EXTRA-CURRICULAR OPPORTUNITIES

First Visit

Providing students with extra-curricular opportunities enabled them to learn about themselves, which in turn supported personal development. Most of the teachers in both Catholic and common schools provided a range of opportunities, which they felt enhanced students’ personal development with 5 teachers out of 16 in common schools and 5 teachers out of 16 in Catholic schools commenting on this as important, for example:

I think our students are very lucky, they get a lot of support and also lots of opportunity to do lots of different things inside and outside.

(Teacher 3: Heatherside Year 1) Providing students with a wide range of different types of activity was seen as a useful way in which they could develop skills and see themselves in a positive light.

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Students were able to follow their own inclinations with regard to the type of extra- curricular activity in which they wanted to be involved.

Students have a huge range of opportunity, in the sense that you can do a whole range of things to a very high level in this school,

(Teacher1: Townhead Year 1) PSHE provided the opportunity for students to be helped to

…develop all the other traits and potential.

(Teacher 2: St Angela’s Year 1) It was explained that students were helped to develop the abilities they had whether these were in the realm of academic, social, sport, and music or in another creative field. Every opportunity was given to help students excel.

Second Visit

During my second visit one teacher emphasised that personal development in terms of self-esteem was:

About students feeling confident to engage in all aspects of school life…think it’s also about students being confident enough to engage in all sorts of clubs, extra-curricular. It can be school trips, it can be all sorts of things and it’s actually recognising that confidence and success means different things to different people... if students are happy and engaged coming to school then they are likely to have fewer self-esteem issues.

(Teacher 1: Heatherside Year 2) There was recognition that the nature of personal development was very individual:

We give them lots of extra-curricular opportunities, it’s not just one size fits all, you might be academic, but you are a sportsman, you are a musician, you raise this for charity or you’ve helped another kid out.

(Teacher 2: St Christopher’s Year 2) It was considered that getting involved in extra-curricular activities helped enhance personal development and self-esteem of students:

All about self-worth, a sense of belonging, a sense of pride…. The way someone feels about themselves and the community that they are in. How

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they function in that community. It’s about their health and well-being, their mental health.

(Teacher 1: Yester Year 2) One teacher said

We praise and reward and encourage... We are always talking about success but you know equally we have to talk about determination, resolve,

perseverance and being resilient.

(Teacher 1: Beechwood Year 2) This teacher drew attention to the fact that there are many elements to personal development and that self-esteem is only one. However, providing a range of

opportunities was a way to help all students. In one secondary school it was pointed out that

… it’s about providing as many opportunities you can both in the classroom and outside. So that ultimately if students are happy and engaged coming to school

(Teacher1: Heatherside Year 2) One teacher explained that as the students became proud of the school, it raised their ability to be more involved in a range of activities as well as improving their confidence.

…the children seem to be much more proud of the school and I think their confidence levels have risen.

(Teacher 1: Yester Year 2)

Ensuring that schools provided a wide range of opportunities so that all students could be involved in extra-curricular activities was something that teachers felt benefitted students’ personal development enormously.

5.9 Summary

In this chapter I consider the findings in relation to teacher perceptions. All of the teachers interviewed expressed a desire to support their students in reaching their

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full potential, though there was a tendency in common schools to place a greater emphasis on academic attainment compared with Catholic schools, where the spiritual aspect of fulfilling potential was emphasised. There appeared to be little agreed conception across the schools of what it meant to be a good citizen within the context of PSHE.

In terms of school ethos, teachers emphasised the importance of offering on-going support for students as they needed it, valuing students, and providing a caring community. There were few tangible differences between Catholic and common schools in relation to these elements, although Catholic schools placed a greater emphasis on the importance of supporting the wider community. Teachers in both sectors emphasised the importance of praise as part of school ethos.

The specific impact of being in a Catholic school tended to focus on supporting students to grow up within a Christian morality, although not all teachers teaching within Catholic schools shared this perspective. The role of the chaplain was seen as an important additional support by students. An important aspect of education in Catholic schools was in the development of student awareness of spirituality.

There was little difference in the time allocation for PSHE in the two types of schools, although in common schools it tended to have a regular timetabled slot. The teachers who were interviewed recognised the need to ensure that in PSHE lessons students had the skills that would support them in real life situations. The particular challenges facing different communities meant that the content was not always the same. It was acknowledged that teaching methods needed to ensure that all students were valued and treated equally and that there was good rapport between students and teachers. There were particular issues in relation to sex education in Catholic schools where teachers needed to support the views of the Catholic Church but at the same time

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they aimed to ensure students were provided with a range of information and were able to make their own decisions.

The interviews indicated that increasingly schools were responding to the changing external environment and recognising the need to support students in learning how to deal with social media. Internet safety was becoming an important element for

teachers to address with students.

There was little or no training for teaching PSHE. PSHE did not seem to be taken as seriously as other subjects, in terms of lesson observations. If teachers are to feel competent in delivering this subject, they need to be provided with quality training.

In general, schools felt they were able to help students’ personal development

through their PSHE programmes, but they also recognised that the influence of home had a vital role to play. There seemed to be little difference in terms of category of school, whether common or Catholic, in the approach to personal development through PSHE. Overall, ensuring that schools provided a wide range of opportunities so that all students could be involved in extra-curricular activities was felt by teachers to benefit students’ self-esteem enormously.

It can be seen from the findings detailed above, when considering the key research question, how teachers perceive the ethos of their respective schools impacts on PSHE, that teachers in all the schools felt that school ethos had a positive impact on the PSHE programme. Teachers indicated, in connection with the second key

research question, that they believed that PSHE helped the development of student

self-esteem by helping students to feel valued through the rewards and opportunities

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