Personal Development
Our Personal Development programme is designed to prepare each and every one of our students for a safe, healthy and successful adult life.
We have broken down our curriculum into 4 keys areas; Health and Wellbeing, Relationships, Living in the wider world and Citizenship. Here is a summary of the areas we cover in each of these themes below:
How is Personal Development taught?
In order to give our students the best possible experiences, we deliver Personal Development in a number of ways:
All students receive an assembly linked to the PD programme each week, which is then followed up by a V@B session the next day to give students time to reflect on the content in their tutor group. They also receive a tutor session each week dedicated to one area of PD.
Some aspects of PD are taught through subjects so we can make use of teacher expertise. For example, the maths department teach elements of the finance education and Science teach some of our drugs education. In year’s 7 and 8, students also get dedicated Relationships and Sex education lessons.
In year 10, all students take part in 6 Personal Development days across the year. These are done in tutor groups and each group will rotate around the days planned activities, ensuring all students get access to all of the activities across the year. They have 2 days of community action where they will spend 2 days out in the local community together with 4 days in school which will each focus on our 4 personal development strands; Health and wellbeing, Relationships, Living in the wider world and Citizenship.
We also welcome a whole range of guest speakers into school throughout the year to deliver talks and workshops on key areas of the PD programme in an engaging way. We have built an excellent relationship with our local branch of Nationwide who come into school and deliver finance education to both KS3 and KS4 students. We have an annual visit from Loudmouth Theatre, who are an innovative theatre in education company that run relationships programmes through interactive drama performances and workshops. We also have regular visits from the local police who support various aspects of our PD programme.
As well as all of this, we have our annual Wellbeing showcase where we invite various local organisations into school that are here to support the students’ social and mental wellbeing both now and when they leave school. Students get the opportunity to talk face to face to these organisations and get a real understanding of how they can support them.
We send out Personal Development newsletter to parents and carers at the start of each half term to let you know what is happening in school. Please look out for them in your inbox as conversations started in school will have much more impact if you can continue these conversations at home.