Personal Development

At St. Oswald's Catholic Primary School, we are committed to providing a balanced, purposeful and empowering curriculum that fully prepares learners for the next steps in their school career and the wider world. We want our children to aspire to achieve and believe that it is essential that they understand the world they live in. Our whole school curriculum offer aims to Broaden our children’s horizons and give them the belief that they are capable of achieving great things drives our curriculum. Our Personal Development Curriculum offer gives the children the knowledge and understanding they need make informed choices and to be a positive influence in the communities that they belong to.

Today’s children and young people are growing up in an increasingly complex world and living their lives seamlessly on and offline. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, but also includes challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way. Our aim is to develop skills and attributes such as resilience, self-esteem, risk-management, team-working and critical thinking. We have split our Personal Development offering into four key strands:

These four strands of Personal Development are woven in to all aspects of school life at St. Oswald's and we pride ourselves on providing an environment for all pupils to thrive and mature into well-informed young adults. We aim to embrace the many talents and interests of our pupils and offer a vast amount of extra-curricular opportunities based on pupil voice and regular school council meetings.

We want our learners to feel empowered with the knowledge, skills and attributes they need to manage life’s challenges and make the most of life’s opportunities. We aim to give our learners the knowledge and tools they need to understand how to take care of themselves, physically and mentally, and how they can stay safe and thrive in an ever changing world.

Personal Development Slideshow

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Character Development:

At St. Oswald’s we ensure we provide a wide range of opportunities designed to help our pupils to become successful, well-rounded people. All our staff at St. Oswald’s want to help the pupils to become happy, confident and well-rounded individuals who make meaningful contributions to society.

Character education is not a standalone National Curriculum subject. As part of our Personal Development Curriculum we prepare the pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life. According to the Jubilee Centre, character education is defined as ‘the implicit and explicit activities that help young people to develop positive personal strengths, called virtues.’

The key principles are:

A good life is one in which a person develops.
Character can be caught, taught and sought.
Character traits develop through habits.

Character education is intended to furnish children with certain qualities, skills and traits. These include self-belief, motivation, persistence, self-control, and coping skills, which help them 'bounce back' after a disappointment or setback, along with virtues like compassion, curiosity, civility and determination.

As well as giving them a good foundation for their future lives, character education can improve children’s school experience. There are measurable secondary outcomes such as behaviour, attendance and attainment.

At St. Oswald’s , our Character Education programme is implicit, for example teachers model good character through the way they act around school, and schools often have a set of core values that guide everything they do.

There are five key areas that help children develop good character:

Sport
Creativity
Performing
Volunteering and Charity
The world of work

Character education can be entwined through just about every curriculum subject.

St Oswald’s and British Values: Citizenship development

We promote fundamental British values and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. We reflect the religious backgrounds represented in our community in collective worship and actively promote British values, encouraging our pupils to regard people of all faiths, races and cultures with respect and tolerance.

The DfE have recently reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”

The Government set out its definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy. At St. Oswald’s Catholic Primary these values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways:

Democracy

Democracy is embedded throughout our school curriculum. Pupils are always listened to by adults and are taught to listen carefully and with concern to each other, respecting the right of every individual to have their opinions and voices heard. Pupils also have the opportunity to air their opinions and ideas through our School Council and regular pupil questionnaires. The elections of the School Council members and Head Boy and Head Girl are based solely on pupil votes, reflecting our British electoral system and demonstrating democracy in action.

The Rule of Law

The importance of laws, whether they are those that govern the class, the school or the country, are consistently reinforced. Our school has universal ‘School Rules’, which are deeply embedded in our work every day. Each class also discusses right from wrong and sets their own class rules that are clearly understood by all and seen to be necessary to ensure that every class member is able to learn in a safe and ordered environment. Our pupils are taught the values and reasons behind laws, that they govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken. We also have regular visits from community Police Officers.

Individual Liberty

Within school, pupils are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school, we educate and provide boundaries for our pupils to make choices safely, through the provision of a safe environment and an empowering education. Our pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and are advised how to exercise these safely; examples of this can be clearly seen in our e-safety and PSHE lessons. Whether it is through choice of challenge; of how they record; of participation in our numerous extra- curricular activities; our pupils are given the freedom to make choices and are encouraged to act responsibly and show initiative.

Mutual Respect

As a school that holds values at the core of its ethos, our school values and behaviour policies have evolved around our mission statement, and we aim to walk in the footstep of Jesus. The pupils have been part of discussions and collective worship related to what this means and how it is shown. Respect is one of the values that is taught explicitly within lessons, collective worship, enabling pupils to contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of our school. It is shared with home through newsletters and website information. Adults throughout the school model, demonstrate and promote respect for others as do older children who have suitable, age related, tasks and responsibilities and this is reiterated throughout classroom and learning rules, as well as our behaviour.

Tolerance of Those with Different Faiths and Beliefs

Our core value of Respect ensures tolerance of those who have different faiths and beliefs. St. Oswald’s Catholic Primary School enhances pupils’ understanding of different faiths and beliefs through religious education studies; PSHE work; welcoming visitors from other schools in order to celebrate differences and enjoying a depth of study during themed weeks. Beliefs, traditions and customs from around the world are studied, with visitors being invited into our school to enrich and extend understanding. Through these activities, our pupils gain an enhanced understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society and an understanding of the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.

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