Personal Development Curriculum

Kingsmead school, in partnership with parents, carers and external partners has a vital role to play in preparing our young people to negotiate the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly complex world. PD is the school subject that deals with the emotional and social development issues that affect our pupils and present potential barriers accessing education and other services. Many pupils at Kingsmead have attachment and developmental trauma related difficulties in their early childhood and a turbulent educational experience.

We believe that is children are happy, active and involved in their learning they are more likely to reach their learning goals and reach their academic potential. To this end, all pupils at Kingsmead have the opportunity to engage in the PD curriculum.

The curriculum aims to develop 3 core features in our young people;

Self awareness – the ability to accurately recognise your own emotions and thoughts and how they influence behaviour

Self management – the ability to effectively regulate your own emotions, thoughts and behaviours in different situations- effecting managing stress, controlling impulses and self regulation

Social awareness – the ability to take perspective of and empathise with others i.e. the ability to understand social and ethical norms for behaviour in a range of situations.

The level of input (i.e. number of hours taught) varies depending on need.  Typically, pupils at the Special School receive between 1 and 4 hours per week whilst pupils at the PRU generally have 1-2 timetabled. Kingsmead uses the Fagus Framework to assess each child’s strengths and weaknesses across a range of emotional and social domains so that we can work to clarify individual needs.  Teachers use this to create a pupil profile that are used to set developmentally appropriate goals to address gaps in social and/or emotional development.  Pupils follow a programme of study that focuses on the 9 development domains outlined by Fagus.  

Fagus is then used to measure the impact of interventions.  Each child will have a development checklist that is updated between 2 and 3 times per year.  This allows leaders and teachers to assess the development across each emotions and social domain.

Read more about Fagus