Personal Development
Please find below the school's personal development statement of intent.
From the 16th - 18th November 2022, we held three personal development drop down days. These days were created to respond to the needs raised by students around relationships, inclusion and diversity and aimed to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding experience for all students.
Students focused on a range of themes during anti-bullying week which is a UK annual event that aims to raise awareness of bullying of children and young people, in schools and elsewhere, and to highlight ways of preventing and responding to bullying in all forms. This year's theme was 'Reach Out' which is aimed to empower children and young people to do something positive to counter the harm and hurt that bullying can cause.
There were many events taking place in school this week to celebrate this theme, including Odd Socks Day on 14th November. 'Reach Out' also linked with our focus on UNICEF as part of Rights Respecting Schools.
We also had a non-uniform day on Friday 18th November for Children in Need, BRGS Charities of the Year and DEC Pakistan Floods Appeal.
The topics we covered on these Personal Development Days included areas which genuinely make a difference to the life choices of students. All the themes addressed support them in making positive, well-informed choices which lead to them becoming happy and well-rounded young people, with high aspirations for themselves and others.
We focused on 6 key themes and our staff team worked hard to create high quality sessions for our students. These themes included:
- Anti-Bullying
- Building Positive Relationships
- Celebrating Diversity
- Discrimination, Prejudice and Stereotyping
- Equality, Tolerance and Respect
- UNICEF
To support our themes, there were outside agencies delivering sessions. These included:
- Stand Against Violence - Anti Bullying
- Go Wise - Online Safety
- Be Free - Healthy Relationships: Gender, Power and Equality
Our thanks to Go Wise Online for their e-Safety presentation and their feedback: "Thank you to all year groups at @BRGS_1701 for your fantastic participation in my #esafety presentations. I appreciated your listening skills. Your school community will be proud of the respect you showed to each other. Take care of your Digital Footprint #esafety #Safeguarding"
The sixth form also received a presentation which focused on consent, keeping safe on a night out and driving safely.
Paul Draper from Stand Against Violence sent the following message after his presentation: "Thank you to all of the staff and pupils at BRGS for such a warm welcome today. I was really impressed and appreciative of the concentration and attentiveness of pupils within each year group and felt they showed maturity on a challenging subject from Year 7 right the way up to Year 11."
Our Year 9 and 10 students also took part in some workshops on healthy relationships with the following themes:
- How to adopt an inclusive and safe culture
- Tolerance
- Impact of discriminatory language
Feedback from Jodie Turner from Be Free - Healthy Relationships included: "I thoroughly enjoyed the three days that I spent delivering Healthy Relationships sessions focused on Gender, Power and Equality in your school. The students listened attentively, were well engaged throughout the sessions and showed high levels of respect towards both myself and fellow students. Participation during both whole class and peer discussion was undertaken with enthusiasm and focus. The topics we were discussing required sensitivity, understanding and maturity and your students present themselves as a credit to your school."
Find out more here:
Celebrating Identity and Diversity
We aim to be a school where children's rights are at the heart of our ethos and culture, to improve well-being and to develop every child's talents and abilities to their full potential. As part of this plan, we are working towards further recognition as a 'Rights Respecting School', an award given to schools on behalf of UNICEF UK.
UNICEF is the world's leading organisation working for children and young people and their rights. In 1989, governments across the world agree that all children have the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These rights are based on what a child needs to survive, grow, participate and fulfil their potential.
About Us
.png)