Personal Development at St Michael’s
At St Michael’s, our Explore Curriculum extends beyond the academic, providing for pupils’ broader development and preparing and supporting pupils to become confident, resilient and independent global citizens.
Our Personal Development offer is coherently planned and sequenced to ensure equality of opportunity as well as a wide range of enriching experiences for our children. The children of St Michael’s are given opportunity to develop skills, talents and interests, with a range of high-quality extra-curricular activities which see a substantial percentage of uptake and create a buzz of excitement around school.
Our Personal Development offer covers a wide variety of areas of school life such as: residential visits, pupil leadership, sporting competitions, community links, catholic missions and protected characteristics.
Below are some highlights of our offer, how they are implemented and some examples of the impact we have seen.
Mission Values
Our school Mission Values were chosen by our school family back in 2015. They underpin everything we do here at St Michael’s. They play an integral part in our PSHE overview and each value is addressed across the year.
Each week our Headteacher sets a challenge based upon one of the values and children work towards embodying that value during that week.
Core Themes
We are extremely proud of the diverse nature of our school. Our children speak over 40 languages and our families come from all over the world, representing every ethnic group.
We have chosen the core themes of ‘Equality, Diversity and Aspirations’ to further support our Mission Values and ensure that ALL pupils are supported and encouraged to achieve what they dream and believe.
Residentials
We have a growing programme of residential trips for our KS2 pupils. These residentials provide an opportunity for pupils to experience activities that they previously may not have encountered. They are a wonderful chance for our children to grow in confidence and independence, discover new skills and talents and visit new places.
Year 4 & Year 5
Children attend a 2 night residential at CHET, Little Crosby. This is often the first time that many of our children have stayed away from their family and is an opportunity for them to develop socially and emotionally. In Year 5, children get the chance to experience somewhere new, with this year’s cohort visiting PGL, Winmarleigh Hall. Children take on activities such as climbing, archery and rafting.
Year 6
Children attend a three-day residential at Colomendy, North Wales. This residential allows the children to experience a wide range of physical challenges which support resilience, both independence and teamwork and self-esteem.
Clubs
We offer a growing range of free extra-curricular activities for our children across the whole school. These are provided both by members of staff and specialist providers such as LFC, Resonate Music Hub and KMC.
Our aim is to provide children access to activities they may not have experienced previously.
Children also have the opportunity to take part in sporting competitions and musical performances both in school and in the community.
School Council
Each class from Year 1 upwards is represented by a democratically elected school councillor. This is an embedded part of school life and children relish the opportunity to share their ‘Campaign messages’ with their peers who then vote for their class representative. School councillors are involved in interviewing new members of staff, bringing forth ideas and issues from their class and representing the school in the community.
Head Pupils & Prefects
In Year 6 children have the opportunity to apply and campaign to become Head and Deputy Head pupils. They are encouraged to share their ideas on how best to fulfil the role with their Y6 peers who then vote. Head and Deputy Head pupils are involved in interview panels, organise school wide fundraising and represent the school when visitors come. Prefects are chosen for roles around the school such as door monitors and supporting younger pupils.
https://stmichaelscatholicprimary.co.uk/about-us/school-ambassadors/
Children’s University
In September 2023, we joined the Children’s University. This charity works closely with schools to further develop children’s love of learning. Children earn credits in their University passports by attending a range of clubs both in and out of school, taking part in tutoring sessions or music tuition or by joining in with monthly masterclasses with their classes. As the child continue to collect their credits, they are aiming to reach 30 credits by the end of the year. Children who receive enough credits will be invited to our very own graduation, ran by the University of Liverpool – complete with cap and gown!
Choir
We have a thriving and talented choir here at St Michael’s led by school staff and our music specialist Rosie.
Children from across KS2 are encouraged to join and they have performed both in school for parents, governors and visitors and in the community in such places as out local care home and at the Cotton Exchange in Liverpool.
St Michael’s work in the community
Our community is an integral part of who we are as a school. We have worked with and supported several local charities. One of these is ‘An Hour for Others’ who have do an amazing job by donating time and resources to support local families. At Christmas our Head Pupils organised a food collection in order to create hampers for local families. We have also been supporting Cafod’s ‘Walk against Hunger’ campaign.
Red Neighbours
As our school is so close to Anfield we are able to take part in their Red Neighbour scheme. This has meant that over the years many of our children have been able to attend home games, see trophies and even meet their favourite players!
We even had several of the players visit our school at Christmas 2019 to surprise some of our pupils. This has inspired many of our pupils to strive for their own dreams.
Curriculum Trips & Visits
Our Explore Curriculum allows our pupils to delve deep into their topics and find out more about the world around them. Our curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced to allow children to revisit key topics and themes repeatedly throughout their time at St Michael’s.
Trips and visits are planned to compliment our curriculum and bring the learning to life for many of our children. We visit places such as Crosby Beach to explore coastlines in Geography, Chester to experience the life of a Roman in line with our History curriculum as well as visiting the Walker Art Gallery to enhance our art curriculum.
Sporting Competitions
Sporting talent is something else that we are inundated with here at St Michael’s! We take part in a variety of inter-school competitions each year and have been eager to get these back up and running post Covid. We take part in athletics competitions at Wavertree Sports Centre, Basketball competitions and Football competitions amongst others.
We also encourage intra-school competitions through our P.E curriculum, with pupils aiming to play against other classes in different sports and showcase their skills!
Aspire and Achieve
Aspire and Achieve Week is one of the initiatives that we are most proud of here at St Michael’s. It was created several years ago by our Pastoral Team and has become an annual event that all children and staff look forward to each year. The week is all around highlighting the importance of attending school in order to succeed in the future and throughout the week we invite people from all areas of work to come in and speak to the children about their chosen career. We have had visits from pilots and chefs, gymnasts and archaeologists to emergency services and farmers. We have also had many of our parents come into school to talk to the children about their jobs. It is a wonderfully positive experience that allows the children to aspire to achieve their dreams!