At St. George’s, our Personal Development Programme is very much in line with the school’s vision of creating decent human beings with a strong moral compass who will make the world a better place, or as Dr Watts (our second Headteacher) wrote:

“A school does not exist to send out men and women solely to play a part in life whereby they achieve a competence and honourable life of useful work, but it exists to send out for posterity and for their own generation, men and women who by their character shall leave the society in which they live, the better for their presence and hence the world much nearer the Kingdom”.

The Personal Development Curriculum intent is to ensure that every student develops:

• the character and values to become a respectful, responsible, caring citizen who is supportive of all others in the community and who will take an active part in public life.
• the understanding and appreciation that difference is a positive, not a negative, and that individual characteristics make people unique and that being inclusive is the key to a successful society.
• a set of positive personal traits, dispositions and virtues that informs their motivation and guides their conduct so that they reflect wisely, learn eagerly, behave with integrity and cooperate consistently well with others.
• Developing pupils’ confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally and physically healthy
• the knowledge of how to build, create and sustain positive and healthy relationships
• the confidence for the next phase of education, training or employment so that pupils are equipped to make the transition successfully

Personal Development is taught through:

1. PSHE lessons for one hour a fortnight (in years 7 to 12)

Themes of units of study include:

• Health and Well-being
• Relationships and Sex Education
• Living in the Wider World e.g. careers, British values, online safety.

These themes are studied each year so students can progressively build on their knowledge and revisit key statutory content. Within these themes, students will study content that is age appropriate and allows them to use prior knowledge to improve understanding.

2. The Friday 5 Programme (in years 7 to 13)

A series of talks and guest speakers throughout the year reinforce our key messaging on:

• Anti-racism
• Sexual harassment
• Consent
• Online safety
• Anti-bullying

In addition, tutors also run group sessions during the Friday 5 programme on topics such as neurodiversity, anti-bullying, online safety and study skills.

3. Chapels and Assemblies

Students attend a chapel service and a house assembly once a week where spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is endorsed.

4. The Behaviour Curriculum

Weekly input is given to all students around our behaviour expectations and reminders about how we should treat others through being obviously kind and obviously positive.

5. Promoting Positive Relationships Surveys

We run these surveys 4 times throughout the year to monitor and measure the day-to-day experience of our students and ask questions about their friendships, how confident they would feel to challenge inappropriate or unkind behaviour, through to monitoring sexual harassment, racism and bullying. These results are then shared and discussed with the year group and further interventions and support are then employed where needed.