Personal Development

At William Farr C of E Comprehensive School, we embrace the challenge of creating happy and successful students as they transition into adult life. We are committed to developing our students’ personal development, which is important in its own right, as well as helping them to reach higher levels of academic achievement.

As part of our commitment to making sure every student is known and valued, they are assigned a form tutor who is pivotal in the key landmarks of student’s progress through our school. Form tutors act as mentors, both academically and developmentally, and are the first ‘point of call’ for contact from teachers regarding their tutees and from parents. As a result, the relationship developed between form tutor and their students is an extremely strong one.

Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is a core part of the school timetable. Form tutors are best placed to deliver the PSHE programme due to their knowledge of their tutor group. We also use a range of different specialist external speakers to support the delivery of the programme. We follow the PSHE Association Programme of Study, but tailor our programme to reflect the needs of our students and use PSHE to equip them, both with a sound understanding of risk and with the knowledge and skills to make safe and informed choices.

The PSHE Association Programme of Study covers three core themes:

Health and Wellbeing
Relationships; and
Living in the Wider World: Economic Wellbeing, Careers and the World of Work

In addition, the aims of our programme are to provide students with:

accurate and relevant knowledge
opportunities for them to turn their knowledge into personal understanding
opportunities to explore, clarify and, if necessary, challenge their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities
the skills, language and strategies that they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced lives.

The PSHE Programme at William Farr makes a significant contribution towards students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC), as well as covering Citizenship and British Values. It develops the knowledge, skills and understanding that students need to play a full part in society as active and responsible citizens. Students will learn about politics, parliament, voting, human rights, justice, the law and British values. These will include democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance.

PSHE has a clear focus on students’ behaviour and safety, as well as the school’s responsibility to promote their wellbeing. It is also essential in safeguarding students in all aspects of their lives including preventing them from being drawn into extremism and radicalisation.

Since September 2020, it has been a statutory requirement that all schools in England and Wales teach Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) as a fundamental part of the curriculum. At William Farr, our RSE curriculum is fully embedded in our wider PSHE programme, but also covered in other curriculum subjects, such as Science and PE.

The Equality Act of 2010 also applies to the teaching of RSE. We ensure the teaching of RSE meets the needs of all students, is sensitive, inclusive and age appropriate. As part of implementing the new RSE curriculum, we consulted with students, parents, staff and governors to ensure a consensus on our approaches to policy and curriculum content.

Our programme raises awareness of issues around sexism, consent, misogyny, sexual harassment and violence, and peer-on-peer abuse and on taking positive action to build a culture where these behaviours are not tolerated. Parents and carers do have the right to withdraw students from sex education but not relationships or health education. For further information on this, please contact the school. (See Contact Us)

For further information on what your child will be covering in PSHE, please see below.

DFE Guidance: Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education

DFE Information for Parents and Carers about RSE