Personal Development Learning (PDL)

Intent

At Guillemont Junior School we intend to create a spiral of personal development learning, where all pupils cover the recommended and compulsory content comprehensively, as they progress through the school years. Each child will encounter a number of different lessons and experiences to help them build their understanding of themselves and the people around them.

Children will be taught the school values through the SCARF acronym: Safety, Caring, Achievement, Resilience, Friendship, and will also cover British Values and school’s core values throughout their learning at school (these are listed in bold below). We aim for children to be emotionally aware, have a sense of belonging, have empathy and have good emotional and communication skills to aid them to progress in future life.

Implementation:

At Guillemont Junior School the PDL curriculum consists of teaching the school values through the medium of SCARF.

SAFETY – teaching all children how to keep themselves safe so that they can live in the world successfully, without endangering themselves or others. This includes how to have safe relationships, and have an awareness of drugs and their impacts on the human body. Overall we wish to ensure the children grow to be responsible and independent members of the community.
CARING – we will teach children the art of caring for themselves and each other, in the hope that they become emotionally aware, kind We also aim to ensure that through this care all children will learn respect for themselves and those around them.
ACHIEVEMENT – we want every child in the school to achieve at Guillemont. We encourage all children to be motivated and make links in their learning, and to work creatively and curiously to achieve the most that each individual can. As the children progress through the years, we also offer them opportunities to experiment with entrepreneurial skills to develop their critical thinking.
RESILIENCE – this a key part of the children’s cross curricular learning. All children are given opportunities throughout the curriculum to plan their learning, reflect on what they have done and to be independent. It is the time in SCARF or PDL lessons where they can really learn to understand the importance of these skills, assess their own progress, and set their own personal goals.
FRIENDSHIP – one of our most important roles as teachers is to ensure all the children feel safe and valued. We do this by teaching what it is to be a good friend, and discussing: fairness, honesty, making links (building relationships) team work and respect. We believe that children need to understand and incorporate all of these values to ensure they can build positive relationships in the future.

Using these values, we aim to encourage understanding of our school values and to ensure the children understand their rights and the rules of being a valued member of society. We use an adapted approach, where teachers change the lessons and lesson focus depending on the children’s needs within each class.

All teachers are trying to teach at least half an hour of SCARF a week and are tracking their lessons in their SCARF folders.

Impact:

At Guillemont Junior School we develop each child as a whole person, ensuring they can reach their potential as an individual, as well as academically. We assess the children against the criteria on the SCARF summative assessment document. We make note of the children who as classed as ‘emerging’ the criteria, or ‘exceeding’ the criteria to ensure every child develops or expands their social skills where needed. This information can be used to inform reports and to pass information onto the ELSA about any child that may need additional support socially outside of the weekly SCARF sessions. Children should also complete a post-assessment ‘exit page’ to show their development and learning within each term’s main theme.

Teaching & Learning

Personal Development Learning (PDL)

Intent

Implementation:

Impact:

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