PSHE and RSE

Personal development is embedded across the curriculum, with stand-alone PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) sessions addressing key themes, as well as individualised one-to-one work tailored to learners’ needs. Topics such as child exploitation, sexual health and online safety are delivered sensitively by trained staff and external partners such as Barnardo’s and Safer Options.

The PSHE curriculum strives to prepare our learners for adult life and covers key topics from taxes to consent. This ensures learners are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to build healthy relationships and make informed life decisions.

LPW School recognises the specific challenges faced by many of our learners, including postcode divides and city-wide risks. We know our learners well and use a key worker system to support each learner to have a “triangle of trust”, ensuring they always have access to three trusted adults. Some learners who need additional support in the community will be assigned an LPW engagement worker to provide bespoke one-to-one support. This can include advocating for the student in meetings with families and professionals, helping raise levels of engagement in school and the community and having challenging conversations about risks and decision making.

Developing students’ social and communication skills is central to the school culture. Students and staff eat breakfast and lunch together each day, creating community spirit and modelling healthy social interactions. Meals are prepared by an on-site chef. These are nutritious dishes cooked from scratch that are inspired by global cuisines. This ensures that students receive at least one healthy meal daily. Staff model healthy communication as well as our LPW values (Collaborative, Brave, Inclusive, Compassionate and Innovative) to students throughout the day. We use wondering questions to learn more about our students and apply a PACE approach (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy) during interactions.