Personal Development

Educational Visits

All of our pupils are able to take part in a number of educational visits each year. In the past, we have visited Wentworth Garden Centre and Farmyard, Cannon Hall Farm, Bridlington, The Deep, Magna, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Sheffield City Hall to watch the Halle Orchestra amongst many others. In Y6 the children go on a five day residential to PGL at Boreatton Park and attend a day at Crucial Crew learning vital personal safety. Aside from being amazing experiences, educational visits that are linked to our curriculum offer help our pupils gain real-world experiences that cannot be taught in a classroom and strengthen their knowledge of the world around them. Educational visits are a great way to develop interpersonal skills and self-confidence. On educational visits, children experience learning outside the classroom environment, going through experiences together and building relationships. Children are able to develop mutual interests and shared memories and experiences. The educational visits we provide allow our children to enjoy places and activities they may not have experienced before. This can help our children develop personal interests.

Engage Days

To deepen and broaden the children’s understanding of the curriculum we offer children take part in a number of engage days during the year from the planetarium, to World War || days, and from dinosaur workshops to Falconry! These days can link to many areas of the curriculum for example History, Geography, Art or Science. The days are carefully planned as part of our learning sequences to enhance our pupil’s learning and ensure children remember more about the subjects they study. The engage days bring learning to life, deepening children’s subject knowledge. Our children have commented on how much they enjoy these hands on experiences providing them with lasting memories. 

Whole School Events

At Grenoside we hold many whole school events such as celebrating the Kings Coronation, World Book Day, Children in Need, Red Nose Day and Sport Relief. We also have an annual whole school visit to Sheffield Lyceum to watch the annual pantomime. Our Whole school events support our children in developing an understanding of the wider world and help our children to be responsible, respectful and active citizens. Whole school events help to develop our children’s understanding of fundamental British values.

Outdoor Learning and our Local Environment

Outdoor Learning is something that we do a lot because we are lucky enough to have great green spaces both on our school site and in the local area. We use our local area whenever possible to support our learning in subjects such as geography, history, science and RE. In EYFS the children visit the local church when learning all about Christianity, In Y2 the children go on mini-beast hunts in Grenoside green and in KS2 the children learn about the history of Grenoside taking a local tour of the village. Back on school site we plan for many outdoor learning opportunities. We use our onsite woodland area whenever possible to develop our understanding about the environment in which we live in. All of our children regularly experience different kinds of outdoor Learning.  Sometimes, lessons simply take place outside in our outdoor classroom, on the playground or on our field. 

Emotional Health and Well-Being

The health and well-being of all our children is really important to us here at Grenoside. We are a Trauma Informed School. This means that staff are trained to help and support pupils’ mental health and adopt a trauma sensitive approach to our school curriculum.

We have a range of clubs including Mindful Monday club and Thoughtful Thursday club alongside Lego Therapy club.

We have introduced ‘Zones of Regulation’ in class to help pupils develop awareness of feelings, energy and alertness levels while exploring a variety of tools and strategies for regulation, and overall wellness. This approach is helping our children to understand how they can identify and control their emotions as well as develop their ability to problem solve conflicts.