Assemblies are planned with links to the UNCRC, equalities, British Values, current events and important local and global issues. They are an integral part of personal development and prioritised in our timetable. Children often play an active role in planning and delivering assemblies. In addition, we mark special festivals, celebrations days and commemorative occasions in assemblies and classes and partner-up with members of our community to deliver these assemblies/ workshops. Examples include Remembrance Day, Eid, Black History Month, Christmas, Anti-Bullying Week, World Mental Health Day, International Day of the Girl, Harvest and UK Parliament Week as well as ensuring children belong with opportunities to talk and debate. We also have created links with our local PCSO, who reads with children regularly as well as creating links with staff at some of our feeder secondary schools: Bridge Learning Campus, Ashton Park and Bedminster Down. Our School Nurse has visited for coffee mornings and for training in dental hygiene and we have links with many companies around our communities.

Personal development is a carefully planned aspect of the Parson Street Primary School experience. Personal development is a component of all subjects, however the key subjects which teach personal development discretely are: PSHE, RE, PE, Computing and Science as well as including our RSE curriculum. The curriculum overview for these subjects details the planned progression of knowledge and skills. Central to our approach to children’s personal development is our work to raise children’s aspirations by broadening their experiences and opportunities. Children are invited to attend clubs, encompassing sports, the arts, computing and problem solving. This is complemented by our highly successful Enterprise Project, with mentors from the business community. We also ensure that children are given responsibility and showcase our learning and help develop our community. Children within Year 5 and Year 6 are invited to become Opal Ambassadors. They represent the school with responsibilities in school hours and attend out-of-school events such as meeting members of the community, singing and leading sports games.

At Parson Street Primary School, we want to play a big part to support our communities. It is why we have set up opportunities for our communities including cooking clubs, gardening clubs, links with BS3 Community Charity and coffee mornings where different agencies or professionals attend to offer advice and support. We also run community breakfasts for agencies to attend to develop our school, children and our communities. At Parson Street, we prepare children to play a full and active part of society through our meta-cognition approach to behaviour and wider, extra-curricular opportunities for children to engage with.