Personal Development at the Manor

Intent

At The Manor, we have a personal development curriculum that provides opportunities for all our children to be their very best. Our personal development curriculum is prioritised as much as our academic curriculum which is reflected in our school vision of, ‘Let your Light Shine’ and embodied by our school values of community, wisdom, aspiration, love and joy. These values thread through all aspects of The Manor life and apply in equal measure to staff, pupils, parents and governors. They embody our attitude and intentions towards the importance of the development of all aspects of school life and contribute to all members of our school community developing to be the best versions of themselves. Our personal development curriculum is interwoven into our every day, through carefully considered enrichment opportunities which compliments and extends the academic curriculum. 

Through our personal development curriculum, our children learn about:

  • Fundamental British values
  • Protected characteristics
  • Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE)
  • Relationships and Sex Education (RSE)
  • Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development (SMSC)

Children build good character and develop a strong moral compass with the support of fair, consistent and just behaviour systems carefully created to link to our core values, including rewards, to encourage choices that replicate these we expect of good global citizens. 

We are determined to offer all pupils, with a particular focus those who we define as disadvantaged, a wide range and depth of personal development opportunities and experiences to build the cultural capital and strong personal values and morals that form the basis to enable them to achieve to and beyond their potential and push the boundaries of the possible. 

Implementation

Worship

Children learn about a wide variety of topics through a well-considered and carefully structured weekly worship plan. These cover: the school values and specific people who have embodied these; SMSC; British Values and protected characteristics and key religious and cultural events from around the world. These planned Worships are delivered by the leadership team on Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesday’s our older children lead Circle Groups, which allows all children to have a voice in celebrating and improving our school. On Thursdays, we enjoy our Singing Worship led by a specialist music teacher. The leadership team delivers a celebration worship on Fridays where children from across the school receive recognition for achievements in and out of school. Parents are welcome to join our Celebration Worship to share in the children’s successes.

Eleven by Eleven (trips and experiences)

Every child who attends The Manor will: 

  1. See a high-quality performance at a major theatre – Our Year 5s recently enjoyed The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at the Millennium Theatre in Cardiff 
  2. Visit a number of key historical sites including Stonehenge, the Roman Baths and the Magna Carta
  3. Perform on the stage including at the Bath Forum Dance Festival
  4. Enjoy live music performances and sing in a choir of 8000 at the O2 in London
  5. See democracy in action at the Houses of Parliament
  6. Visit major national art galleries including the Tate Britain
  7. Travel on a train to the beach
  8. Visit key religious sites of different faiths 
  9. Appreciate the natural beauty of the world through a residential trip to a farm in the New Forest
  10. Visit a key national museum (e.g. the Natural History Museum)
  11. Find fossils from the time of the dinosaurs

British Values

Children learn about values for Britain in a variety of ways, through the PSHE curriculum, worships, school opportunities and Fundamentals at Forest. 

Democracy is a key thread running through our history curriculum and is visited in units of work on the suffragettes, the Magna Carta, World War II and the Ancient Greeks. Every child visits the Houses of Parliament in Year 6 to understand the democratic system in Britain. We regularly invite our local MP to visit the school. We actively engage in the Remembrance services through laying a wreath at the war memorial in Melksham and activities in school. 

Each week the children are split into Circle Groups - eight groups across the school with Reception to Year 6 children in each group. The Year 6s lead groups sharing news of what is happening in the school and discussing an issue about the school and how we can make it even better. Decisions are made using a democratic process and every child’s voice has an opportunity to be heard. 

Children learn to be tolerant of other cultures by celebrating everyone’s differences. This happens through the RE curriculum, where children gain a strong understanding of the major world religions and through our PSHE curriculum focus of ‘Celebrating Differences’. Worships regularly recognise other key dates for other world religious and cultural events in the calendar. As a church school we actively teach and respect the views of others. 

Through the history curriculum and PSHE, children learn about the rule of law both in the UK, around the world and through history all around the world. This begins in Early Years through visits from emergency services and continues through school. This is all underpinned by our behaviour policy.  

Individual liberty is learned and celebrated in a number of ways. Children learn about protected characteristics, which is clearly mapped through the PSHE and RSE curriculum. Worships have also focussed on protected characteristics and have been pitched at an age-appropriate way.

Respect is a theme that runs completely through our school linking to our values of love and community. Children learn to respect differences and how to respect themselves and each other through forming healthy relationships. Respect is a theme that is embedded in everything we do from respecting talk partners in classrooms, to helping at lunchtime, to valuing others through our curriculum and Collective Worship. 

