Year 2 PSHE Scheme of Work
Year 2 PSHE deepens the personal and social literacy pupils began building in Year 1. Pupils now examine their feelings and mental health with greater nuance, learning specific strategies for managing difficult emotions and understanding that mental health is just as important as physical health. They also begin to develop a more critical awareness of the world around them, exploring what makes relationships positive and safe, and encountering introductory ideas about money and financial wellbeing.
Units are designed to acknowledge the full range of pupils' lived experience while maintaining an inclusive, affirming classroom climate. The safety strand takes a particular focus on the distinction between safe and unsafe situations involving people pupils may or may not know, and pupils develop confidence in seeking help from trusted adults. By the end of KS1, pupils should have the language, knowledge and confidence to keep themselves safe, healthy and connected.
Expected prior knowledge
- ✓Ability to name a range of emotions and describe what may cause them.
- ✓Awareness of the qualities of friendship and why some behaviours are unkind.
- ✓Understanding that rules help keep us safe and that trusted adults are there to help.
- ✓Basic knowledge of what it means to look after our bodies through food, exercise and sleep.
Units across the year
Six half-term units covering all strands of the KS2 PSHE programme of study.
Being Healthy
- –Identify what it means to be healthy in body and mind.
- –Understand how food, exercise, sleep and hygiene contribute to overall health.
- –Develop personal responsibility for making healthy choices.
- –Create a weekly routine showing healthy habits: sleep, meals, exercise and hygiene.
- –Investigate food labels and categorise foods by nutritional value using simple criteria.
- –Design a healthy day plan that balances active time, rest, meals and screen time.
- –Discuss what our bodies and minds feel like when we are healthy versus when we are not well.
Feelings and Mental Health
- –Understand that mental health is an important part of our overall wellbeing.
- –Develop a broader vocabulary of emotions and recognise how feelings affect behaviour.
- –Practise simple strategies for managing difficult feelings.
- –Explore a wider emotions vocabulary using the feelings wheel, adding nuance beyond basic happy/sad/angry.
- –Discuss what happens in our bodies when we feel worried or anxious and identify calming strategies.
- –Create a personal wellbeing toolkit — a collection of strategies that help when feeling overwhelmed.
- –Role-play asking for help when a feeling becomes too difficult to manage alone.
Relationships and Friendships
- –Identify the characteristics of positive and negative relationships.
- –Understand that healthy friendships are built on respect, kindness and honesty.
- –Develop strategies for resolving conflict in a fair and calm way.
- –Sort relationship scenarios into positive and negative examples and discuss what makes each type feel different.
- –Explore conflict resolution through guided role-play, practising listening and compromise.
- –Discuss why it is important to have a range of friendships and what to do if a friend behaves unkindly.
- –Create a class guide to being a great friend, illustrated with pupil artwork.
Keeping Safe — Strangers and Trusted Adults
- –Understand the difference between strangers and trusted adults.
- –Know how to respond safely if approached by someone they do not know.
- –Identify the adults they can turn to for help in different situations.
- –Discuss the difference between a stranger and a trusted adult, using scenarios to explore nuance.
- –Practise the personal safety message: it is always safe to say no and to tell a trusted adult.
- –Create a personal safety network showing at least three trusted adults in their life.
- –Role-play how to seek help in an unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation.
Money and Financial Wellbeing
- –Understand what money is and how it is used in everyday life.
- –Recognise that money is earned through work and that it is a limited resource.
- –Begin to develop the concept of saving and making choices about spending.
- –Examine coins and notes and discuss what money looks like and how we use it.
- –Role-play a simple shop scenario, practising buying and giving change.
- –Explore the difference between things we need and things we want, and how this affects spending decisions.
- –Introduce the concept of saving by discussing what pupils might save up for and how.
Communities and Belonging
- –Understand the different communities pupils belong to and what connects people within them.
- –Recognise the diversity within communities and celebrate what makes each person unique.
- –Develop a sense of responsibility for contributing positively to their community.
- –Create a community web showing all the different groups each pupil belongs to and where these overlap.
- –Investigate a local community project and discuss how individuals working together can make a difference.
- –Design a class community project to improve the school environment in a small way.
- –Reflect on what makes their class community special and how they each contribute to it.
Progression into Year 3
In Year 3, pupils transition into KS2 and engage with PSHE at a deeper level of complexity. The relationships strand addresses bullying explicitly for the first time, examining the difference between conflict and bullying and developing bystander skills. Mental health is revisited with a broader range of coping strategies, and the online safety strand is introduced as a distinct area of study, reflecting pupils' growing engagement with digital technology.
Individual lesson plans
Full lesson frameworks — learning objectives, vocabulary, lesson structure, and common misconceptions — for each unit in this scheme.
View all Year 2 PSHE lesson plans →