Personal Development

Daily circles are a major part of our personal development offer. Every day children are given the opportunities to discuss a key topic as a whole class. This is an opportunity for children to listen to each other and also have their own voice heard. Strands throughout the week include British Values, our behaviour curriculum and key safety messages. On a Friday, children have the opportunity to revisit their key learning of the week and share their own highlights.

PSHE & Citizenship Curriculum

We endeavour to promote the importance of having respect for ourselves and those around us. We aim to ensure each child develops a deep understanding of not only themselves, but their peers and other members of our society, as well as how to respond to a wide range of emotions in themselves and others. We are proud to serve families from a range of catchments in the local area: the school population is comprised of children with a varied range of social and economic backgrounds.

With such a broad school demographic, we take pride in our responsibility to promote the values of community, respect and diversity. We strive to prepare our pupils to become positive citizens, with an awareness of British Values (Democracy, Rule of Law, Individual Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those of different faith and beliefs) which are taught and celebrated through every aspect of our school culture including our PSHE curriculum, assemblies and whole school theme days.

In addition, children are taught key skills for life through following the whole school Jigsaw PSHE scheme of work. Six puzzle pieces are explored throughout the year, one each half term; these include – Being Me In My World, Celebrating Difference, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me.

We understand that without emotional wellbeing, children cannot achieve their academic potential, and therefore place great emphasis on this aspect of children’s development and success in school, seizing every opportunity to support our children’s mental and physical health. Through our focus on resilience and growth-mindset, we encourage children to challenge themselves in the face of adversity, pushing themselves to achieve the very best in all aspects of the curriculum. Our robust PSHE curriculum aims to equip children with the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary to lead safe, confident, healthy, and independent lives now and in the future.

How we support good behaviour

Development of Character

Our Woodthorpe Character is built around our school’s aims and values – 

Our school is a happy, exciting and caring community in which each child thrives

As a community, we live out our values every day:

Respect  |  Challenge  |  Skills for life  |  Sport

Within our school values, our character highlights key words, traits and attributes that, at Woodthorpe we want our children to strive for and build during their school journey. 

Our Woodthorpe Character is a key element to our school community and can be found in many places including on display in school, on our Twitter (X) page – #woodthorpe character, celebrated during our weekly assemblies and as part of our daily life at Woodthorpe!

Woodthorpe Character

Woodthorpe 50 Things

Celebrating British Values

In accordance with The Department for Education, we aim to actively promote British values at Woodthorpe Primary School to ensure our young people leave school prepared for the next stage in their development and for life in modern Britain. British Values are a core part of our school vision and are a key part of our daily life in the classroom as well as during assemblies, playtimes, clubs, Religious Education, PSHCE and our School Council.

Pupils are encouraged to regard people of all faiths, races and cultures with respect and tolerance and understand that while different people may hold different views about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, all people living in the United Kingdom are subject to its law.

The Key Values are:

• democracy
• rule of law
• individual liberty
• mutual respect
• tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs

As well as actively promoting British Values, we would actively challenge pupils, staff or parents expressing opinions contrary to fundamental British values, including ‘extremist’ and ‘far right’ views.

Assembly Sample Plan

Careers Guidance

We aim to promote positive careers and career development throughout life. Learning for career development in primary schools is an essential foundation for what happens later but it is also qualitatively different.  Primary school learners are finding out who they are, who they possibly could become and where they might fit in the world! Their thinking advances from magical, association-based thinking to concrete, linear and sequence-based thinking. 

“Career-related learning in primary schools is about broadening pupils’ horizons, challenging stereotypes and helping them develop the skills and sense of self that will enable them to reach their full potential.” CDI 2021

Career Progression Framework – Plan

Safety Curriculum

Pupils are aware of how to keep safe (physical and mental) in a wide range of contexts linked to local and national identified hazards. Many of these strands come through our PSHE Jigsaw curriculum but we also use our Woodthorpe mental health ‘toolkit’ to support children in thinking about our mental health and how we can take 5 simple steps to help ourselves.

Our daily circle questions give children further opportunity to explore safety topics such as road safety, stranger danger and online safety.

Mental Health Toolkit