Relationships teaching for children gets top mark thanks to Psychology academic

Helping children remain ‘fast friends’ and navigate the complex world of relationships is one step easier thanks to materials developed by a University of Northampton academic.

Our Class has been co-developed by Dr Rachel Maunder, Associate Professor in Psychology, and is a set of educational resources for primary school children aged 7-11.

Our Class is free to access and provides teachers with high-quality, safe and effective lesson plans and resources to be used as part of the Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) Education curriculum, most of which is statutory under Department for Education guidance.

Our Class focuses on the fictitious Bankwell Primary School and the sessions cover increasingly complex friendship dynamics. Each lesson is based on an illustrated story featuring a character from the school who has a friendship challenge.

The learning activities help pupils reflect on the story and how the characters can resolve their friendship dilemmas. These include coping strategies for dealing with arguments and falling out, what being popular means, and how ‘new kids on the block’ can fit in.

As a reflection of the value of Our Class, the resources recently gained the PSHE Association’s Quality Mark, which is awarded exclusively to resources that meet the Association’s best practice principles for safe and effective PSHE education.

Dr Maunder co-developed the resources with Professor Claire Monks from the University of Greenwich, says: “As any parent knows, the friendships and relationships children form with their peers are incredibly important for their wellbeing and can be very challenging to understand and deal with.

“We are extremely pleased to have an official ‘stamp of approval’ from the PSHE Association for these resources. Our Class adds an extra ‘brick in the PSHE wall’ for teachers, classroom support staff and other education professionals to demystify peer-to-peer relationships for children to help them on their way to social success. It’s also a great way for schools to know they are covering the required content on friendships as part of the statutory requirements for Relationships Education.”

There will be an official launch event for the Our Class material on Thursday 9 March from 5-pm. The guest speaker will be Victoria Pugh, Senior Lecturer in Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education at University of Worcester. For more information and to reserve a space, please book using this link.

Find out more about Our Class and download the resources.