Our Personal Development Offer

At Rodborough School we value personal development, alongside academic achievement. This is critical to achieving success in any person’s life and, as a result, we recognise the importance of teaching this explicitly to students during their time with us. We encourage students to involve themselves fully, not only in their academic studies, but also in the wider life of the school. 

Our aim is that, when our students leave us, they do so empowered to thrive and to contribute positively to society.  Our core values – Respect, Resilience, Reflection, Resourcefulness, Responsibility – support this aim and run throughout all aspects of school life.

We believe it our core mission to provide an excellent education, foster positive and healthy relationships, support students to become emotionally resilient, and respect and celebrate differences in others, contributing to the school and wider community.  The aspects of school life listed below, help us to facilitate these ideals and achieve our core aim:

• Our PSHE programme
• Assemblies
• School Council
• Our Careers programme
• Extra-curricular clubs
• Trips – both residential and non-residential 
• The Duke of Edinburgh Award
• Students Leadership: Subject Ambassadors and Year 11 Student Leaders

Our PSHE programme is delivered by tutors, in a dedicated lesson each Wednesday.  All students are required to take part in these lessons.

Our assembly programme is mapped out across the academic year.  These provide an opportunity to bring students and staff together to build a sense of community, reinforce shared values and foster school spirit.  Our programme alternates between dedicated time for individual year group assemblies, and the wider school coming together - in either Lower or Upper School assemblies - to consider and reflect on key themes, ideas and events, and to celebrate successes.

School Council members are elected by our students.  Each tutor group, across all five year groups, has a representative which sits on the council and serves as a voice to represent the views and ideas of their group.  This is a fantastic introduction to leadership roles for our Year 7 students and, as students move up the school, there are further leadership opportunities offered for them to apply for.  In Year 10 students apply for positions as Subject Ambassadors and in Year 11, a range of Student Leader roles are available, including the roles of Senior team – our Lead Students.

Our Careers programme has been developed to meet Gatsby benchmarks.  Dedicated careers lessons are delivered within the PSHE programme and students are provided with opportunities to explore different professions, using the Unifrog library.  Opportunities for employer interactions are built into Years 7 to 10, including a week of work experience for Year 10 in the summer term.  The variety of different pathways available post-16, are outlined and external speakers visit the school to allow opportunities for questions and advice.

We are proud of our co-curricular provision.  We offer a range of extra-curricular clubs – sporting, drama, art, music amongst others – which are available both during lunch times and after school.  We provide opportunities for our students to explore the wider world by organising trips – both residential and non-residential – and put support in place to encourage as many students to participate in these as possible.

Rodborough has delivered the Duke of Edinburgh Award programme for many years now and this has always been a popular activity for our students to get involved in.  Students begin their Duke of Edinburgh experience in Year 10 when they complete their Bronze award challenges; those students who wish to continue the Duke of Edinburgh journey, do so in Year 11 by completing their Silver award before moving on to their post-16 provision.