We are proud of our strong personal development and enrichment that we offer to our children at Folly View Primary School - one that extends beyond the academic but is also embedded within the curriculum and provides frequent and varied opportunities for pupils to develop character and enrich their lives.

Our school culture is one where everyone feels valued and respected, and treated fairly. All members of the school can flourish, thrive and work together in an environment where everyone feels happy, safe and secure. Relationships between our children, families and staff are strong ensuring that each child is cared for and has a sense of belonging.

Extensive knowledge of our learning community, its strengths and needs, allows us to focus on developing and promoting our intention to provide well for the personal development of all our pupils.

Our carefully planned curriculum and enrichment activities throughout their journey at Folly View ensure that all children have opportunity to broaden and deepen their understanding of themselves and the world they live in.

Intent

Personal Development (PD)  is seen as a crucial part of the journey of preparing our pupils for their adult, independent life. PD helps create safe school communities where pupils can grow, learn, and develop positive, healthy behaviour and character traits for life. It can have a positive impact on pupils’ health and wellbeing and their ability to achieve. 

Personal development at Folly View centres on our school values of belonging, kindness, resilience, aspiration, community and integrity. We believe that a pupils’ character and understanding of the world can be developed through consistent reference to, modelling and teaching of these. 

We aim for pupils to be active citizens in a diverse world and to be respectful, inquisitive and understanding about difference. We want pupils to be confident to participate and keen to learn skills, knowledge and/or talents in the next stage of their education. We offer a vast range of additional enrichment opportunities to help facilitate this. 

Implementation is through:

Our school values - these are discussed daily when teaching, supporting behaviour and in assemblies. Our school values are deeply embedded in our school’s daily life in our interactions with pupils, parents and each other. School Vision, Aims and Values.

Our relationships and behaviour policy  - which aims to provide children and families with the language and tools to communicate their own feelings and to understand what others may be feeling and communicating by their behaviour. Through our bespoke pastoral offer we can support children and families to ensure that the children are able to regulate their emotions and behaviours in order to be able to access the learning on offer in school. Positive Relationships and Behaviour Policy

Our learning muscles allow all children to reflect and talk about positive learning behaviours and attitudes. They help to embed the desired learning behaviours in all of our pupils in home and school life. These are 9 characters who help pupils remember good learning behaviours and guide their conduct so that they; reflect wisely, learn eagerly, behave with integrity and cooperate consistently well. Children who have demonstrated the learning muscles in school life are celebrated each week in Celebration Assembly.  Learning muscles

Our Pastoral Support – We place a significantly high level of importance and investment into our pastoral support. We have a full-time pastoral lead that works within our nurturing Orchard room. We believe that with the right level of pastoral support in place we can break down so many barriers to school, this includes attendance issues, transition times, barriers to learning, emotional regulation, friendship difficulties and so much more.

Our PSHE/RSHE (Relationships, sex and health education) – We use the Jigsaw scheme which ensures progression and development in personal and social skills and knowledge.  There is a strong focus on emotional literacy, mental and physical health. 

British values - They are revisited throughout the year when linking to our school values. For example, when we teach about community, we discuss tolerance. We regularly vote (school councillors, learners of the week) and remind the children of democracy at these points. Individual classes reinforce British values at teachable moments. 

Inclusion, equality and diversity - please see the document on this page, which explains how this is taught and embedded.  

Citizenship - we aim to prepare children for their role in society through assemblies, PD  lessons, our bespoke curriculum and our enrichment programme. Our focus on the value of community discusses how we can help to shape our school, our local community and the wider world with eco councillors, school councillors and charity work. We discuss integrity as standing up for what we believe is right and take part in our own demonstrations or learn about activists. We encourage children to think about citizenship through our texts and writing, and our text spine throughout the school provides windows to the world outside of Faringdon. Our visits and trips, including links with secondary schools, also support children in the next stages of their education. 

SMSC – At Folly View, spiritual development enables pupils to look within themselves, at their human relationships and at the wider world. We are committed to celebrating the diversity of cultures and values that all families bring to Folly View and to build an awareness and respect of them.  We do this through our RE, RSHE curriculum as well as our school value of community. These are covered in standalone lessons, assemblies, visits to places of worship and visitors into school. 

At Folly View, moral development enables pupils to know what it right and wrong, and act on it accordingly. We teach this through our values of integrity and kindness. We reject all forms of bullying and use a restorative approach to behaviour management.

At Folly View, social development enables our pupils to understand the rights and responsibilities of living in a community. It helps them to understand their role within that community and become a well-rounded citizen.

At Folly View, cultural development enables our pupils to acquire an understanding of a range of cultures. We celebrate the richness of diversity in our school through our values-based assemblies, events and visitors as well as providing opportunities for pupils to engage in a range of sporting, artistic and cultural opportunities both within and outside of school.