Queen Elizabeth’s- Personal Development 2022-23

Intent

The intention of the Personal Development curriculum at Queen Elizabeth’s is to encourage students to become respectful, reflective, and resilient individuals who make informed choices in their lives to keep themselves healthy and safe, and to develop life skills which will enable them to make a positive contribution to the wider community.

The curriculum encourages students to learn more about themselves as growing and changing individuals within an increasingly complex world. It is inclusive and tackles the moral, social and cultural issues of growing up whilst providing students with opportunities to learn about British Values and appreciate what it means to be a member of a diverse society. Our students are encouraged to develop their sense of self-worth by playing a positive role in contributing to school life and the wider community.

Implementation

Personal Development at Queen Elizabeth’s takes a competencies-based approach and is split into 3 core themes:

• Independence and aspirations
• Autonomy and advocacy
• Choices and influences

Our learning journey is designed to allow all students the opportunity to develop competencies through the context of different topic areas, each with its own knowledge content. For example, ‘developing empathy, compassion and communication’ can be taught through the context of identifying and challenging bullying which would include the relevant factual knowledge.

The Personal Development curriculum is delivered in a number of ways.

All students attend a weekly assembly and these encourage a sense of community whilst providing the opportunity to deliver key messages related to our core values. Assemblies are delivered by senior management, year leaders, subject leaders and students as well as visiting speakers.

Personal Development is taught for one hour a week at Key Stage 3 and one hour per fortnight at Key Stage 4. The content is delivered in 6 week blocks to allow a range of competencies and topics to be covered each academic year. Our content is linked to our core values and our curriculum is designed to be proactive whilst allowing flexibility to enable us to be reactive to issues current within the school and wider community.

Personal Development is a ‘whole school’ subject and as such, it is embedded within our whole school curriculum and school ethos. Personal Development is key to the development of our students values in order for them to become a well-rounded citizen in a forever changing community. It is essentially taught by all members of our school community as we work together to ensure our students leave Queen Elizabeth’s with the ability to become the person they decide to be.

Impact

By the time students leave Queen Elizabeth’s at the end of Year 11 they will have had the following opportunities:

• Be on their way to becoming healthy, open minded, respectful, socially and morally responsible, active members of society.
• Appreciate difference and diversity.
• Recognise and apply the British Values of Democracy, Tolerance, Mutual respect, Rule of law and Liberty.
• Be able to understand and manage their emotions and look after their mental health and well-being.
• Be able to develop positive, healthy relationship with their peers both now and in the future.
• Understand the physical aspects involved in RSE at an age appropriate level.
• Have respect for themselves and others.
• Work towards having positive self esteem.

Progress is assessed through a combination of teacher led assessment and pupil self-and peer assessment.

At Queen Elizabeth’s baseline assessment activities and endpoint assessment activities are used to demonstrate progress. Statements of progression, student voice feedback and online forms quizzes are also used to support the assessment process and provide opportunities for teachers to check for any misconceptions.

• BBC article on talking about sex with your child
• Brook resources that you can share with your child
• Big Talk Education’s Ten Top Tips on ‘the talk’
• ThinkUKnow advice on Supporting Positive Sexual Behaviour
• Internet Matters – Encouraging Safe Choices as a Parent

Parents also explained that the curriculum map, showing what we are studying at various times through the year would be helpful, please find this below: