Personal development

Key stage 3

Personal development is delivered to all students as part of the core curriculum. The subject aims to teach the students the broader life skills through a curriculum encompassing citizenship, financial education, relationships and sex education, PSHE and careers. The taught content is supplemented with a range of employer engagement activities and the work experience programme as well as activities across the curriculum.

Aims of the subject

We aim to:

• give students the knowledge and skills to be successful beyond school life.
• to enable students to make thoughtful and appropriate decisions
• play a full role in our democratic society by being knowledgeable about their role as a citizen
• to manage risk and keep themselves safe form harm in a variety of situations.
• to manage money and be aware of their own attitudes towards money
• to be able to form and articulate their opinions and views on a wide range of topical issues.

Key stage 4

Personal development is a compulsory subject at key stage 4 and is taught for one lesson each week in years 9, 10 and 11. An important aim of the course is to support students in feeling confident about making post 16 choices. CV building, job applications and interview techniques all form part of the careers guidance work. Careers resources are used to identify and explore a range of potential career routes so that students are in a strong position for moving on and making the right decisions at the end of year 11.
As part of this work, students are also guided in building a personal record of achievement (RoA) document, which can then be used at college or job interviews.