Personal development at St Benet Biscop comprises of the following elements:

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Relationship, Sex & Health Education

RSHE helps students to develop confidence and skills to manage relationships and make healthy lifestyle choices (including drugs, alcohol awareness, mental well-being, online safety, sex and relationships education).

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Careers Education

Helping students to explore career opportunities, and assess their own skills to enable them to make informed realistic and independent choices about their post 16 and 18 routes. Our careers programme includes work related learning including work experience in Year 10 and Year 12 and enterprise education learning about business and local labour market information.

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Personal, Social, Health & Economic Education

PHSE develops the knowledge, skills and attributes students need to manage their lives, now and in the future. It helps young people to stay healthy and safe, while preparing them to make the most of life and work. 

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Citizenship

Helping students become active, informed and responsible global citizen including learning about laws, politics, environmental issues and human rights. Students are taught about key British values.

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Core Studies

All students in Years 7 to 13 receive weekly Core Studies lessons. Core studies hosts some of taught personal development curriculum from Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 5.

We follow a PHSE Association guided curriculum with learning arranged into three key themes:

Core Theme 1 - Health & Wellbeing

Core Theme 2 - Relationships

Core Theme 3 - Living in the Wider World

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At Key Stage 3, students build on the knowledge and understanding, skills, attributes and values they have acquired and developed during the primary phase. Our Core Studies programme acknowledges and addresses the changes that young people experience, beginning with transition to secondary school, the challenges of adolescence and their increasing independence. Core Studies teaches the knowledge and skills which will equip our young people for the opportunities and challenges of life. Students learn to manage diverse relationships, their online lives, and the increasing influence of peers and the media.

At Key Stage 4, students deepen knowledge and understanding, extend and rehearse skills, and further explore attitudes, values and attributes acquired during key stage 3. Our Core Studies education reflects the fact that students are moving towards an independent role in adult life, taking on greater responsibility for themselves and others.

By the end of Key Stage 5, many young people will leave home for the first time and live independently, possibly in distant locations. There is a balance throughout our sixth form deliver between preparing students to manage their current lives and laying the foundations for managing future experiences. It is important to us to provide a comprehensive Core Studies education in key stage 5; as this ensures students continue to learn about issues with real-life relevance to them, at a crucial transition point in their lives.
 

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The personal development education at St Benet Biscop of our students is an integral part of the work that we do.  Underpinning our personal development curriculum is this social moral spiritual and cultural education of all our young people. Students experience holistic broad personal development curriculum which extends beyond the academic.  All our students are given a wide range of opportunities both in and out of the classroom. St Benet Biscop is an inclusive Catholic Academy, we aim to help every student be the best that they can be. 

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The intent of the personal development curriculum is to prepare and support students for life as a global citizen in the modern world. 

At St Benet Biscop, students are given opportunities to develop their character. We aim to guide them to become resilient confident and independent young people. We guide them to develop into respectful kind young adults who have a moral compass, are active citizens making a positive impact on the wider world. 
Within lessons and in our wider curriculum students engage with discussions and debates. Students do this in a respectful way, considering others and demonstrating respect of the different protected characteristics. Throughout St Benet Biscop equality and diversity are celebrated to understand, appreciate, respect and differences in the world and each other.

Alongside high-quality pastoral care, students are taught how to stay mentally and physically healthy. Through core studies, physical education and computing curriculum they have a good understanding of negative impacts on their health, things that can promote good health and where to get support should they need to access it. Students are taught how to keep themselves safe in the ever-changing technological world we live in. They have a good understanding of potential risks online and know how to keep themselves from danger.  In terms of relationships, we aim for our students to have the sound understanding of positive relationships as well as an understanding of how to recognise negative relationships and what to do when faced with challenges in their relationships. 

Alongside our personal development taught curriculum, which is delivered by the form tutor, who is a pivotal role in school carrying out daily pastoral care alongside Heads of Progress and Student Support Managers students are given the opportunity to work with our external colleagues such as Northumbria Police Violence Reduction Unit, the NHS, ASK, FutureMe and more. Delivering our personal development lessons beyond the classroom and including awareness days and weeks allows us to focus on challenging topics in more detail.  Alongside this delivery each morning during form time, students explore and reflect up a theme of the week, attend assemblies and form prayer which builds upon these themes further.

Our ethos inspires our work throughout the year in particular at harvest, advent and lent when we live out our gospel values of daily care for one another and a wider community. 

St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy is blessed to have students and staff from a range of faith, ethnic, social economic backgrounds as well as different genders, sexual orientation and SEND we are proud to celebrate our diversity.

We have strong safeguarding provision across our academy, with daily pastoral work from the form tutor, student support managers, heads of progress, attendance team and other dedicated staff working closely with external agencies to ensure our students’ personal development.

Across all key stages students are offered a range of wider opportunities including subject clubs, extracurricular clubs, sports teams, performing arts, educational visits, residential trips, specialist awards such as Duke of Edinburgh, John Paul II Award. These opportunities run inside and outside of the school day.
Our behaviour climate is one of high expectations. Encouraging students to have expectations of themselves and others.

High quality careers education is delivered across all year groups with supportive information and guidance allowing students to progress on to the next stage of their education or employment. Students develop an understanding of the range of careers and opportunities available to them learning what they need to achieve to succeed. Students are given opportunities to encounter different careers throughout their time at St Benet Biscop. We work with a range of external providers to deliver a thorough careers programme to all students. Further information regarding CEIAG can be found in the careers section.