Personal Development
Personal Development, safeguarding and the promotion of fundamental British values are a core business of our work at Whiston Willis Primary Academy. Great importance is placed on identifying opportunities in the taught curriculum, considering contextual issues, for children to learn about how to stay safe and how the children can develop themselves personally.
Our broad curriculum gives pupils opportunities to experience life in all its diversity, to acquire knowledge, understanding and skills that significantly impact on personal development, behaviour and welfare and equips every child with the knowledge and skills required for personal safeguarding.
Our Jigsaw curriculum aims to develop the children's Personal, Social and Health Education, emotional literacy and social skills as well as full coverage of Relationships and Health Education, Safeguarding, SMSC, British Values and Internet Safety. This, we believe, prepares them for life and helps them to navigate their world and to develop positive relationships with themselves and others, with strong emphasis on emotional literacy, building resilience and nurturing mental and physical health. Jigsaw lessons also include mindfulness allowing children to advance their emotional awareness, concentration and focus.
In addition, our wider curriculum gives opportunities to explore values, personal rights, responsibilities and equal opportunities that develop moral concepts that impact positively on safeguarding, personal development, promote British values and prevent radicalisation and extremism.
To find out more about personal development beyond our core offer within our Jigsaw curriculum, click on the link below
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SAFEGUARDING CURRICULUM
Part of our additional work beyond our core PSHE curriculum is to ensure pupils have further support and guidance about keeping safe both online and offline.
We have carefully considered our school context and challenges that pupils may face as they grow older and from this developed a structured approach that enables pupils to build an understanding of issues they may face and how to address them. To support us with this we use external providers including; KMBC Road safety team, Merseyside Police, The Dog's Trust, The Gangsman, The Adam Ellison Foundation, NSPCC, Crucial Crew, Bikeability and Resus Rangers as examples. In recent years, our Y5 pupils undertake personal awareness and self defence sessions. Our Y6 children all complete a first aid training award and learn how to respond responsibly in an emergency situation.
Our Online Safety work is woven through our computing curriculum however this is further developed with a structured approach using additional resources.
We have a whole school commitment to supporting children with mental health. This is completed through recognising World Mental Health Day/ Weeks with Place 2b. In addition, we have a planned programme to develop understanding of five ways to wellbeing. This is essential for our pupils and we also work to involve families and staff each half term to take ownership of their own wellbeing.
We are also fully committed to ensuring we promote positive physical health with our children. We commit fully to PE and sport and ensure that our children have opportunities to participate in sports clubs and sports competitions as well as participating in active playtimes using our scooters in school (Scootfit).
We also ensure pupils are taught about dental health, alcohol and drug misuse and use Merseyside Police for example to discuss the dangers and law around vaping for older pupils. We also ensure pupils have opportunities to try new activities through biannual events such as Scootfit, Skip2bfit, Box2bfit and Trikidz sessions.
We are fully committed to providing pupils with wider opportunities through work within and beyond the curriculum. We have an extensive extra curricular and an ongoing commitment to celebrating individual achievements at our annual Children's University Graduation. We strive to ensure all pupils who want to attend clubs do and this leads to high participation over the course of an academic year. We also supplement this with visits and visitors that are linked to the curriculum and provide pupils with experiences they may not ordinarily experience. Examples of this include theatre visits, museum visits, river studies etc. We also run two residentials- in Y4 to Ormside and in Y6 to Robinwood.
As a school we have a duty to teach our pupils about equality and diversity. Equality and diversity are crucial in society to eliminate discrimination and unfair treatment. Promoting positive equality and diversity ensures that we as a school are inclusive of all staff and children; giving children the foundation for anti-discriminatory values to take through other areas of their life. We ensure that our curriculum is inclusive of diversity and teaches children about prejudice and bias. Our school values promote RESPECT and our curriculum in designed to ensure pupils accept and value diversity
We have planned study weeks to ensure this is lived in school for example around disability awareness (ADHD umbrella project), black history month, interfaith weeks, International Woman's Day and Neurodiversity week.
We have also committed to sharing books within our reading spine that are age appropriate and promote equality and diversity.
We commit to teaching our children a financial education programme, equipping our children with the money skills they need for life in an ever-changing financial world.
To find out more information about our financial education programme, click on the link below:
