Thornton
Personal Development
At Thornton Primary, our curriculum and ethos support the personal development of all our pupils. This is reflected through our vision of 'Believe, Achieve, Succeed' and built upon the foundations of our school TRAIN values. Our aims for personal development are: for children to have rich and varied experiences and develop their cultural capital, regardless of their background. To prioritise physical and mental health and wellbeing alongside academic achievements. We want children to become confident, independent and responsible citizens, making informed and responsible choices and decisions throughout their lives’.
Our personal development offer goes beyond the National Curriculum and provides opportunities for pupils to develop in the following areas:
- PSHE and RSE
- SMSC, British Values and Citizenship
- Character Education & Leadership
- Enrichment- Cultural Capital experiences including careers and aspirations
- Physical Health
- Pastoral Support – social and emotional support & wellbeing
Cultural Capital
Cultural capital is the accumulation of knowledge, behaviours, and skills that a child can draw upon and which demonstrates their cultural awareness, knowledge and competence; it is one of the key ingredients a pupil will draw upon to be successful in society, their career and the world of work.
Our cultural capital offer ensures that children have a range of experiences as they progress through school. We carefully plan for these and these include trips to the local area, visits to places of worship, museums, and music venues and many more.
We also have a unique addition to our offer, ‘7 Musts of Focus Trust’. These are experiences devised by Pupil Parliamentarians across the trust.
Character Education
Character education provides children with the best chance to be a successful adult, by equipping them with the skills to become a happy and productive member of society. Our aim is to provide children with the necessary opportunities during their time at Primary school to learn key life skills for their future and to instil a number of key characteristics. This includes many different areas: having good morals; being responsible for their own actions; being independent; being well mannered; and becoming active members of society. Please see below for more information about our approach to character education.
SMSC
There is strong focus on children’s holistic development and our curriculum has been designed equip our children with the knowledge, skills, understanding and a broad range of experiences to be successful in learning and in life. Each curriculum area further supports the development of SMSC across the school. Our personal development offer includes further information about how this is developed across our curriculum and through wider opportunities.
Academic Year 2024/2025
Personal Development Overview
Monitoring the Impact of Personal Development
We continually measure the impact of our Personal Development offer in many ways, including:
•Observations
•Book looks
•Pupil voice
•Staff voice
•Parent voice
Personal development is a key part of our achievements and is celebrated through:
- Weekly Certificates in our achievement assemblies
- House points system and certificates
- Attendance awards
- Trophies