Personal Development Sessions
Our personal development curriculum is based on ensuring students have the knowledge and skills they need to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities, and the experiences of later life.
The weekly session is part of our ASPIRE programme curriculum that helps to prepare students for adult life. It supports our vision to take them beyond Rainham and support our ambitions for all our students to be profoundly human.
The chosen activities provide a curriculum rich in knowledge and experiences to ensure students become happy, safe, successful and respectful individuals who are unafraid to tackle injustice and engage effectively in society. The knowledge and skills acquired through the PD5 curriculum ensure students continue to develop our six core character traits for success. By the end of their academic journey at Harris Academy Rainham students will become confident, resilient, curious, informed, kind and ambitious individuals who are equipped to fulfil their innate potential, in our everchanging world.
Students are taught in their LG groups by teachers from one of the 6 PD faculties each term. The faculties are:
- Debating current affairs
- Fitness 4 life
- Exploring science
- Financial money management
- Design and create
- Oracy and public speaking
Groups will experience each activity for approximately 5 weeks. Year groups will experience most of the 6 activities, except where we have deemed it necessary for groups to have a broader experience of a topic e.g. Year 8 will spend 2 terms in science to ensure they attain a Crest Award. The curriculum in each faculty is well planned and sequenced. All activities are delivered in an age appropriate manner. In some cases, this may involve the activity building on prior content to become more complex, or possibly changing altogether to provide new experiences as our students move into KS4.
Year Plan
Personal development sessions structure
Our personal development lesson takes place each Monday 3.15 - 4.05pm and provides Years 7 - 10 pupils with a different session to experience each term. The lessons provide opportunities and content which are not part of our KS3 and KS4 subject curriculum, but which we feel it is important our pupils are knowledgeable about. Year 11 pupils operate an alternative programme of revision and intervention sessions.
