How to turn September’s RSHE changes, December’s inclusion strategy deadline, delivering engaging PSHE lessons and boosting your wellbeing provision into one piece of work, not four.
The autumn ahead
Many school leaders are looking at the next two terms with a familiar feeling. Two statutory deadlines are arriving at once. From September 2026, every school must teach to the new RSHE guidance and hold an up-to-date written policy. By 31 December 2026, every school in England must publish an inclusion strategy mapped to the DfE’s seven inclusion themes.
Each arrives with its own documentation, its own training need and its own claim on a budget that’s already spoken for. And they land in the same term as everything else September brings.
This is along into how their school can deliver engaging PSHE lessons, and cover wellbeing in a way that supports a positive whole school culture.
What's actually changing
The new RSHE guidance strengthens what primary schools must cover on wellbeing: online safety, understanding change and loss including bereavement, and the communication skills and confidence children need to express their needs and set boundaries. Ahead of September, schools need to review their curriculum against the new requirements, update their policy and plan any staff training.
The inclusion strategy asks a different question of the same school: how does your provision help every child, including children with SEND, learn and belong? It must be published by 31 December 2026 against the seven DfE themes, and it arrives alongside the Inclusive Mainstream Fund, ring-fenced inclusion funding for every mainstream school in England from June 2026.
Underneath, it's one job
Here’s what the paperwork hides: children don’t experience PSHE, RSE, inclusion and wellbeing as separate subjects. Picture a Year 5 girl who learned in Tuesday’s lesson what her brain does when she feels anxious, and on Friday morning took herself through the calming routine she’d practised, unprompted, before a spelling test. Which document is that? The RSHE curriculum? The wellbeing offer? The inclusion strategy in action? It’s all of them, because underneath they share one foundation: children who understand their brains, can regulate their feelings, and feel they belong.
Schools that treat this autumn as one piece of work, not four, protect the two things September always threatens: staff time and budget.
Before you buy anything, map what you have
Take one page and four columns: PSHE, RSE, wellbeing, inclusion and SEND. For each, note what scheme or resource covers it, what it costs, what independent evidence sits behind it, and who leads it.
Many schools tell us the audit shows more coverage than they expected. Many also find the opposite problem: three subscriptions doing overlapping jobs, none of them joined up, and a PSHE lead spending more time administering schemes than leading culture. Either way, you’ll walk into September knowing three things: where the genuine gaps are against the new RSHE requirements, what you can already evidence against the seven inclusion themes, and whether your provision rests on evidence or on habit.
Where myHappymind fits
If the audit points you towards consolidation, this is the job myHappymind was built for. It is the only NHS backed programme of its kind, commissioned by NHS ICBs in more than 40 areas to build children’s mental health before problems start.
The core programme teaches every child the science of how their brain works, in one 20-minute lesson a week with five minutes of preparation. myHappymind Plus completes your PSHE curriculum, which turns the September review into a mapping exercise rather than a shopping trip. And myHappymind Belong is our dedicated inclusion programme: it delivers against the seven DfE inclusion themes, provides the strategy documentation every school in England must publish by 31 December 2026, and includes staff training and specialist resources. Belong’s strategy builder maps your existing provision to the seven themes, so the document you publish reflects the work your school is already doing rather than a template written for somebody else’s.
Belong typically uses a small share of a school’s Inclusive Mainstream Fund allocation, leaving the majority for other inclusion priorities such as classroom adaptations, TA training and family engagement. And inclusion is designed in, not bolted on: every lesson comes in two versions, and the low-arousal one was built with special schools.
The evidence, not the adjectives
Consolidation only makes sense if the programme you consolidate onto can carry the weight, so judge it on independent evidence. The Centre for Mental Health’s evaluation, Supporting a Whole-School Approach to Wellbeing (May 2026), examined the programme’s whole-school impact independently. In Kirklees, SENCOs regained around 10 working days a year (Kirklees Impact Report, May 2025), time that went back to the children with the most complex needs. And the programme won the Bett 2026 Transformational Impact Award and BESA’s award for Evidence and Impact, both judged on exactly the question your governors will ask: does it work?
Three things to do before the summer ends
First, run the one-page audit of your PSHE, RSE, wellbeing and inclusion provision. Second, map the gaps against September’s RSHE requirements and December’s seven themes. Third, decide once, with your governors, whether to renew the pieces or consolidate onto one evidenced foundation.
An hour of mapping in July is worth a week of untangling in October.
Download your free audit template
If it helps, we can share the audit template and walk you and your PSHE lead through Belong’s strategy builder before term ends. Book a discovery call to find out more.
Interested in Finding out More?
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