Personal Development

At The Quinta, we pride ourselves on developing the whole child through a carefully planned curriculum, a range of exceptional opportunities, and through our excellent pastoral care.  

Our pupils

Our vision is to nurture and educate every child that steps through our doors to be emotionally resilient, aware of world issues and tolerant, kind young adults.  They are confident, good public speakers, able to debate, caring and considerate, and aware of their place in their community and modern day British society.  They are inclusive, brave, bold, and passionate learners.  Our children are responsible and able to transition to their next stage of education and life seamlessly through a holistic approach to developing them as a person.

The social-emotional skills and attributes acquired through PHSCE have been shown through numerous studies to positively impact children’s life chances, their academic success and their own mental health and wellbeing.

Our curriculum

Personal Development runs through every subject, every opportunity, and every interaction pupils have with staff and each other on a daily basis.  Discrete teaching takes place in our bespoke PHSCE curriculum, written by The Quinta, for the Quinta, with our children, our community and our needs in mind.  PHSCE is treated as a core subject taught at least 3 times a week.  Specific threads of progressive learning which are covered in every year group include financial wellbeing, mental health, and keeping safe and managing risk.  Diversity and inclusion is a key driver for us at The Quinta and our bespoke RE curriculum with its focus on developing rich schemas of different religions and alternative belief systems engages our learners with the world around them.  We study world religions, celebrations, and learn empathy through understanding the challenges that are presented to different religious groups living in modern day Britain.   

For Quinta pupils to become emotionally resilient, aware of world issues and become tolerant, kind and accepting young adults.  The social-emotional skills and attributes acquired through PHSCE have been shown through numerous studies to positively impact children’s life chances, their academic success and their own mental health and wellbeing.  

Speaking and listening is a vital skill that needs even more nurturing in this technology-driven society.  Knowing this, Drama is part of our curriculum from KS2, carefully planned to develop the self-confidence of every child to help them better articulate themselves, develop their empathy, and their communication skills.  

Our opportunities

Our children are privileged to be given a wealth of opportunities to help each of them develop to be the best they can be and to nurture their own talents.  We offer an extensive range of after school clubs to nurture the talents, interests or needs of every child such as mindfulness club, rebound trampolining, hockey, football, art, drama, athletics to name just a few.  We pride ourselves on our high uptake of clubs not only for the skills the children develop at them, but also for the relationships the children  continue to build with our staff.  All teachers, some teaching assistants and external providers run clubs.  

We are very lucky to offer many trips to children throughout their time at The Quinta; many year groups have the offer of a residential trip.  For example our children travel to London in Y5, stay away at Standon Bowers activity centre for a night in Y2 and we have even travelled all the way to Cornwall with our Y6s.  We believe that developing independence and those life skills away from home with their peers is vital for our children’s journey.  

In our local community, we create links with different business and groups such as Congleton library, our feeder high schools, Clonter Opera, Cheshire Police, the Rotary Club, Congleton Museum and many more.  

Through our links with the community, children have the opportunity to: 

• Enter photography and art competitions,

• Work with our PCSO to learn about online safety

• Understand fire safety with the local fire brigade (Smoke Busters)

• Visit Radbooke Hall (STEM) to program robots

• Understand road safety

• Use music to understand key values such as kindness and inclusion with Rock Kidz

• Have safeguarding assemblies and workshops through the NSPCC

• Take part in sports and educational visits to Astbury Mere

We take part in many community events including:

• Laying poppies at the cenotaph on Remembrance Day

• Writing, performing and directing a play at Clonter Oper

• Working with the local high school  history teacher to identify artefacts

• Entering the Rotary photography competition

• Producing a whole school art gallery

• Completing the summer  readathon with the library

• Visiting Congleton museum

• Visiting careers fair (link up with the high school)

• Visits from local people of note.

• Water spots activity days at the local mere 

• Participating in PTA events, such as the colour run

Within the school curriculum, the opportunities continue.  We have ‘Experience Days’ where the whole school comes together around a particular topic such as a history event or a key religious celebration.  We focus these days around areas that we feel are vital for our children to truly understand on a deeper, richer level such as Earth Day, Remembrance Day, Diwali and Easter.

Our children have the opportunity to understand their roles as allies to communities and as those who can speak up for those who need it.  We are a No Outsiders school and use picture books as both windows and mirrors in assemblies, lessons, and interventions.  We have a dedicated Inclusion Team in school and work alongside our Diversity and Inclusion parent groups to refine our curriculum and school experience for all children.  

Each year group has a designated charity that they raise money for and teach the rest of the school about in assembly.  We have raised money for Young Minds, Shelter, the ADHD foundation, and for bee conservation in previous years.

Our staff

Our staff bring the magic every day to our children and they are so lucky to work with such fantastic children.  In turn, our staff truly care about developing the whole child.  We have several levels of pastoral support to help children learn to navigate through friendships, challenges, and becoming more independent members of our school community.  We have a large group of support staff who are there to offer not only academic interventions, but pastoral ones as well from understanding the Zones of Regulation to learning conflict resolution.  We are privileged to have the staff available to be able to add such a rich additional level of learning and support on top of our curriculum which already emphasises personal development.

British Values

At The Quinta, we believe in teaching our children the fundamental British values.

• Democracy

• Rule of law

• Individual liberty

• Mutual respect and tolerance

These values are actively delivered on a daily basis through our whole school ethos. We embed them into our school core values of authentic care, independence, everyday excellence and opportunity. We also teach them explicitly through our PHSCE and RE lessons. 

British Values are reinforced regularly throughout school in the following ways:

Democracy

• A well established school council which is elected by the children,  meets regularly throughout the year.

• Taking part in a fair vote about varying issues

• Giving balanced points of view in discussions, representing different characters and giving well-thought out and balanced arguments.

• Articulating, writing  or  delivering short speeches

• Parents’ opinions are welcomed through the use of questionnaires, surveys and meetings

Rule of law

• All children follow the school rules ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’. Children are taught the values and reasons behind these rules and the consequences when they are broken

• Visits from members of the community e.g. PCSO and Fire Brigade to reinforce messages

• All classes have a points reward system for following school rules

• Above and Beyond awards and Quinta Stars are awarded in assemblies to children who have followed the school rules and exceeded expectations

 Individual Liberty

• At The Quinta, children are actively encouraged to voice their opinions in a safe and supportive environment, regardless of their age

• Children are encouraged to challenge stereotypes and learn about the range of family units  and relationships 

• We support our children to exercise their rights to personal freedom, within a safe environment 

• Children are given the freedom to make choices e.g. choosing their after-school curricular clubs and share their feedback through school council

Mutual respect and tolerance

• Mutual respect is at the heart of The Quinta’s values. All me,beds of our school community treat each other with respect.

• ‘Ready, Respectful and Safe’ are our fundamental rules, and are embedded at all times of the school day.

• Co-operative learning strategies are used across the curriculum and in all age groups to promote positive interaction between pupils

• PE lessons and sporting opportunities promote fair play, teamwork and respect.

• We embed tolerance of other cultures and religions within our PHSCE and RE lessons

• Experience Days celebrate religious festivals and events around the world

• Children are taught to recognise and report prejudice

• We have experience days which focus on specific religious events, ensure that diversity and inclusion are key aspects of our whole school assemblies, and observe key dates in the year such as Black History month.