Our Values Based Ethos

Within our two schools, we give pupils opportunities to develop the skills needed to become well-rounded, articulate, independent and confident members of a constantly evolving society, valuing themselves and others and feeling inspired by the world around them. The schools’ curriculum is centred around the needs of our pupils, with the following four drivers at the core of our delivery of the National Curriculum (2014):

• building resilience
• inspiring curiosity
• promoting teamwork and independence
• instilling empathy. 

Promoting British Values

Our government believes that ‘British society is founded on fundamental values and principles, which all those living in the UK should respect and support. These values are reflected in the responsibilities, rights and privileges of being a British citizen or permanent resident of the UK. They are based on history and traditions and are protected by law, customs and expectations. There is no place in British society for extremism or intolerance.’

Within the Federated Schools of Wood Street Infant School and Worplesdon Primary School, we support this view of British society and are proud that ‘citizenship, interwoven with our values curriculum’ is a key driver within our curriculum.

We actively promote the British values through our curriculum, school council and school ethos by ensuring that our children show:

• Understanding and knowledge of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process; 
• An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety; 
• An understanding that there is a separation of power between the executive and the judiciary, and that while some public bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account through parliament, others such as the courts maintain independence; 
• An understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law; 
• An acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour; and 
• An understanding of the importance of identifying and combating discrimination. 

To achieve the above outcomes, we: 

• Enable our children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence; 
• Enable our children to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England; 
• Encourage our children to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely; 
• Enable our children to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England; 
• Enable our children to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures;
• Encourage respect for other people; and 
• Encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England. 

The role of our staff 

• Create a supportive and caring ethos where children have a high regard for themselves and others; where mistakes are seen as a process of learning and where every child’s work is valued and there is shared understanding of learning behaviours.
• Plan and structure the learning and teaching in a meaningful and purposeful way so that every child achieves and develops skills and knowledge appropriate to their level of ability and understanding.  To plan for and ensure equality of opportunity.
• Organise an enjoyable and creative learning environment so that children develop the skills necessary for current and future learning.

Values based assemblies

Collective Worship at our federated schools is planned and meets the needs of the children.  Collective Worship is a time when the whole school, or groups within the school meet together in order to consider and reflect on common concerns, issues and interests.  It offers all pupils an opportunity to worship through engaging in relevant, meaningful experiences and provides opportunities for the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

We also intend that Collective Worship contributes to the development of the pupil as a ‘whole’ person by providing opportunities to:

• Consider spiritual and moral issues
• Explore their own beliefs
• Develop their own spirituality
• Reinforce positive attitudes
• Participate and respond
• Reflect on what it means to be a positive member of society.

Monthly values

To enable children to master a deep understanding of our school values, we focus on one value per month (as shown below) biennially. 

Each value has a visual symbol to help children and staff to memorise and live by our school values. Every month we:

• Define the value
• Explore examples of the value being lived through stories, cartoon clips, poems, real life stories
• Explore the benefits of the values and what happens when we do not live by the value
• Celebrate children and staff being role models of the value.

Inner curriculum

We have recently developed our Values Based Education by considering how we can support our children to be more resilient and thus less susceptible to mental illness.  Our Inner Curriculum teaches our children to be aware and in control of their internal world of thoughts, feelings and emotions, enabling them to respond appropriately to others without hurting them or damaging their own sense of self.  PAUSE powers is a strategy we use with our children daily to help them build their resilience: