FEATURE FOCUS: VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
Staying connected to Europe is important to our students
Tell us about your school
We’re a smaller than average school in South Manchester and part of the global Loreto Schools Network. Our school is extremely diverse, we have students and teachers from all religions and over 50 languages spoken within our school community. We also have a higher than average pupil premium and so, we are always on the lookout for accessible and free resources that resonate with our student body.
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n the first of two View from the classroom features this month (we know how popular these are and we thought you might need cheering up after the fun of Christmas and New Year!) we are delighted to hear from Nicola Knowles, Head of Personal Development at Loreto High School in Manchester, who outlines how staying connected to other cultures and being part of a global society helps her students’ personal development.
Could you tell us more about your role and importance of personal development? As the Head of Personal Development, I lead on the PSHE programme for the school as well as being responsible for leading on the prefect programme and the student council. Working to set up these student-led development programmes led be to become aware of the EPAS programme from EPLO UK. The European Parliament Ambassador School Programme (EPAS) works to help students to organise into action-based groups that tackle some really interesting topics around democracy, equality and the environment. From a personal development perspective, it’s been great to be involved with a programme that brings a focus to uplifting student voices. So much about personal development is related to the extra-curricular activities and as a school we offer a huge range of opportunities for students’ development in and outside of school hours. This has resulted
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in a high rate of attendance in all of our extra- curricular activities with 80% of the student body being involved in at least one of our extra- curricular programmes.
Personal development itself is a vital element to life at Loreto. It’s integral to everything we do and it ensures that every student is given a voice and teaches students to be active citizens and to contribute to society when they leave school. The work they’ve done as part of their personal development at Loreto means that they know how to set up campaigns, understand the impact of their actions and the change they can achieve. Above all, it leaves students feeling empowered and gives them the knowledge and skills they need to have a positive social impact in all aspects of their future work and personal lives.
Can you tell us more about your involvement with the EPAS programme? Since becoming involved with EPAS, I have seen students become a lot more aware of Europe and how specifically it related to the UK. In the post-Brexit world we live in, there are a lot of misconceptions of what the EU is and how it works and EPAS has been a really good programme to address that. Brexit has in fact been a great learning opportunity, it has motivated the students to learn more about the legacy of the EU and its history with the UK. Being a part of this programme has really made students feel connected to Europe and has given
January 2023
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