Curriculum lenses - Personal development across the curriculum

Tools

Personal development across the curriculum

Personal development addresses the social, cultural, intellectual, economic, physical, emotional, moral and spiritual aspects of young people's education. A coherent approach to personal development will help young people grow towards maturity and develop independence and will be reflected in the ethos of the school and what it values.

The curriculum is more than what is taught in individual subjects: it is the entire planned learning experience of learners. It takes place in and out of the classroom and calls for active teaching and learning methods. For pupils to progress, transferability of skills and understanding together with experience of a variety of social and emotional contexts are significant parts of the learning. At its heart is a sense of the individual and the roles each person has to play in life - in a family, as a neighbour, with friends, as an employee and a member of a community.

Personal development for pupils

To help schools plan personal development as part of their curriculum the following table, based on the five outcomes of Every Child Matters, has been devised. It sets out the attitudes, knowledge and abilities that need to be developed as an integral part of the whole curriculum.

The curriculum should help young people:

develop the capacity to enjoy life and succeed in it
learn how to stay safe and manage risks
understand how to maintain a healthy lifestyle
form relationships and participate in society
acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding relevant to working life.

Develop the capacity to enjoy life and succeed in it	Young people will: develop a positive sense of their own identity and self-esteem be able to enjoy life and be positive about its challenges have a say in what and how they learn learn to assess their skills, achievement and potential, setting personal goals, and negotiating and planning ways to meet them understand that achievement is lifelong and there are different ways to succeed aim to achieve personal excellence.
Learn how to stay safe and manage risks	Young people will: understand how to identify and assess risks, minimise them and deal with them in different situations be able to make safe choices develop the confidence to take on new experiences and ideas safely identify the dangers in new and different choices in a changing technological world develop skills such as negotiation and assertiveness to resist unhelpful pressure.
Understand how to maintain a healthy lifestyle	Young people will understand: how to look after their physical, emotional and sexual health that they can and should make positive choices and take sensible actions to avoid harmful choices the consequences that some decisions might have on their health and that of others how to deal with illness in themselves and others.
Form relationships and participate in society	Young people will: understand the multiple roles individuals play develop the skills and strategies to be effective and form good relationships in a variety of roles know how to make a difference in a group, community or society know how to work effectively with other people understand the consequences of anti-social behaviour.
Acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding relevant to working life	Young people will be able to: understand the qualities and skills needed for working life make creative and realistic plans for their transition into, through and beyond the 14-19 phase of learning handle uncertainty and respond positively to change embrace and implement new ideas and new ways of doing things make reasonable risk/reward assessments and act upon them in a variety of contexts, both personal and work-related understand the local, national and global contexts of the economy, work and enterprise manage their own money and be questioning and informed consumers of financial services.

Building personal development into the curriculum

Learning for personal development is a lens through which the curriculum should be viewed.

The whole curriculum promotes learners' attainment and helps prepare them for life but some areas make a more specific contribution to personal development. It is clearly significant in citizenship, PE and RE.

In addition, the areas of personal, social and health education, careers education, enterprise education, work-related learning and financial capability also contribute to learners' personal development.

To support schools in delivering a more coherent curriculum, these areas are to be brought together into a new area of learning called personal, social, health and economic education (PSHEE). At key stages 3 and 4 the existing guidelines and frameworks will be replaced with non-statutory programmes of study in personal well-being (which includes sexual relationships, drugs and alcohol) and economic well-being(which includes careers education, enterprise education, work-related learning and financial capability).

Personal development needs to be in tandem with knowledge and understanding and the development of personal, learning and thinking skills. These can be exploited through the new PSHEE guidance and by giving them explicit attention in teaching and learning in subjects.