Our school values of Courage, Pride and Resilience ensures that in addition to academic growth, a huge emphasis is placed on the development of each individual.  We use courage to take the first steps on this exciting and challenging journey at Chessbrook, Pride to celebrate achievements, talents and abilities and Resilience to deal with challenges students may face at school and in the community along the way.

Chessbrook students are courageous and are open minded to try new lessons, activities and meet new students and staff.

A number of our Key Stage 4 (KS4) students act as mentors to our Key Stage 3 students and have a weekly, supervised, mentoring session. This has proven to be a highly successful motivating factor and has provided our KS4 students with a leadership opportunity to develop courage in talking to their younger peers.

Being proud of your achievements is important and we observe the unique skills, talents and attributes of the students that might not always be recognised by them. We help to develop their talents within lessons. Once students have built up the courage to share these talents, staff develop opportunities to nurture and celebrate them.  

Chessbrook invests in recognising the individual achievements, in their many forms, of all individuals.  Our annual awards evening captures the achievements of our students and provides an ideal opportunity for us to celebrate these achievements and develop a sense of pride.

Life as a young person can be hard and we draw upon the value of resilience in all aspects of our work. The students know that exciting and challenging lessons will be taught and they will need to show a drive and focus to be successful. Our standards are exceptionally high as we know that this ultimately leads to success so students use their resilience daily. 

We use inspirational stories from our own staff or guest speakers in circle time which inspires our students so they can learn from others how they have had to adopt the value of resilience in their lives.

Enrichment

We provide many enrichment opportunities at Chessbrook which capture our values.   The frequent offsite visits and trips embraces learning outside the classroom and enhances cultural capital. This builds on the outstanding relationship we have with our students and their families; our learning extends well beyond the academic and vocational aspects of the curriculum. The personal development of our students is of utmost importance and the careful way we guide and nurture has a direct impact on their opportunities for the future.

Voluntary and charity work is important to the students. They offer their time to make up Christmas shoe boxes, raise money for charities and support learning to overseas students who they recognise are less fortunate members of the global community, this drive to help others and forms part of our enrichment programme. 

The recent introduction of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme provides a further platform for personal development and this prestigious award is nationally recognised developing the skills and attitudes they need to become more rounded, confident adults. The award scheme supports the skills that colleges, universities and employers look for which enhance opportunities for later life.