Character Education

Life at The Whitby High School is about more than examination results. The school prides itself on the wide range of activities available to enrich the lives of our school community. We believe in an all-round education where ‘every child develops self-confidence, life-skills and leadership experiences’. The word PACE encompasses our aims and ensures that students leave the school ready to succeed in life. Character Education is explicitly delivered in Form Tutorials and across curriculum subjects. We explicitly and implicitly teach Character through our Personal Development Curriculum which includes PSHE/RSE, Enrichment, Careers and Wellbeing. We use our own PACE Pledge system as part of The Whitby Way to recognise and reward students in challenges that help to develop their Character and giving them opportunities to volunteer and develop leadership skills over all three key stages. Students are expected to complete PACE Pledges during the course of their time at the school.

We PREPARE students for the future, developing their confidence in their abilities and helping them to make good decisions to be responsible young adults.

We support all to ACHIEVE their best through demonstrating resilience in all of their lessons and daily life. To be ambitious in their expectations of themselves and others and flourish regardless of their ability, ethnicity or gender.

We teach them to CARE for themselves, others and the environment, through mutual respect for all; showing strong moral purpose, kindness and following The Whitby Way

We hope they ENJOY their education and all the joy it can bring by participating in school life, achieving their Character PACE Pledges and having pride in being a Whitby student.

These PACE Pledges are modelled on the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, which our students have participated in very successfully for a number of years. It models the award, in that each student is expected to complete at least one PLEDGE in every Bronze section by the end of year 9 and Silver section by the end of year 13, Gold maybe accomplished before 6th Form but if not, we expect our 6th Formers to embrace and complete Gold Pledges, being role models and leaders of the school. Some students may progress more quickly to Gold and this will be presented to each successful student at our annual award ceremony.

Our Achieve Excellence Pioneer Pledge is an optional challenge for students who want to really push themselves to develop their skills. Students earn their Pioneer Pledge points by completing half-termly presentations on a chosen topic, which they explore throughout the 6 weeks. Students track the hours they spend on their projects, and these hours count towards their pledges. These hours include after school sessions in the library and any independent research or group meetings they have and will count towards their overall pledge. Students successfully complete their pledge when they present their projects at the end of the half term. Students in years’ 10 and 11 will have the opportunity in term 3 to apply their research and presentation skills to earning a level 2 EPQ, worth half a GCSE. The Pioneer Pledge is open to all year 7-11 students. Our Able and Ambitious students will be specifically invited, but all form tutors and teachers will ensure all students are welcomed

The PACE PLEDGE system aims to encourage and support many important qualities in students such as leadership, citizenship, moral purpose, sense of community and collective responsibility. We engage with external agencies, businesses and social action projects. Many of the PLEDGES criteria have at their core the British Values of;

• Democracy
• The Rule of Law
• Individual Liberty
• Mutual Respect and Tolerance.

To ensure all students gain the award they will be supported through school activities and tutor discussion but the onus is on the student to ensure all sections of the PLEDGES are complete. Parents will be made aware of their child’s progress through the regular written reporting cycle.

Each PLEDGE has an activity that they can do either in or out of school and their Form Tutor, will be the person to ensure that they have recorded each pledge. We welcome parents to engage in the pledges, celebrate and share their child’s success and give us feedback on what kind of pledges or programmes we can run to support our students.