WDPS Life Skills Challenge Award – ‘Natural Me’ and ‘Healthy Me’ Focus

At West Denton Primary School (WDPS) we constantly strive to improve the life experiences and opportunities for all our pupils. We have invested heavily in bushcraft and cycling as modules in the unique WDPS Life Skills Challenge programme as we strive to provide a wide range of learning experiences to cater for both academic and non-academic future careers. 

As Head Teacher, I have designed a Life Skills Challenge Award that I would like to offer to every child in school. Basically the focus is on “Natural Me’ and ‘Healthy Me’ with 5 award stages to each: Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond Levels.  Children will gain knowledge,  develop key skills at their own pace and strive to gain all the awards which will collectively help them to develop holistically whilst learning to appreciate themselves and others around them.

The scheme takes children from the Foundation Stage to leaving their primary education with the knowledge and awareness to help prepare them for secondary school and life in general. Within  ‘Natural Me’ challenges include:  ‘Navigations Skills’ to ‘Shelter’ and ‘Fire Building and Cooking Skills’ starting with their journey to school and increasing awareness of the surrounding environment through to older pupils teaching younger pupils how to plan and cook meals.

Under ‘Healthy Me’ challenges include ‘Service to Others’, ‘Resilience’, ‘Health, Exercise and Nutrition’, ‘First Aid’, ‘Cycling’ and ‘Olympics Challenge’. This starts with awareness of others, keeping a room clean, recognising words that are negative as well as positive to others, understanding the importance of basic hygiene, nutrition and exercise in health and how to call the emergency services. At the Diamond Level older pupils teach younger ones First Aid and key concepts from one of the WDPS Resilience modules.