PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
KINGSWOOD VALUES
Kindness
Resilience
Empathy
Respect
INTENT
At Kingswood, we value our Personal Development Curriculum as equally as we do our academic curriculum. We believe that having a strong moral compass will best equip our pupils to be life-long learners.
Our Kingswood School community is rooted in the core values of resilience, empathy, respect and kindness. These values thread through all aspects of Kingswood Primary School life and apply in equal measure to staff and pupils. We are an inclusive school which recognises the equality of each individual and their right to thrive within our community. We share our federation's ethos and regard ourselves as being a curious, confident, and creative community who are inclusive, visionary and collaborative. When our children leave, they are equipped with our Kingswood core values to support them in the next phase of their education.
The core intent of our personal development curriculum is to demonstrate and teach the skills, knowledge and understanding that pupils need to lead confident, healthy lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens. We believe in working in partnership with parents and carers so that all our pupil’s physical, moral, mental wellbeing and emotional development can be supported at home, as well as at school.
All our pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum, contributing fully to the life of the school and the wider community. In doing so, pupils learn to develop their character and sense of identity, which in turn allow them to recognise their place in the world around them.
IMPLEMENTATION
Our personal development curriculum is taught discretely via the PSHE and RSE curriculum, as well as featuring in the planning and lesson content of literacy, RE, history, geography and science lessons.
The curriculum focuses on developing the following main areas:
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Personal, social, health and economic development
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Sex and Relationship education
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Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development
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British values and citizenship
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Character development
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Pupil well-being
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Protected characteristics
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Inclusion & equal opportunities
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Pupil leadership skills development
We are invested in ensuring that our pupils learn about how to treat others and behave in a respectful way and do so through classroom teaching and expectations, as well as weekly assemblies, led by our senior leadership team.
KINGSWOOD HOUSE SYSTEM
The excellent behaviour expected from all our pupils is encouraged through use of our schoolhouse system. We have four houses: Rowling, Kahlo, Einstein and Mandela.
All pupils and staff belong to a house for the entirety of their time at Kingswood. Each week the houses compete for house points which result in weekly and yearly prizes and award and there are opportunities throughout the school year for the houses to engage in team building and creative activities.
MENTAL HEALTH & WELL-BEING
We are a Trauma-informed school which creates a safe and nurturing environment, helps children to manage their emotions, and promotes connection and empathy. As a staff team we understand the relationship between children's cognitive development and the impacts of trauma and recognise the importance of building supportive and trusting relationships.
Blue Zone
Sick
Sad
Tired
Bored
Moving Slowly
Green Zone
Happy
Calm
Good to Go
Focused
Ready to Learn
Yellow Zone
Frustrated
Worried
Silly/Wiggly
Anxious
Excited
Red Zone
Mad/Angry
Mean
Yelling/Hitting
Out of Control
I need time and space
ZONES of REGULATION
We are committed to equipping our pupils with the knowledge and skills to self-regulate their emotions and discuss their feelings. Our pupils are encouraged to participate in daily ‘feelings check-ins’, with their class teacher, during which they categorise their emotions into one of four zones: red, yellow, blue or green. Pupils are encouraged to explore how each zone feels physically in their body and are taught skills for returning to the ‘green zone’, in which we believe children are able to make the most of their learning experiences and build healthy relationships with others.
EMOTIONAL EXPLORERS
To further support our pupils with the emotional literacy to self-regulate their emotions and build healthy relationships with their peers, we use a 6-week programme called, ‘Emotional Explorers.’ The programme consists of 6 lessons in which children explore mindfulness techniques, restorative justice techniques to help repair broken relationships with peers and language to support them with discussing their thoughts and feelings.
COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS
At Kingswood, we use our Community Champions themes to ensure that all our pupils are able to explore community and equality related themes, which help them to reflect on how to be actively kind and respectful members of the community.
Each month has a different theme which are revisited each year, to ensure the children leave us with a clear understanding of these topics and a commitment to being champions of these areas themselves in their future lives. We feel passionate that these themes should not only be taught discretely but should form the foundation, rather than an ‘add on’ or tokenistic teaching approach.
FUNDAMENTAL BRITISH VALUES & CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
Our Kingswood values are used to set ambitious expectations for the children. Through these promises we promote and celebrate democracy, rule of the law, individual liberty and mutual respect within lessons, assemblies and whole school celebrations. Individual safeguarding incidents related to these values are addressed within our everyday practice.
