Personal Development

Our PSHE, RSHE and RE curriculum offer ensures that pupils have the opportunity to learn about different religions, faiths and beliefs whilst building a feeling of belonging and an understanding of themselves within the world they live in. In addition to this, our PE curriculum teaches the benefits of being healthy and active to improve physical and mental health.  

In addition to the National Curriculum we provide our pupils with opportunities to develop life skills through our Preparation for Adulthood curriculum which supports development in the core skills outlined in the SEND code of practice for employment, independent living, health and society and community participation.

We provide pupils with a wide range of rich experiences involving pupils visiting cultural and educational venues which broaden pupils’ understanding of the world around them. We recognise that for some of our pupils, visiting a new venue can be challenging due to their mental or medical health therefore we carry out thorough risk assessment procedures to ensure that as many pupils as possible can access these experiences.

We also welcome visitors to all our school settings to enhance the curriculum and experiences for pupils including those in hospital settings.

Our enrichment offer provides pupils with the opportunity to take part in extra-curricular activities in their own time. These activities aim to develop pupils’ interests and skills whilst providing pupils with new experiences. We also recognise the importance of ensuring all pupils have access to a wide range of resources to enrich their learning experience. This could include access to transport, a range of classroom based resources and reading for pleasure books. 

We build a culture of empathy and respect for all our learners and staff. We teach British Values through our PSHE curriculum and then embed these values through a wide range of experiences. This includes extra-curricular activities, assemblies, cultural calendar of activities, curriculum resources, library books and community events. The British Values are part of our school culture.

Where appropriate for our pupils, we use a range of external providers to enhance our curriculum offer. These external providers are experts in their own field and ensure that pupils have high quality learning experience. These could include working with The Manchester United Foundation, Speech and Language Therapists, Music Therapists, Building block therapists, Art Therapists and Education Psychologists. We also work closely with medics, social care and home schools to support pupil progress.

We recognise our pupils may need support with regulating their emotions. The implementation of zones of regulation gives pupils tools to independently regulate and therefore can access learning effectively.

We provide high quality careers education, advice and guidance for pupils. We aim to ensure that every student is equipped with the skills, abilities and qualifications to pursue a fulfilling career.  Our careers programme explores options and raises aspirations in partnership with a wide range of post 16 and 18 providers and careers educators.

Our Welfare and Attendance team work closely with our Safeguarding leads to ensure that pastoral support meet the needs of the individual. We work closely with families and support them through signposting and additional provision when appropriate.

We are a Unicef Rights Respecting School, currently working towards achieving the Gold accreditation. As a Rights Respecting school, we teach pupils about the Convention of the Rights of the Child and incorporate within the wider curriculum opportunities for pupils to learn what these rights mean for pupils in their daily lives.

We are proud to have achieved a number of accreditations where we continually implement the values of the awards. Using the framework of the awards we give pupils opportunities to succeed in addition to their core curriculum offer. You can find out more about each of our accreditations on the main page of our website.

Our awards include:

• European Parliament Ambassador School: We are the first ever hospital school to be accredited EPAS status.
• International Schools Award: Intermediate status working towards full accreditation.
• Rainbow Flag Award: Skills Teacher Award
• Healthy Schools: Silver award working towards Gold
• Artsmark: Gold status working towards Platinum