Here at Merstham Park School, we do something slightly different to other schools. Whereas, other high schools would have respective lessons like Religious Studies and PSHCE, which stands for Personal, Social, Health and Citizenship Education. We have a combined lesson called MPS Learner, where we learn everything we need to know, while practising our school values. Which are the following: Inclusion, Collaboration, Resilience, Respect and Success.
Many high schools will make Religious Studies compulsory as a GCSE subject. However, at MPS, all students take MPS Learner and we get tested throughout the year, to make sure we are learning, but we don’t have to take it as a GCSE. This means that if a child struggled with RE and PSHCE, but excelled in their other GCSE courses, they wouldn’t have a GCSE that they failed in. We still learn all the important information, but with less pressure and stress. This is a modern approach that reflects our cultural diversity and promotes inclusivity.
In this past year, we have learnt about hate crimes as we always learn about the most up to date, relevant news and issues. We learnt about Mental health, the ways to deal with it and are advised on the people we can contact, useful websites and phone numbers to call if we ever need any help. MPS Learner is a safe place where students can ask any questions without any judgement. We learn about different views and the way the world works. We discussed many different ways to revise and had volunteers from university give us an interactive presentation on revision, as we were close to completing our PPEs (Pre-Public Examinations) for this year. We learnt about drug and alcohol abuse and we even visited a church, where a team of people went into depth about the dangers of drugs. On a website called start profile, we set up CVs and looked at work experience. Just recently, we have been working in groups to create a presentation on a travel destination of our choice, remembering who we are marketing the trip towards and budgeting.
“MPS is a good opportunity to learn about current topics of concern and learn skills helpful for our future.” – Imogen Dearlove
By Isobel Dearlove
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