Personal Development Overview

At Durham Academy we believe that personal development of each student is essential for them to be successful.

Our ethos and driving aims are to develop a school community where are students are:

• Confident
• Ambitious
• Respectful
• Proud

We deliver a curriculum that is designed to develop all the characteristics that our students need to be resilient in a modern world. We want our students to be happy, successful young adults who are able to thrive and maintain healthy relationships, wellbeing and good health.

All our pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum, contributing fully to the life of the school and the wider community. In doing so, pupils learn to recognise their own worth, develop a sense of their own identity and the ability to take their place in the community as well as respect for, and working with, others. 

The Personal Development Curriculum at Durham Academy covers the following areas:  

• Fundamental British Values and Citizenship education  
• Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural education  
• Personal, Social, Health and Economic and Sex and Relationship Education  
• Careers and Living in the Wider World education 

The curriculum encourages students to learn more about themselves as growing and changing individuals. Students learn to respect the views, needs and rights of others, including people of different genders, ages and cultures to themselves. Students have the opportunity to broaden, extend and challenge their knowledge, values and skills to prepare them for life in modern Britain, with the aim of making students productive citizens. 

The Personal Development curriculum is delivered in a number of ways. These include some of the following below, but is not an exhaustive list: 

• PSCHE lessons- including personal relationships and 
• Tutorial sessions with a clear focus for each day including “In the News”
• Assemblies
• Careers programme
• PE and RS
• Extra curricular and enrichment opportunities 
• Trips and cultural visits  Pupils are encouraged to reflect on their experiences and to recognise how they are developing personally and socially, addressing the spiritual, social, moral and cultural and health issues that form an intrinsic part of growing up.
• Enrichment opportunities in and outside of school
• Charity raising events 
• Topics identified across the curriculum