Personal Development

Subject Statement:

Why is PSHE education important for students in our school?

 

Effective PSHE education supports the development of physically, emotionally and socially healthy young people, equipped to live healthy, safe, productive and responsible lives and to keep themselves and others safe. (PSHE Association)

At St Peter's we know that the personal development, risk awareness and gaining of life skills is incredibly important in order for our students to go on to be successful contributors to the local community.  We aim to provide students with an all-round education developing the whole person, which will serve as a basis for a successful and fulfilled future as students, employees, employers and parents. We aim to motivate students to learn, aspire and exceed in their examination results and develop core employment capabilities for adult life.  We are following the Cambridgeshire Personal Development Framework, which includes delivery of Citizenship and Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education.

We are developing a diverse and carefully mapped curriculum across years 7-13 which actively develops the students’ awareness of key issues and helps them to make positive choices in the future (for more information on the kind of topics covered please see the curriculum map in the drop down menu to the left).  With reference to the Cambridgeshire Children and Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Survey 2022, we focus on making educated decisions about alcohol consumption, contraception and healthy lifestyles, developing awareness of the dangers of smoking and drugs, and we encourage the consideration of British Values and the value of SMSC regarding LGBTQI+, relationships and bullying.

We want our young people to be healthy, both mentally and physically, form strong and safe relationships and develop an awareness about the world and their place within it. We address the topics of consent, protected characteristics and sexual harassment in our curriculum in all key stages.  When they leave us, we will have prepared them for the world of work and taught them the skills to be able to lead happy and healthy adult lives.  Personal Development is not formally assessed, but key questions from the Cambridgeshire Personal Development Framework are asked every lesson and retrieval tasks eg recap sessions, student voice activities, take place after completion of each unit – Health and Wellbeing, Relationships and Living in the Wider World.  

Our achievement of the Healthy Schools’ award has supported developments within the RSE curriculum, such as increased opportunities for physical exercise at break and lunchtimes, a focus on resilience at the start of the year 7 and a travel plan supporting sustainable and safer travel to school.

We aim to provide a bespoke Personal Development experience for students identified through safeguarding concerns eg supporting with counselling for those with mental health issues, and with youth worker input for those making poor behaviour choices in the community.

The design of our Personal Development program of study plans a spiral curriculum delivered in a variety of ways:

• In Key stage 5, through outside speakers, collapsed sessions in school and visits.
• In Key Stage 4, through a combination of option subject lesson time, collapsed curriculum days, events including outside speakers, and assemblies.
• In Key Stage 3, through a combination of one hour lessons, plus a weekly assembly, tutor times, lessons with cross-curricular links and visiting speakers.  Students have one lesson per week. 

Personal Development in Assemblies

As well as Personal Development lessons (please see the curriculum map in the tab below), as part of our Personal Development provision students have the opportunity to access PD themes in assemblies throughout the year and also benefit from input from outside speakers who visit at different points in the school year (please see tables below).  SMSC activities, during Tutor Time on a weekly basis, provide an additional way to encourage students to engage in thinking about current affairs of local, national or global concern, including issues relating to citizenship and relationships. 

 

ASSEMBLIES IN a TYPICAL YEAR
Physical Health and Mental Wellbeing	Global Citizenship	Relationships and Sex Education	Careers	SMSC
MacMillan cancer	European day of languages	Pride day	Women in STEM and Art	Christmas
World mental health day	Remembrance day	E-safety	Business for World Entrepreneurs Day	Easter
Road safety week	Christmas Jumper day and foodbank
National obesity awareness week	International Women’s day
Healthy eating	World book day
Children’s mental health	Red Nose Day
	World poetry day
	World music day

 

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT DELIVERY VIA REGULAR OUTSIDE SPEAKERS
Physical Health and Mental Wellbeing	Global Citizenship	Relationships and Sex Education	Careers	SMSC
It's on the ball - testicular cancer charity Year 10, 11 and 6th form	Epic Risk Management – Gambling and Gaming addiction awareness Year 10, 11 and 6th form	Chelsea's Story - Child Sexual Exploitation, personal safety and consent Year 9 and 6th form	Life skills Talent Foundry Charity – virtual - Barclays -  Finance Year 9	Kamal Hyman – motivational workshop 6th form
Smashed Virtual Tour - Underage drinking and alcohol risks Year 7 and 8	Parliament UK All year groups
Magpas – CPR, First Aid Year 7
CASUS – drug and alcohol misuse 6th form

 

 

Cross-curricular delivery of Personal Development

A number of subjects deliver Personal Development topics as the table below shows:

 

PD TOPIC PHYSICAL HEALTH AND MENTAL WELLBEING   Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4 Mental wellbeing English, ICT, PE Drama, ICT, PE, Biology Internet safety and harms ICT ICT Physical health and fitness PE PE/Sports Science, Biology Healthy eating Food Technology, PE, Biology Food Technology, PE/Sports Science, Biology Drugs, alcohol and tobacco Biology Biology, Sports Studies Health and prevention Food Technology Food Technology, Biology Basic First Aid LAE   RELATIONSHIPS AND SEX EDUCATION     Key Stage 3 Key Stage 4 Families English English, Biology Respectful relationships, including friendships English, ICT English, ICT Online and media ICT English, ICT Intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health Biology English, Biology CITIZENSHIP English, Humanities English, Humanities Financial Capability   History, Business Studies Careers and employability English, Science Geography