As of 2011, The Department for Education reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values.” At Oak Meadow, children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) development features heavily throughout our curriculum and is an intrinsic part of everyday life within our school. Throughout our philosophy and curriculum, we place great significance on the SMSC aspects and this in turn, clearly demonstrates how we promote fundamental British Values. As a school, we aim to promote the 4 key British Values through a range of opportunities such as: through the ethos and principles of our school, through ongoing and regular references to the values in assemblies, through the teaching and learning of all subjects and through different democratic prospects we make available to the children.

 

The 4 key British values and the ways in which these are reinforced within our school are outlined below:

 

• Democracy

• The Rule of Law

• Individual Liberty

• Mutual Respect and Tolerance of Those with Other Faiths and Beliefs

 

Proud to Promote Democracy

 

Democratic processes are integral throughout our school. Pupils have regular and ongoing opportunities to voice their opinions through our School Council and Pupil questionnaires. Across our curriculum, many activities have outcomes that are voted for by pupils, such as; voting for choice of rewards during our whole school behaviour ‘treat afternoons’, voting for group rewards and voting for choice of activities / ways to present work.

 

Pupils are also given the opportunity to elect House Captains, School Councillors and Eco Warriors through class/ house democratic procedures, which mirror those of our British electoral system. At Oak Meadow, children are given a platform to voice their opinions and thoughts on how we could improve our school events and its environment. Children are often given the opportunity to comment on how lunchtime activities can be improved, how outdoor environments can be developed and how best to run student spaces, such as our Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 Libraries.

 

Proud to Promote The Rule of Law

 

At Oak Meadow, children are taught how to distinguish right from wrong and there is a high expectation placed on them to understand the value of Laws and why they are needed in order to govern and protect us. The importance of Law is regularly reinforced through each school day when dealing with behaviour, thus ensuring children understand why our behavioural system is in place and the necessity behind consequences when rules are not adhered to. The school regularly receives visits from authorities such as; Police, Fire Service, Road Safety team in order to reinforce the messaged of why rules are paramount to everyday life.

 

Proud to Promote Individual Liberty

 

At Oak Meadow, we offer a safe and supportive environment where we actively encourage children to make choices. Through our day to day teaching and the delivery of our empowering curriculum, we aim to instill and provide boundaries for pupils to make safe choices and to understand they have autonomy when exercising their rights and personal freedoms. As a school, we focus on children being able to access personal freedoms safely and place great emphasis on this when delivering our lessons. For example:

 

• During the teaching of Computing and PSHE, we look at topics surrounding E-Safety and how the children can make safe choices online

• During the teaching of Religious Education, children are asked to consider different religions and the rules that are considered when practising different faiths

• During the teaching of other subjects such as PE, we are always keen to emphasise that children must respect and appreciate set rules in order to make sports fair

 

The opportunity to choose is also given to our children when offering extra-curricular activities, as they have the chance to select which club they would like to participate in after school.

 

Mutual Respect and Tolerance of Those with Other Faiths and Beliefs

 

Teaching children to respect others is integral to our ethos at Oak Meadow. Respect for others and their property is consistently promoted through our classrooms, learning rules and behavioural policy and is given great significance when discussing the wider community that we are part of. One of our core values at Oak Meadow is ‘More than Me’ and this aims to teach children to be respectful and empathetic to other people’s choices, cultures, faiths and beliefs. At Oak Meadow, our pupils know and understand that respecting everyone is imperative and that we must celebrate difference in order to remove stereotypes and barriers. Our school endeavours to enhance pupils’ understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society, by providing them with opportunities to experience such diversity. All children take part in RE and PSHE lessons, where their knowledge and understanding of different faiths is broadened. Throughout the annual calendar, different religious festivals are celebrated across the school and this gives individuals the chance to broaden their experiences of other cultures. Throughout their time at Oak Meadow, we also give children the opportunity to visit a range of places of worship in order to aid their understanding and provide them with an immersive experience into other faiths.

 

Modern British Values are intertwined into the daily lives of our school's learning community and are naturally reflected through everything we do.

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