Abbotskerswell Introduction
Our Personal Development Leader across the school is Miss Gemma Smyth.
At Abbotskerswell School, we ensure the curriculum provided extends beyond the academic. We strive to support pupils to develop in many diverse aspects of life. Our intent is to provide for the high-quality personal development of all pupils.
We understand as the school is working with children, they are also being influenced by other factors in their home environment, their community and elsewhere. In turn, we teach pupils how to build key characteristics such as confidence, resilience, being aspirational, being respectful and having tolerance. We believe schools are crucial in preparing pupils for their adult lives, teaching them to understand how to engage with society and providing them with plentiful opportunities to do so.
Personal development is truly at the core of all we do at Abbotskerswell.
We are referring to Personal Development as the inclusion of PSHE, SRE, RE, SMSC, Citizenship, Character Development, Inclusion and Equality opportunities, British Values and Wider opportunities
Through Personal Development pupils learn from religions and world views about different ways of life in local, national and global contexts. They discover, explore and consider many different answers to questions about human identity, meaning and value. They learn to weigh up for themselves the value of wisdom from different communities, to disagree respectfully, to be reasonable in their responses to religions and world views and to respond by expressing insights into their own and others’ lives. They think rigorously, creatively, imaginatively and respectfully about their ideas in relation to religions and world views.
Living in and growing up in the diverse world of the 21st century will challenge all young people. An understanding of different faiths and beliefs has never seemed more relevant. Our Personal Development curriculum aims to prepare our children for the future by teaching them about a variety of faiths and beliefs as well as allowing them to consider big questions of spirituality and identity as well as questions of morality, such as poverty, discrimination and the use of limited resources as well as raising ethical questions about human reproductions, racial and religious prejudice and the role of politics in everyday life.
Our Personal Development curriculum is challenging, inspiring and fun. It supports our children to develop their levels of religious literacy and conceptual understanding. It teaches them how to articulate, with confidence, their ideas about religion, beliefs and spirituality. It allows our learners to understand religious and belief systems’ commitment to morality and social justice, to responsible stewardship of the environment and to deepening the experience of being human. Our curriculum enables pupils to explore Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, alongside Christianity, as well as exploring secular world views.
Personal Development promotes social and ethnic harmony and awareness of British values. Through the exploration of multiple identities and local communities, through visits to places of worship and meeting people from religious and belief communities, and through a deepening understanding of beliefs and practices, our aim is for children to come to an informed and empathetic understanding of different groups which will help promote cohesion and integration. Knowledge and skills developed by Personal Development contribute to pupils’ readiness to participate in life in modern, diverse Britain and in a plural world.
At Abbotskerswell School our curriculum design reflects our core values of Happy, Respectful, Responsible and Successful. Our Personal Development curriculum ensures that we cover these core values as well as the key skills and knowledge set out in the National Curriculum. Our Personal Development units demonstrate seven steps of effective learning: Movement, Games, Creativity, Challenge, Ownership, Meaning and Celebration. Teacher Research Groups (TRGs) enable staff to work collaboratively to plan exciting units of work.
In Personal Development the unit will often start with a big question that the children will learn about and research over the half term. Children have the opportunity to present their learning in a variety of ways such as a presentation, power point, poster, debate or an assembly.