Citizenship & PSHE
Throughout their school career, all pupils should have access to a broad range of quality learning experiences. Every individual must be given opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding to lead confident, healthy independent lives and to become informed, active and responsible citizens ‘ DfEE Curriculum 2000
The challenge for the Centre has been to develop meaningful learning activities, which are fun and advance key skills. The Centre’s philosophy ‘that every individual can walk with a step of genius’ is the guiding principle in developing this area of the curriculum.
Team Building
The Centre offers a variety of problem solving activities and team challenges which reflect the diverse learning needs of pupils. Working as part of a team, pupils are encouraged to:
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Set personal targets
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Speak about their strengths
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Discover ways of improving performance
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Recognise the contribution of others
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Value their own efforts
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Reflect on the overall achievement of the team
Key skills
The introduction of key skills to the curriculum gives pupils the opportunity to have a better understanding of:
Communication: speaking and listening, e.g. giving and receiving instructions.
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Co-operation: Learning to negotiate and move forward.
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Working together: Learning to value other members of a team.
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Problem solving: Working collaboratively to develop strategies.
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Leadership: Giving instruction, encouraging others and being receptive to their ideas.
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Completing the task: Persevering to achieve personal and collective goals.
Pupils have the chance to use these key skills in the team building activities. In addition pupils are encouraged to improve performance by awarding scores on how well they applied these skills during the activities. The running totals are compared against personal targets set by individuals. At the end of the activity sessions, teams have an opportunity to talk about their success and are awarded certificates of achievement.