Personal Development

Students will believe they matter to a school not just as a set of potential exam results but as unique individuals capable of growing in spirit, making responsible moral decisions, playing a full part in society and enjoying the fruits of human activity: students will believe they matter in this way only if their experience and relationships throughout the school convince them of their value as individuals.

The Personal Development programme provides the time, the opportunity and the focus for this most enriching and significant of activities in the life of a student. We believe it to be so crucial that over forty members of staff are involved in the delivery of this wide ranging and extensive programme.  A full period every week at every year level of the school is set aside for PD.  Pupils could be participating in an audit to determine whether they were assertive or aggressive; creating a strip cartoon to illustrate what happens in the break-up of a relationship; analysing “When Harry met Sally” to understand what happens when platonic friendship moves to the physical; in the Sixth they could be defending their CV or making a presentation on a contentious ethical issue.  I argue that some of the most momentous things that a student will absorb, learn  and remember after he has left the school will have been raised in the co-curricular PD programme.

Paul Carling MA
Head of Personal Development