What is Personal Development?
School (and college) is about so much more than grades. It's a time for young people to explore and develop their identity and prepare for the future.
"Personal development" to us means "everything you develop at school other than academic learning".
The specific areas we target with our student assessments and planning support are:
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Character and skill development – from classroom sessions to after-school clubs
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PSHE lessons and assemblies
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Careers and "next steps" guidance
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Wellbeing and pastoral support
How it works
1
An online development coaching platform for students, teaching self-development and giving them a voice
2
A suite of tools, templates and training materials to support excellent practice in each of the four stages of implementation: Understand, Plan, Act and Review
3
Bespoke support to develop your capabilities and enhance your offer, as needed
Aspirations is designed to complement and demonstrate the impact of existing efforts and interventions. Meaning it is as relevant and useful for schools and colleges seeking to understand the impact of their already-rich programme as it is to those looking to make significant changes.
Understand
Understand the needs of your students
We use our online coaching platform to understand students’ priorities in a fun and engaging way and gather useful data.
Taking inspiration from the TGROW coaching model as well as the child-centred plan which sits at the heart of children’s social care practice, this also gives each and every student an individual personal development plan, including their priorities and goals—in their own words.
Plan
Plan targeted cohort and individual support
We help you use this insight to help you plan extra curricular, careers and pastoral programmes that meet those needs.
Detailed reporting allows trends to be understood and explored at any level you choose—for the whole school, a particular year, or Pupil Premium students.
Act
Act to support students, making best use of limited resources
The most important part of Aspirations is the programme of support delivered by school leaders, teachers and support staff.
We help reduce the administrative burden of coordinating an excellent programme—from sharing resources that other schools have found helpful, to providing online registers for clubs.
And in the meantime, our online curriculum helps schools fill any ‘gaps’ arising, whilst also allowing them to meet new requirements for online student provision. This is a carefully curated library of age-appropriate resources covering everything from exploring career options to learning how to manage your finances.
Review
Review impact and feedback, to make improvements
Finally, termly ‘reflections’ and end-of-year assessments capture feedback and impact data for every support programme offered.
We’ll share that with you in a number of impact reports, ranging from activity-level assessments through to higher level summaries suitable for sharing with governors or inspectors.
How will Aspirations help my school?
“The Aspirations Programme helps us evidence the positive impact we’re having on our students and fits into Ofsted’s Character Education framework perfectly.”
Emma Breen, Student Experience Leader at Salford City Academy
Improve outcomes for your young people
Use limited time and resources effectively
Evidence the work you are doing (and its impact)
Provide online co-curricular offers
Pricing
There are three levels of the programme, allowing you to adopt the parts of the programme that you need most, at a price point that fits with your budgeting plans. We also offer discounts for group purchases, for example for a MAT.
As a Community Interest Company, we are legally obliged to invest every penny we earn into delivering as much impact for our schools and students as we can—so you can be confident you're getting excellent value, whichever option you choose.
Assess
Best for a one-off snapshot of needs, to inform existing efforts
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Students create their own online personal development plan, via self-assessment quizzes
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Detailed insights reports for each area (CEIAG, Pastoral, Skills & PHSE) at whole-school and group level (e.g. Year 7 or PP)
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Staff access to individual student ‘pen portraits’
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Insights workshop to identify trends and priorities
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Staff training and templates to aid planning process
£5
Cap: £5,000 per school
per student
Achieve
For schools looking to deliver excellent, tailored Personal Development on an ongoing basis
All of Assess, plus:
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Access to “online curriculum” of student resources
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Follow up modules for students—so they can reflect on progress and you can collect feedback and measure impact
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Tools to plan and manage your offer, including registers and conversation logs
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Extensive reporting to demonstrate activity, measure participation and prove impact
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Ongoing support and CPD
£12
Cap: £15,000 per school
per student
Amplify
For schools seeking to provide a
best-in-class programme
All of Achieve, plus:
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Support to find teaching resources, CPD materials and external organisations who can help you respond to student needs
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Communications planning and support—to get your students, parents and wider community excited and involved
£20
Cap: £20,000 per school
per student
If you'd like to get a demo, learn more about how Aspirations could help you or even just have a chat about improving outcomes for young people, we'd love to hear from you!