School Closure Offers Practical PSHE Lesson

Practical PSHE lesson (Personal, Social and Health Education) opportunities are all around us if we take the time to notice.

For example, we recently got a notice that the local water company was cutting off the school supply while they did some maintenance work. Schools cannot legally be open with children in them when there is no water supply for many reasons, not least hygiene. However, rather than tell the parents that they would have to reschedule their day and pick their children up early, we took the opportunity to hold a practical PSHE lesson.

We learned about public transport timetables and found a tram to the local shopping centre. There, the children each had a personal budget to cover snacks and lunch. They had to be sure that they had enough money to buy a healthy meal and not just spend it all on sweets!

Once they had decided on what they wanted, they had to queue up, order and pay. This might seem like a simple part of everyday life to an adult but it involves a whole range of social and interpersonal skills, not to mention building enough self confidence to use a few words of another language to get the job done!

After their real-life training, they all headed off to the playground in the shopping centre to relax and mingle with other children before heading back by tram to be picked up from school.

Do you think you can guess which part of the whole lesson they enjoyed the most?