Bolsover Church of England Junior School

British Values

 The Department for Education have reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”

In every aspect of our school curriculum, we promote British values. A key part of the education plan is is to ensure children become valuable and fully rounded members of society who treat others with respect and tolerance, regardless of background. At Bolsover, we are absolutely committed to helping children understand the importance of respect and leave school fully prepared for life in Modern Britain. 

At Bolsover Church of England Junior School, we take many actions to promote British values. These actions include:

• highlighting and exploring the British values in suitable parts of the curriculum- as appropriate for the age of the pupils- material on the strengths, advantages and disadvantages of democracy, and how democracy and the law works in Britain, in contrast to other forms of government in other countries.

• ensuring all children within the school have a voice that is listened to, and demonstrate how democracy works by actively promoting democratic processes such as a school council whose members are voted for by the children.

• use opportunities such as general or local elections to hold mock elections to promote fundamental British values and provide children with the opportunity to learn how to argue and defend points of view.

• sharing our work with parents.

• We aim to encourage children to understand the importance of democracy through elections of ‘School Council Members’ within our school.
• We teach the concept of law by enforcing school rules and discussing acceptable and unacceptable behaviour within the wider society, including during Collective Worships and Celebration Assemblies.
• Additionally, we look at ‘individual liberty’ through the teaching of PSHCE, RE, and E-safety plus, we offer our children the opportunity to make choices which emphasises the individual liberty component of British values.
• We are consistently encouraging and promoting mutual respect and tolerance of others - regardless of their background. Our acts of Worship are planned and delivered in order to cover our core values (See our Collective Worship page). These are also promoted through day to day teaching which is further embedded by the atmosphere and ethos lived in school. Overall, we pride ourselves on ensuring that these aspects are included in the entirety. 

Our school's British Values Policy can be found here: British Values Policy

Here are ways in which the British values are woven throughout the curriculum:

• We teach the children to be kind, helpful and respectful of others.
• We teach children to be part of their local community through charity work.
• We plan to celebrate festivals and mark special days from the world around us. 
• We teach the children about compromise – that some of us believe one thing; some of us believe something totally different. However, we can all play together, get along together in the same group setting and respect each other.
• We teach about similarities and differences. British values: teaching about similarities and differences. 
• We teach children to work together. We provide the children with activities, tasks and projects that involve everyone inside or outside of the classroom. Such activities, tasks and projects encourage children to listen, take turns and value contributions from others. This type of planning is a very important part of British values: teaching about shared values and working together towards a common goal. 
• We teach children about the world in which they live – the world on their doorstep and the wider world – through books, posters, planned activities, resources, outings and much more.
• We teach children to listen and respect others…

Further coverage includes:

Rule of Law: We involve pupils in setting codes of behaviour; helping pupils to make decisions and choices that are acceptable to the School community and society at large. Pupils are helped to learn to manage their behaviour and take responsibility for their actions. Staff are committed to providing a consistent, safe and happy environment within the school and beyond. We help pupils to understand the connection between actions and consequences. This type of environment enables pupils to feel safe and secure; this, in turn, promotes the optimum conditions for learning to take place.
 

 Individual Liberty: Pupils at our school are encouraged to become good and valued citizens. We do this by supporting each pupil to become as independent as possible (part of our ASPIRE values). We endeavour to demonstrate that everyone has rights; this includes the right to say ‘No’ when appropriate. Some pupils will be able to take responsibility for particular roles and to understand that with certain rights comes a level of responsibility. Learning to do things independently is an important part of learning to understand yourself.

We support others by participating in local community events, for example, Comic Relief, Children in Need. We believe that by engendering a caring and helpful environment and by learning to be independent can boost and nurture a healthy self-esteem.

Mutual Respect: We promote each pupil’s inclusion, where possible, in a range of activities, settings and locations. The children have opportunities to engage with pupils of different ages from different schools set within different  contexts. Further events are planned where pupils can go into the community to meet with a range of people in a variety of situations, which include: sports events, community events and shared participation with other Schools. For example, the children perform to the elderly in residential care homes and have had visits to other schools.
We believe it is important to facilitate opportunities for school to take an active role in our community as the pupils, families and staff have much to offer in the development of community cohesion.

Tolerance of different faiths and beliefs: At Bolsover Church of England Junior School each person is respected and valued equally without regard to ability, gender, faith, heritage or race.

Cultural appreciation and development forms part of our curriculum. We place great emphasis on providing encounters and participation in events and celebrations to broaden all pupils’ experiences and awareness of others.
 

Democracy: To communicate is the most important area of learning. At school we ensure that pupils are given a ‘voice’ to communicate. They actively participate and feel that they are listened to. We empower our pupils by giving them opportunities to make choices about the things that they believe to be important. By valuing each ‘voice’ and by listening and responding to that voice we demonstrate that we support democracy and liberty. Our School Council also play a significant role within school. 

Below are some of the ways in which we teach children about life in modern Britain:

• We explore the world around the children and teach them about the world around, planning meaningful learning experiences.

• We teach children about Britain, showing them the work of sculptors and artists to inspire creativity, listening to music to promote dance and drama. 

• We extend teaching, using the library and online sources of information and support them as they learn to respect others by introducing music, dance, art etc from around the world.

The staff work closely with parents, carers and other professionals to ensure that the pupils at Bolsover Church of England Junior School are happy, well cared for and enabled to learn the skills they need to live a fulfilling life as part of their community.

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