Personal Development

The Personal Development strand is designed to help students gain the skills knowledge and understanding they need to lead, healthy, independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens.

All our students 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, students 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 and work with others. Students are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and to recognise how they are developing personally and socially, addressing the spiritual social, moral and cultural issues that form an intrinsic part of growing up.

Intent

At St Anne’s Academy our intent has been to construct and deliver a personal development curriculum that is academic and beyond which is:

• developing students’ confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy
• developing students’ character, which we define as 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
• how well leaders develop students’ character through the education that they provide
• the quality of debate and discussions that students have

Key parts of our personal development curriculum are:

• Student Leadership opportunities including Head Boy, Head Girl and Deputy posts, Y11 Prefects, Y10 Heroes, Form Captains, Student Council, Y9 Sports Leaders and Y8 Healthy Lifestyle Champions
• Extra-curricular programme that offers a broad range of exciting activities
• Archbishop of York Young Leaders’ Award at KS3 and KS4
• Personal Development form time programme
• Faith programme and Love Thy Neighbour action projects
• Careers programme that incorporates PSHE lessons and careers events
• Development of students’ understanding of British Values
• Students’ age-appropriate understanding of healthy relationships through Sex and Relationships Education
• Enabling students to recognise online and offline risks
• Students’ understanding of how to keep mentally and physically healthy
• Investment in students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development

Implementation

We believe it is essential that ‘Personal Development’ underpins and is the foundation of every part of the Academy. Character attributes such as leadership, organisation, resilience, initiative and communication alongside the Academy’s values are not just taught as discrete lessons, but woven into activities across the whole curriculum. That way, students are be able to appreciate how character development plays a meaningful role in enhancing everything they do.

Impact

We want our students to be ready for the world they are about to enter, ready to interact and live within society successfully. We hope that from our personal development provision St Anne’s Academy students’ character will have been developed so that they reflect wisely, learn eagerly, behave with integrity and cooperate consistently well with others.

Middleton Foodbank during Harvest 2021

Operation Christmas Child Project by Samaritan Purse 2021

Personal Development 2021/2022