Our schools’ ethos, curriculum and safeguarding work builds emotional health and resilience, helping children to recognise the pressures that they may face and strengthening their capacity to challenge peer pressure and to act with integrity.
The fundamental British values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs are already implicitly embedded in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework 2021.
Through our curriculum we promote British Values in some of the following ways:
Democracy:
- Making decisions together
- We encourage children to see their role in the bigger picture
- Supporting children to know their views count
- Value each other’s views and values and talk about their feelings
- We demonstrate democracy in action, for example, children sharing views in a group session with a show of hands, making choices together about what to do next how how to solve a problem
- We support the decisions that children make and provide activities that involve turn-taking, sharing and collaboration
- Children are given opportunities to develop enquiring minds in an atmosphere where questions are valued.
Rule of law:
- Understanding that rules matter
- We ensure that children understand their own and others’ behaviour and its consequences
- We support the children to distinguish right from wrong
- We negotiate rules and the codes of behaviour with the children and ensure that all children understand rules apply to everyone.
Individual liberty:
- Children should develop a positive sense of themselves
- We provide opportunities for children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and increase their confidence in their own abilities
- We encourage a range of experiences that allow children to explore the language of feelings and responsibility
- We encourage reflection on their differences and understand we are free to have different opinions
Mutual respect and tolerance:
- We teach children to treat others as you want to be treated
- We work to create an ethos of inclusivity and tolerance where our different views, faiths, cultures and races are both valued and celebrated
- We support children to acquire a tolerance, appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures
- We explore similarities and differences between themselves and others and among families, faiths, communities, cultures and traditions and share and discuss practices, celebrations and experiences
- We encourage and explain the importance of tolerant behaviours such as sharing and respecting other’s opinions
- We promote diverse attitudes and challenge stereotypes, for example, sharing stories that reflect and value the diversity of children’s experiences and providing resources and activities that challenge gender, cultural and racial stereotyping
- Staff consistently and actively promote tolerance of other faiths, cultures and races
- Staff consistently and actively challenge gender stereotypes and challenge behaviours (whether of staff, children or parents) that are not in line with the fundamental British values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths, beliefs and lifestyle choices.