Personal Development

At The Duke of Bedford Primary School, we are committed to providing a purposeful and empowering curriculum that fully prepares learners for the next steps in their school career and the wider world. We want our children to aspire to achieve and believe that it is essential that they understand the world they live in. Broadening our children’s horizons and giving them the belief that they are capable of achieving great things drives our ambition that our children leave our school encouraged and determined to be a positive influence in the communities that they belong to. 

 Today’s children and young people are growing up in an increasingly complex world and living their lives seamlessly on and offline. This presents many positive and exciting opportunities, but also includes challenges and risks. In this environment, children and young people need to know how to be safe and healthy, and how to manage their academic, personal and social lives in a positive way. Our aim is to develop skills and attributes such as resilience, self-esteem, risk-management, team-working and critical thinking so that they may successfully navigate the real world. 

In school we strive to provide our pupils with opportunities and enrichment which enable them to experience the wider world, different cultures and understand the British Values so that they become positive influences on society as they grow up. 

Miss Butter and Ms Canning run our School Council, where pupils who have been democratically voted into position as class councilor meet weekly to work on projects and ideas to improve our school. 

So far this year the School Council have set up the 'Heart Hub' which is a donation space on the school grounds where members of our school community can come for food, toiletries, school uniform and other items such as winter coats and swimming costumes. The Heart Hub is open 3 times per week for members of our school community to access. Pupils and their families donate to baskets around school so that the Heart Hub is always filled with items that people may need. 

In the Autumn term the school council led our charity efforts in raising funds for Children in Need and our school raised more money for the charity than it ever has before, a whopping £3923.42! 

Elections for school council are held every September and all children are given the opportunity to take part.

Alongside our school council, Mrs Sewell and Mrs Pepper run our Eco Council. Similarly to the Eco - Council, the children are democratically voted into position by their peers after delivering presentations in special assemblies at the start of the academic year. 

So far this year our Eco Council have introduced 'Eco Buddies' who are awarded to the classes in school each week who have successfully remembered to recycle, turn of all lights and screens when not in use and not leave taps running. The Eco Council are currently working towards gaining Green Flag Status! They complete weekly litter pick exercises, have set up a school gardening club and are hoping to begin other projects soon!

 

Enrichment opportunities in our school

Here is just a few examples of some of the opportunities we have provided this academic year 2023/2024 to enhance our pupils' experiences in school.

Autumn Term

  • Year 4 visited the local Gurdwara to learn more about Sikh culture. 
  • Year 3 went to visit Reverend Annie to find out why Jesus is important to Christians. 
  • Year 2 took donations to the local food bank to find out how to help people within our community. 
  • Year 3 and 4 had a virtual author visit from Peter Brown, Author of Wild Robot. 
  • Year 3 attended a local dance festival and performed for other schools in the local community. 
  • Year 6 had visitors from the Peterborough Buddhist community to learn more about Buddhist practices and beliefs.
  • Reception had a visit from Dorothy Halfhide who helps to run Thorney Museum. She talked to them about Thorney during world war two as part of their Remembrance topic.  
  • The whole school marked Remembrance Day with a service on the playground led by our Year 6 Pupils. 
  • Year 3 went on fieldwork walk around the local area, finding out how to use OS maps and plot landmarks on their own maps.
  • Year 5 had a virtual visit from a Viking at the Yorvik Centre in York, they interviewed him and found out about life during Viking times.
  • As part of their DT learning, Year 6 invited parents into school and opened a 'soup cafe' to share the products they had designed and made in their cookery lessons. 
  • The whole school visit to the local Abbey to celebrate Christingle with readings from pupils. 
  • Pre-School performed Christmas songs to their parents in the school hall. 
  • Reception class put on an excellent Christmas performance of 'The Inn Keeper's Breakfast.'
  • Years 1 to 6 performed 'What Christmas means to me,' across 4 performances to parents. 

Spring Term

  • Years 1 to 6 had a virtual History day in school, supported by History Off the Page, pupils completed tasks and challenges linked to their current History learning, with virtual visits from historical figures!
  • Pre-school and Reception had a visit from the local police who came to talk to them about how they keep us safe and let us see their police car!
  • Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 have were all invited to take part in Bike Ability to ensure our pupils are safe using their bikes when on the roads in our community. 

This information is updated regularly to reflect the opportunities we are providing for our pupils in school. If you are part of our school community and feel you have any talents, skills or career that would engage our children, we would love to hear from you!