘spiral curriculum’ approach means that students meet and revisit key topics on a number of occasions, exploring themes in increasingly greater depth and in an age-appropriate manner, as they move up through the school.
“My two sons often come home and tell us about their PSHE lessons. We are so impressed with the variety and relevance of the content, and how this is delivered.”
Parent Mental Health & Wellbeing
At Gravesend Grammar School, we are committed to supporting the mental health and well-being of our students and staff. We strive to provide a caring environment where everyone in the community can feel listened to and supported.
Supporting students’ mental well-being is taken seriously. We continue to improve our provision through staff training, student focused activities. We work together with other organisations that specialise in the mental and emotional well-being of children and adults (including We Are With You and our local Mind Charity among others). We ensure all students have access to PSHE lessons, assemblies and tutor times that cover aspects of social emotional and mental health awareness and learning. Alongside this provision, we have trained counsellors and run a variety of nurture groups for students. We have a Mental Health Lead Teacher, four staff that are trained in Mental Health First Aid and we are committed to the Educational Staff Wellbeing Charter.
We want to make sure that all of our students and our parents/carers feel confident in the knowledge that, should their child be experiencing any level of mental ill health, there is support available at GGS to manage this.
We also provide a tailor-made online student Mental Health advice and signposting website and an online ‘concern button’ so that students can easily refer themselves and get the support and advice they need. Students can also speak to any member of staff about their or their peers' mental health concerns and this will be dealt with but our support teams.