Personal Development

It is incredibly important that our children build on our strong school values to develop the life skills that will enable them to go on to make a difference in their community and the world around them.To achieve this, we have developed a programme that gives our children opportunities to progressively gain experiences and knowledge that supports them in becoming responsible, independent, respectful and active citizens.We start with our school values– they are at the heart of our school and are chosen to build an understanding of self, and a compassion for others.

We build knowledge and understanding through our curriculum delivery: our RPHSE curriculum covers Relationship & Health Education (as per our consultation with parents), Wellbeing and Citizenship (including Modern British Values) through whole class lessons, focussed days and weeks and assemblies. This is further supported by visits from the Life Education Bus and visitors from DART leading workshops with Year 5 and Year 6 pupils.
We then embed and further develop this knowledge through mapped assemblies around a key area/ focus on significant individuals and our school pastoral support offer from our Senior Mental Health trained Pastoral Lead, Mrs Reeve which further develops our children’s understanding, empathy and compassion.

Can you conquer Cogenhoe?

Our whole school enrichment offer and non-academic curriculum, ‘Project Conquer’ enables every single child from Preschool, through to Year 6 the opportunity to develop and embed their core values, increase their independence and resilience. Children are able to engage with their local and wider community and charities, further developing their cultural capital.

Teachers, parents, Governors and pupils at Cogenhoe Primary all worked together to design and develop 100 non-academic skills, attributes and activities that all pupils will achieve by the time they leave in Year 6, in readiness for their next stage in Education. Each year group has 15 steps to achieve and these are interwoven and celebrated alongside our whole school curriculum.

Our aim is to increase our children’s confidence, resilience and the understanding of certain skills which really will help to prepare them for the wider world. Our steps in each year group support and give children the opportunity to work independently and in partnership with their parents/carers and teachers to become well-rounded, informed and confident citizens, ready to contribute positively to the world around them.

Some of the steps are purely and simply just for fun as learning and living should be fun! They are things that we are all guilty of taking for granted at times and we must still place importance on them and acknowledge them in this world and in our lives.

All of our pupils will be able to clearly demonstrate each step at least three times before a skill can be completed. All pupils will be presented with a special book which they will use to record all of their notes, pictures, photos, drawings and comments in. Every child is celebrated by having their name put up in the hall once they have conquered their steps for their year group.

Lastly, the school offers a very diverse range of extra-curricular clubs, in addition to further opportunities for our children to build and develop their own personal character by becoming a Reading Ambassador; member of the Sports Crew; member of the School Council; Cogenhoe Cheer team (school newspaper); becoming a Wellbeing Buddy or a Prefect. All of these roles require our children to apply for their ‘job’, attend a formal interview and sign their job descriptions.

Our SMSC (Spiritual, Moral, Social, Cultural) education curriculum encompasses pupils’ Personal Development. Please see our examples in the document below of how we provide for our pupils’ development at Cogenhoe Primary School.