British Values

Promoting British Values at Aston Clinton School

 

The DfE has reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the British Values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”

 

At Aston Clinton School we have a ‘Values-Led’ curriculum. Everything we do is based upon our agreed set of values which are displayed clearly in the hall.

 

These values are explicitly taught through Personal, Social, Health Education lessons (PSHE), Philosophy 4 Children (P4C) and Religious Education (RE). We also teach British Values through planning and delivering a broad and balanced curriculum. 

 

The school’s agreed set of values underpins all teaching and learning at Aston Clinton School.

 

Democracy:

At Aston Clinton School we:

• Formulate and agree a set of ‘class rules’ at the beginning of each school year.
• Organise House Captains and Vice Captains elections when each house votes following the election speeches by their candidates.
• Elect class representatives to our school council.
• Have a school council and house captains who contribute in a significantly to school life by organising and managing whole-school events.
• Ask the children to support the interviewing process for new staff.
• Discuss democracy within assemblies.
• Curriculum topics such as Stop Thief in year 4 where the children re-enact a court scene.

 

The Rule of Law:

At Aston Clinton School we promote the rule of law by:

• Having a clear, consistent behaviour policy (based upon positive rewards) which is
  consistently applied throughout the school.
• Have whole school Golden Rules.
• Providing opportunities for children to reflect about positive and negative behaviour during the school day through curriculum time and playtimes in the reflection room.
• Providing road safety instruction in school, particularly Bikeability training.
• Addressing issues of law during whole school assemblies as and when appropriate.
• Giving considerable time to individual pupils who require additional opportunities to
  understand the importance of following rules.
• Encouraging visits from external agencies to talk to the children in school.
• Using our reward system to acknowledge good behaviour as well as good academic work.
• Using our values crystals to recognise when children demonstrate our school values
• Giving older pupils responsibility to be ‘Jelly beans’ on the Key Stage 1 playground.

 

Individual Liberty:

• Pupils are actively encouraged to make choices at our school, knowing that they are living within a safe and supportive environment.
• Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and are advised how to exercise these safely, for example through our e-safety teaching.
• Pupils are given important roles in school such as playground ‘Jelly beans’, librarians, class room monitor roles and House Captains.
• Pupils are encouraged to understand responsibility in school in terms of behaviour and attitude to learning. The use of Restorative Justice to resolve issues where helpful and relevant.
• Home/school agreement in place for all pupils.
• Pupils are taught how to be safe and how to act safely. This is given an additional emphasis during Anti-Bullying Week and by visiting Hazard Alley.
• Our curriculum promotes independent learning. It aims to be empowering and provides many opportunities for children to exercise choice. An example of this is Enterprise Week. It finishes with a fair when the pupils can spend their money as they chose without adult involvement.
• Philosophy 4 Children sessions that allow pupils to express their own opinions.

 

Mutual Respect:

• Respect and Responsibility are key values which permeate all aspects of school life. They determine the way in which we support and care for each other, for the community and for the environment.
• At Aston Clinton School, children learn respect through:
  • The promotion of positive relationships
  • The modelling of positive relationships by all adults working in the school.
  • A detailed and extensive PSHE curriculum in which children are taught that behaviour has an effect upon those around them and their own rights.
  • The use of Philosophy 4 Children sessions as pupils have to listen and respond respectful to each other.
  • All other aspects of the curriculum – as successful working in groups require respect for each other. Topics such as Fair-trade; Celebrations; Victorian life compared to today; South African Apartheid
  • Inviting members of our community in for assemblies; FUDGE days, Grandparents
    afternoon; performances.
  • The school link to the Royal British Legion.
  • The work of the school council
  • The positive reward system developed to promote respect.
  • Our Praise Assemblies when all pupils show respect for the efforts of others.
  • Giving responsibility to pupils.
  • Participation in events to raise money for various charities such as Harvest Festival which raises money for charity as well as for the Vineyard food bank in Aylesbury.
  • Each House chose their own charity to support.
  • Learning to live with their peers on educational residential visits.

 

Tolerance of Those of Different Faiths and Beliefs:

Tolerance is promoted in our school through:

• The stated aims and values of the school.
• The PSHE curriculum.
• The RE curriculum.
• The Modern Foreign Languages curriculum.
• Use of Philosophy 4 Children themes.
• Educational visits to places of religious worship.
• The school’s equal opportunities policy.
• Class and whole school assemblies.
• Festival study and celebration (Divali, Harvest, etc.)
• Work on prejudice-based bullying during Anti-Bullying Week.
• Using world events as opportunities to positively reinforce life and culture in other countries (football World Cup, the Olympics, etc.)
• A non-negotiable approach towards the expression of views contrary to our agreed set of values
• Workshops from Show Racism the Red Card in year 5.