PSHE and RSE 

PSHE and RSE is taught through our Jigsaw curriculum, as well as through discreet lessons to ensure our children have the knowledge they need to keep safe. Our curriculum is designed in a carefully sequenced and progressive way to enable children to learn about: Physical, emotional and mental health; Healthy lifestyles; Hygiene; Nutrition and food; Aspirations; Changing and growing; Emotions; Protected Characteristics; Keeping Safe; First Aid; Similarities and differences; Online safety; Healthy relationships; Discrimination; Communication; Collaboration; Bullying; Fairness; Family and friends; Rules and responsibilities; Communities; Money and finance; Enterprise and Diversity. 

Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC)

Through holistic opportunities within our curriculum, worship schedule and church school distinctiveness strategy children will develop their: 

Spiritual understanding by:

  • Being reflective about their own beliefs (religious or otherwise) and perspective of life
  • Obtain a knowledge, and respect, of different people's faiths, feelings and values
  • Enjoy learning about themselves and others
  • Use imagination and creativity in their learning
  • Be reflective on their experiences

Moral understanding by:

  • Ability to recognise the difference between right and wrong and to readily apply this understanding in their own lives, and to recognise legal boundaries and, in doing so, respect the civil and criminal law of England
  • Understanding of the consequences of their behaviour and actions
  • Interest in investigating and offering reasoned views about moral and ethical issues and ability to understand and appreciate the viewpoints of others on these issues

Social understanding by:

  • Use of a range of social skills in different contexts - for example, working and socialising with other pupils of different ages and backgrounds
  • Willingness to participate in a variety of communities and social settings, including by volunteering, cooperating well with others and being able to resolve conflicts effectively
  • Acceptance of and engagement with the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. They will develop and demonstrate skills and attitudes that will allow them to participate fully in and contribute positively to life in modern Britain

Cultural understanding by:

  • Understanding and appreciation of the wide range of cultural influences that have shaped their own heritage and that of others
  • Understanding and appreciation of the range of different cultures in the school and further afield as an essential element of their preparation for life in modern Britain
  • Ability to recognise, and value, the things we share in common across cultural, religious, ethnic and socio-economic communities
  • Knowledge of Britain's democratic parliamentary system and its central role in shaping our history and values, and in continuing to develop Britain
  • Willingness to participate in and respond positively to artistic, musical, sporting and cultural opportunities
  • Interest in exploring, improving understanding of and showing respect for different faiths and cultural diversity and the extent to which they understand, accept, respect and celebrate diversity. This is shown by their respect and attitudes towards different religious, ethnic and socio-economic groups in the local, national and global communities

Enrichment – Please see Personal Development Overview

Whilst these are not exhaustive and further enrichment days will be happening dynamically throughout the year, these are the planned trips, visitors and enrichment opportunities that occur year on year for all pupils. These do not include whole school days such as World Book Day, Comic Relief, Red Nose Day, Children’s, Internet Safety Day, Anti-Bullying Week etc. 

Extra-Curricular Clubs

We are lucky to provide a wide range of extra-curricular activities, from football, choir, Lego, Tai Kwando and computing to name a few. These are dynamic and change according to the needs and wants of the children. 

Pupil Leadership

At The Manor we believe in creating a pupil leadership culture where children are involved in the decision making at the school to help everyone flourish. We want our children to be actively involved in school improvement and to breathe life, relevance, purpose and meaning in all that happens at our school.

We strive for opportunities for children to become confident and articulate leaders who can share their views to any audience and apply their leadership skills to real life situations within our community and beyond. We believe in giving the children the opportunity to make a vital contribution to continually improving their school and their learning journey.

We believe that by giving ownership of the school to our children it creates a better school and builds leaders of the future. This belief builds on our Christian values of community, aspiration, love, joy and wisdom.

To allow this to happen, we run weekly Circle Groups involving all the children and staff to allow every child’s voice to be heard. The purpose of Circle Groups is to help develop relationships between children in different classes and year groups, to help everyone know about what is going on in the school and to help the children think about how we can make the school even better. Circle Group meetings are led by our older children and in each group, there are children from Reception to Year 6. In each meeting, weekly news is shared and there is a discussion point about to allow children to reflect, share and contribute to the school. The Year 6s lead the meeting and take minutes.

At the start of each year our Year 6s write letters of application and attend interviews for key leadership roles in the school. These include:

  • House Captains
  • Sports Ambassadors
  • Computing Leaders
  • Worship Council
  • Library Monitors

Our Year 6 children are all involved in leading our school lunches where they serve the food, help the younger children, help clear away and act as role models for the other children in the school.

Updated: 19/03/2025 285 KB