What is Guidance?

Guidance is the taught element of the Personal Development program in Thornhill. In Guidance lessons we cover the RSE curriculum, parts of the National Curriculum for Citizenship, the CEIAG curriculum (Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance) including financial literacy and also Health and Wellbeing.

From September 2020, Relationship and Sex Education became a statutory requirement for secondary schools to deliver. This forms one third of the full Guidance curriculum.

Our RSE Policy can be found in the Policies section of the website. Parents are asked to direct any queries about this element of the program to the Headteacher in the first instance.

Timetable for Guidance

Students in Key Stage 3 and Year 10 have two lessons of Guidance per fortnight. Year 11 students have one lesson per fortnight. Where possible, each class will have the same teacher for both lessons. Students may study Guidance in ability sets (KS4) or in tutor groups (KS3).

Long Term Plan

Guidance is delivered in 6 half termly units, each academic year, and is organised into three themes: Living in the Wider World, Health and Wellbeing, and Relationships.

Assessment

Guidance is a non-assessed course. However, each unit of Guidance within Thornhill is assessed using “One Best Piece of Work”. This is usually a written or creative piece of work produced by each student in the year group at the end of the half-term. It encourages the students to share their thoughts and opinions about what they have learnt. The teaching staff can then assess the extent to which the students are able to articulate these opinions and compare pieces of work across the year group. They also award each student a level of mastery for their work.