Ethos & British Values
Ethos
Courtesy, respect, good manners and consideration for others, together with self-discipline, are important aspects of a child’s education. Children are encouraged to treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves.
The aims of the school are :
- To provide children with a friendly environment in which they are valued and trusted and are encouraged to develop their self-esteem.
- To help children to appreciate human achievements and aspirations, to develop lively enquiring minds, the ability to question and argue rationally and to apply themselves to tasks and physical skills.
- To help acquire knowledge and skills relevant to adult life and employment in a fast changing world.
Happy, confident children make the most of the learning process and remain motivated to learn throughout their lives.
Our Kyson logo which was designed by some of our children, reflects that each day is a new and exciting day during which we all hope to fly high with our learning.
British Values
In June 2014, David Cameron emphasised the role that British values play in education. How well a school promotes such values is also part of the Ofsted school inspection process. Ofsted defines fundamental British values as “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”.
At Kyson, British values are promoted in much of what we do. During assemblies, Religious Education (RE) lessons, Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) lessons, Personal , Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons, philosophy lessons and through our Spiritual, Moral, Social, Cultural (SMSC) Learning .
All these aspects of learning shape our ethos and values.
As well as actively promoting British values, the opposite also applies. We actively challenge children, staff or parents expressing opinions that are contrary to fundamental values including “extremist” views.
Being Part of Britain
We celebrate a pattern of traditions and festivals across the year. Humanities topics such as:
- World War II
- Farmyard Hullabaloo
- The Seaside
- Homes and Habitats
- Mighty Mountains
- Anglo Saxons
- Eyam
- Water
- English Kings and Queens
- Victorians
- Famous Britons
- Ancient Egypt
- South Africa
- Termly “theme weeks”
…… enable our children to look at natural features of the British landscape, famous British people and aspects of British life both past and present.
Democracy
Children, staff, parents and Governors have many opportunities for their voices to be heard but most directly through regular questionnaires.
Our School Council and Eco Team are elected in a democratic way with each candidate making a speech to voters who need to recognise the characteristics that make good representatives. This is then followed by a secret ballot or vote. Both the School Council and Eco Team influence, challenge and change many aspects of school life e.g. school menus.
Each class decides on its own rules to ensure their room is a happy, respectful, constructive and safe place in which to learn.
Rules and Laws
The importance of rules and laws, whether they be those that govern our country or school are referred to and reinforced often. Class rules and school rules ensure a safe and orderly work place. Roles of responsibility enable the children to reflect on how to make a contribution and our behaviour expectations challenge the children to consistently make positive behaviour choices.
Recent learning topics such as:
- Pirates
- South Africa
- Wonderful words
- My world your world
- Keeping healthy
- Why be Wise? (Crime Prevention)
- Our Community Village
- Transport
…. support the children’s understanding of the importance of shaping communities by rules and laws.
Individual Liberty
We promote freedom of choice and the right to respectfully express views and beliefs. We provide sensible boundaries within which our children can make choices for themselves. All adults within our school community pro-actively build trusting, respectful relationships with all children to boost self-esteem and enable children to confidently make good choices.
Some of the situations in which children will make their own choices:
- Whether to tackle a next step challenge
- How best to record their thinking
- Choices in extra-curricular opportunities
- How to think, reason, debate and justify views in philosophy lessons
- How to respectfully disagree with another's view
- How to resolve a conflict appropriately
Mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs
Our school does not reflect a wide cultural diversity which makes such learning opportunities and experiences even more important in preparation for later life and in understanding the cultural diversity of British society. Mutual respect is at the heart of our ethos and values. Our children know and understand that our expectation is the appreciation and respect of difference in all its forms.
The children develop understanding of the richness and diversity of differing cultures through:
- SMSC - spiritual, moral, social and cultural development
- RE – the beliefs, festivals and celebrations of Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Creationism,
- SEAL – our response to people and situations
- PSHE – understanding community
- English fiction and non-fiction texts
- Art stimuli
- Famous people from across the globe eg. Nelson Mandela
- Theme weeks – learning about a major world event eg. Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Life in a different country/continent, Natural wonders of the world.
