Philosophy & Ethics

Graham School was one of the first schools in North Yorkshire to sign the PSHE Association’s Charter reflecting our commitment to educating the whole student and not concentrating purely on academic outcomes.

Our Philosophy and Ethics curriculum is based on the PSHE Associations model which covers Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Sex Education and Living in the Wider World.

Philosophy and Ethics is delivered to all year groups in a discrete one hour lesson every fortnight. Year 7 to 11 also have aspects of the course delivered to them through drop down days and tutor time; this includes Economic Wellbeing, Citizenship, British Values, Careers and Character Development. As part of the Philosophy and Ethics programme, we also deliver the Archbishop Young Leader’s Award at Key Stage 3.

Assemblies are also instrumental to our deliver of Philosophy and Ethics and they are used to deliver key messages about acceptance, liberty, social intelligence, diversity and risk taking behaviours. Assemblies follow a British Values, SMSC, Character Building and Citizenship theme.  We often have outside speakers who deliver important messages to our students, such as the local police officers explaining the causes and effects of ant- social behaviour and the local road safety officer explaining how students can keep themselves safe.

As part of the discrete Philosophy and Ethics lessons we also cover statutory Religious Education at KS3 and KS4.  Students in Year 7, 8 and 9 all look at the religious beliefs set out in the North Yorkshire agreed syllabus, which includes the coverage of Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Islam. Christianity features across all year groups and in year 10 lessons, the students follow AQA’s Short Course in RS. Please see our separate statement on statutory Religious Education.

For more information, please see our Relationships, Sex Education and Health Education Policy as well as the Assembly Programme and the Philosophy and Ethics overview below.

If any families want more information about our programme, please download the DfE information leaflet below or call the school to arrange a meeting with Ms Jessup.

Assembly Rota 2022-23

Philosophy & Ethics Long Term Plan 2022-2023

SRE Leaflet