Personal Development
The Personal Development programme at Aston Academy aims to extend our curriculum subjects beyond the academic and vocational, and inject additional value and enrichment. Our offer is therefore designed to provide all students with opportunities to explore and develop passion, talent and interests.
We believe in providing a broad range of enriching activities and experiences, both within the curriculum and through a complementary, exciting programme of extra-curricular activities: brokered and designed to strengthen the character and enhance the education of Aston students.
The Personal Development Programme will foster an ethos, from which students feel confident to act with integrity, demonstrate resilience, develop knowledge and skills, co-operate consistently well with others and keep themselves mentally and physically healthy.
Running parallel to the experience outlined above, students experience a beneficial programme of careers and enterprise, preparing students for both further education and next best steps; ensuring they are equipped, not only for the wider world of work, but also prepared for life in modern Britain. This will be promoted and fostered from within all subject areas but additionally through an in-depth programme of PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education) and tutor time debate sessions.
Our exciting ACET Resilience Project is a new initiative this year which aims to help build resilience and healthy coping strategies within our young people.
We believe that resilience has always been important and research suggests it helps people, communities, and systems to thrive in the face of adversity, to manage stress and uncertainty, and to continue to develop and improve over time.
However, it is particularly crucial now, during the continuing impact of COVID and as children and teens face the unrivalled challenges of their generation: to thrive in a competitive, digital and fast-changing modern world.
At Aston Academy we have begun our building resilience journey in the following key ways:
- By informing you of our plans and providing top tips to work in partnership with us by promoting resilience at home and the benefits of using positive language to do so (please see below and recent accompanying letter)
- By providing Y7 students with a Resilience Booklet (please see attached) which encourages them to “collect” examples of showing resilience; so helping them to adopt healthy resilient habits and approaches
- By calendaring an evening event for Parents/Carers in school to support you in building resilience at home (date and further information to be provided)
- By continuing to promote resilience through our whole-academy Assembly, PSHE Programmes and Y10 Work Experience Project
- By enhancing our displays around the Academy to give students and staff visual tips to support their resilience journey
- By developing student-led, volunteer groups to use resilient language to support other students in school
- By inviting motivational speakers into school to address key cohorts
- By involving older pupils in becoming digital ambassadors to promote e-safety
- by asking our Library to promote/display texts where the characters/protagonists have demonstrated resilience
We firmly believe, therefore, that resilience gives us the strength to bounce back from challenges and as we all face hardships at some point in life, we feel we have a moral and educational duty to help our students develop the resilience to tap into their strengths and support systems. This gives them the best chance to overcome challenges and work through problems.
We hope you can work in partnership with us in this mission - and we with you at home. With this crucial, home-school partnership in mind, we provide some associated top tips and website links below:
Tips for building resilience in children and teens
a. Make connections
Teach your child the importance of engaging and connecting with his peers, including the skill of empathy and listening to others. It’s also important to build a strong family network. Connecting with others provides social support and strengthens resilience.
b. Maintain a daily routine
Sticking to a routine can be comforting to children, especially younger children who crave structure in their lives. Work with your child to develop a routine, and highlight times that are for school work and play. Particularly during times of distress or transition, you might need to be flexible with some routines. At the same time, schedules and consistency are important to maintain.
c. Take a break
While some anxiety can motivate us to take positive action, we also need to validate all feelings. Teach your child how to focus on something that they can control or can act on. Help by challenging unrealistic thinking by asking them to examine the chances of the worst case scenario and what they might tell a friend who has those worries.
d. Promote Self-Care
Teach your child the importance of basic self-care. This may be making more time to eat properly, exercise, and get sufficient sleep. Make sure your child has time to have fun and participate in activities they enjoy. Caring for oneself and even having fun will help children stay balanced and better deal with stressful times.
e. Move towards goals
Teach your child to set reasonable goals and help them to move toward them one step at a time. Establishing goals will help children focus on a specific task and can help build the resilience to move forward in the face of challenges. At school, break down large assignments into small, achievable goals for younger children, and for older children, acknowledge accomplishments on the way to larger goals.
f. Nurture a positive self-view
Help your child remember ways they have successfully handled hardships in the past and help them understand that these past challenges help build the strength to handle future challenges. Help your child learn to trust themselves to solve problems and make appropriate decisions. At school, help children see how their individual accomplishments contribute to the well-being of the class as a whole.
g. Keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook
Look for opportunities for self-discovery
Tough times are often when children learn the most about themselves. Help your child take a look at how whatever they’re facing can teach them “what I am made of.” At home, consider leading discussions of what your child has learned after facing a tough situation.
h. Accept change
Change can often be scary for children and teens. Help your child see that change is part of life and new goals can replace goals that have become unattainable. It is important to examine what is going well, and to have a plan of action for what is not going well.
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Reframe negative self-talk
We all have our own “inner critic” and young people are certainly no exception! We sometimes hear our students and children say “I can’t do this, it’s too hard”,” or “Why bother, I'll probably fail”?
Negative self-talk like this can risk becoming a constant backdrop in life, making students doubt their worth and capabilities. Please join us in encouraging our young people to negate these inner put-downs, flip the script and start being more positive and nicer to themselves.
Links/Resources:
1. The Power of Believing, Carol Dweck
2. Negative Self-Talk: 8 ways to quiet your inner critic
https://www.calm.com/blog/negative-self-talk
3. The Language of Resilience
https://parentandteen.com/language-of-resilience/
4. The 7 questions of resilience (helping young people to set the issues they face in context). Parents might find these SUMO questions helpful when dealing with child emotional resilience.
We will be in touch by letter/email again with further information, including key dates and a progress report on our joint efforts.
Meanwhile, thank you in anticipation of your understanding and support of our mission to build resilience in the young people we care so much about.