SOCIAL, MORAL, SPIRTIUAL & CULTURAL EDUCATION
Our children are given the opportunity to explore different cultures and beliefs through the rich and ambitious curriculum at Kingswood. We explore celebrations and events, engaging pupils with current affairs, as well as annual days of recognition. Using our Community Champions and Kingswood values we teach the children about their moral responsibilities at school and in the wider curriculum.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL, HEALTH & ECONOMIC & SEX & RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION
Our PSHCE/RSE curriculum supports our children in their understanding of: healthy and unhealthy relationships; transitions through life; self-respect, commitment and boundaries; mental health and well-being; staying safe online and asking for support; factual knowledge around sex, sexual health and sexuality; healthy lifestyles, including keeping safe, drugs and alcohol education and economic wellbeing and financial capability.
CAREERS & LIVING IN THE WIDER WORLD EDUCATION
To nurture the skills of resilience is key to providing young people with the ability to cope with stress, adversity, failure and challenges. Resilience is evident when young people have a greater ability to “bounce back” when faced with difficulties and achieve positive outcomes. To develop Resilience and Perseverance is one of the schools promises which are reflected in all aspects of school life.
All our pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum. In doing so, pupils learn to recognise their own worth, develop a sense of their own identity and the ability to take their place in the community as well as respect for, and working with, others. These themes also run through the wider curriculum, e.g. – Class reading text, History and Geography topics and PE.
EQUALITY & DIVERSITY
Our children are given an understanding of equality and human rights. This knowledge will help them to understand how they should be treated and how to treat others. We promote equality and teach in a safe environment for children to challenge, discuss, explore and form lasting values, morals and opinions. Children in Year 5 and 6 learn how to be actively anti-racist and how to respectfully challenge incidences of discriminatory language.
All leaders at the school have shared values which set ambitious expectations for pupils in all areas of the curriculum which reflects the rich and diverse communities that our school serves.
ONLINE SAFETY
Being online is an integral part of our children’s lives. We ensure that children are given a strong awareness of the risks the online world can expose them to; e-safety is a fundamental part of our safeguarding and child protection, taught in class, during assemblies and groups/1:1 when needed. We also maintain strong communication with parent/carers about their responsibilities when keeping their children safe online and current risks.
LEARNING TO LEARN
We work with our children to step up to new challenges and be resilient in their learning, both academically and socially. A strong mind-set will allow them to succeed both at school and later in life. Our Kingswood values, community champions themes and curriculum provide a toolkit of attributes that ensure our children are ready and respectful for all transitions in their life.
PUPIL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
We are passionate that all children should take an active role in their own learning and encourage opportunities for pupil voice and leadership. To support our pupils with developing the skills and knowledge to become successful team players and leaders and to ensure pupil voice across our curriculum, we have developed the following roles of responsibility for our Kingswood pupils:
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Peer Mediators and Play Ambassadors
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Pupil Leader Ambassadors
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Anti-Bullying Ambassadors
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School council
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Pupil Eco team
SCHOOL COUNCIL
Through our School Council, we ensure that all the children at Kingswood are cared for, supported and listened to. We encourage the children in our school to become more aware of some of the issues around us and organise events to support local and global charities, as well as help to develop our school community and curriculum. Each year, the whole school take part in an election process for the school council, during which candidates must create a manifesto, election speech and campaign. Successful candidates receive training on how to chair meetings, organise events and collect pupil voice form their peers. The school council make regular contributions to the development of our playground, selection of new school equipment, development of school enrichment days and development of charity events.
IMPACT
Our personal development curriculum will involve a cross-curriculum impact, demonstrating an improved level of resilience, self-management, understanding of the community and the wider world. This will support a decreasing number of behaviour incidences and high levels of pupil absence, and an improved level of pupil voice and leadership.
Our pupils will be motivated by a strong personal sense of morality. They will make decisions for the right reasons and in the best interests of themselves and their peers. They will be able to decide what is right and what is wrong and will be resilient to the influence of others. This will be evidenced through the school behaviour and reward system.
Termly pupil, staff and parent surveys will allow us to assess the children’s engagement in school, attitudes to learning and sense of self.