Personal Development

Personal development is both a subject and a school ethos. It is reflected in our school vision where we aim to provide learning opportunities that promote a sense of curiosity in our pupils, introducing them to new ideas and enabling them to develop their own interests and aspirations. 

We focus on teaching children how to navigate through life safely, happily and healthily. Children are growing up in a world that is constantly changing and it is the duty of all the staff at school in partnership with the parents teach the children transferable life skills. We teach children about the world around them, relationships, emotions, reproduction and health, as well as transferable skills to help with life. We consistently promote the British values through this work.

Restorative Behaviour Policy and British Values

We use a restorative behaviour policy which aims at role modelling empathy and solution based thinking. ‘Affective’ statements are used to help children think through the impact of their actions, referring to the behaviour rather than the person. The basis of this work is through the Unicef Rights, Respecting schools programme where the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are at the heart of a school's planning, policies, practice and ethos.  https://www.unicef.org.uk/rights-respecting-schools/ 

British Values are used as the basis for this solution based approach. The values of Democracy, Rule of Law, Respect and Tolerance (of those with different faiths and beliefs, and for those without faith) and Individual Liberty; promoting and reflecting life in modern Britain. 

RSHE - relationship, sex and health education

We enable our children to have the knowledge and understanding of how to keep themselves healthy, both physically and mentally, to support their long term well-being. We offer a bespoke RSHE curriculum which enables focus on diversity, differences and a celebration of each child’s unique qualities and additionally dovetail objectives through other subjects and through assemblies.

Our RHSE curriculum dovetails with our Restorative Behaviour Policy, teaching of Life Skills and the use of Democratic Circles. 

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Life skills and Democratic Circles

As part of this teaching we run a parallel strand of life skills which enables a focus on personal qualities and skills that are needed in every aspect of our daily lives. We also use and encourage critical thinking through structured use of questioning – this helps our children explore ideas and develop a respect for other opinions. 

Peer Mediators

We have selected and trained groups of children to help deal with minor squabbles and the everyday arguments that occur on the playground. They use simple techniques to help de-escalate conflict and encourage their peers to deal with the difficulty and move forwards. School staff are always on hand to help, but it is a real pleasure to watch young children work out solutions to their own problems. See here for more details on our Peer Mediation Scheme.