The Six Puzzles (Themes/Units of work)

Our school follows the Jigsaw PSHE scheme of work.

There are six Puzzles in Jigsaw (quickly identified by their colour scheme) designed to progress in sequence from the beginning of each academic year:

Term 1: Being Me in My World

Term 2: Celebrating Difference (including anti-bullying)

Term 3: Dreams and Goals

Term 4: Healthy Me

Term 5: Relationships

Term 6: Changing Me (including Sex Education)

Each Puzzle has six Pieces (lessons) which work towards an ‘end product’, for example, The School Learning Charter or The Garden of Dreams and Goals.

The whole school works on the same Puzzle at the same time, meaning that each Puzzle can be launched with a whole-school assembly and learning can be celebrated by the whole school in a meaningful way.

The Jigsaw Charter

• We take turns to speak
• We use kind and positive words
• We listen to each other
• We have the right to pass
• We only use names when giving compliments or when being positive
• We respect each other’s privacy (confidentiality)

This is just an example.  Each class will work on creating their own rules during the first jigsaw piece.  These rules will then make up the Whole School Learning Charter.

The Structure of the Pieces (lessons) in Jigsaw

The creation of Jigsaw is motivated by the genuine belief that if attention is paid to supporting children’s personal development in a structured and developmentally appropriate way, this will not only improve their capacity to learn (across the curriculum) but will ultimately improve their life chances. That’s why Jigsaw is completely child-focussed. This is reflected in the innovative way that Pieces (lessons) are structured, which also reflects understanding of the learning process.

In designing the Pieces, we imagine that children are asking the teacher to:

• Improve their social skills to better enable collaborative learning (Connect us)
• Relax their bodies and calm their minds to prepare them for learning (Calm me)
• Help the brain to focus on specific learning intentions (Open my mind)
• Initiate new learning (Tell me or show me)
• Facilitate learning activities to reinforce the new learning (Let me learn)
• Support them in reflecting on their learning and personal development (Help me reflect)

Using these child-centred headings for the sections of each Piece is very significant.