British Values

Promoting British Values at Crawley Green Infants’ School

The DfE 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.”

The Government set out its definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy, and these values were reiterated in 2014. At Crawley Green Infants’ School these values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways:

Democracy

Our School Council members meet regulary and lead our whole school values initiatives. Mrs Curson who is our Values Coordinator supports the children and attends the annual local Values Conference with them. All members are voted in by their classmates.

Each week, every class votes for a class story which can be located in a special place in each classroom. Children have a choice of more than one book and can vote throughout the week. 

We have a School Eco Council with members from Year One and Year Two, teaching and support staff and the Governing body. The Council meets regularly with  Mrs. V Collis (adult employed to do Eco-school work with pupil,). The aim of the meetings is to seek the children’s views and opinions on a range of school eco issues. Sometimes the council members feedback to their class and sometimes they collect class views which they represent at the meeting. The Eco council holds an assembly after each meeting to feedback to the school, and the pupils read a summary of the minutes from those meetings. Every child on the school Eco council is voted in by their class.

We also have a school sports committee with members from Year One and Year Two. Every child on the sports committee is voted in by their class. The committee gather ideas for sports events from their class members, help plan sports week and other sports activities/event in school. They then inform the school about our participation in sports events and the achievements of pupils’ throughout the school.

All children are given a democratic vote, when making their choices for their classes school dinner choice day.

In Year Two we ask our pupils to complete a questionnaire or answer questions about their experiences in school, to ensure that we give our pupils’ a chance to have a voice about the curriculum.

Parents are consulted on an annual basis via a survey. We are always very pleased with the positive results.

Through our curriculum, children are taught about and encouraged to respect public institutions and services. We do this by inviting into school a range of visitors from the local community as well as visiting places in the area, such as the mosque and church.

The Rule of Law

The importance of laws is consistently reinforced at Crawley Green Infants’ School, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country. Visits from authorities, such as the Fire Service, help reinforce this message.

Despite our pupils being very young, children are taught from an early age the rules of the school. Pupils are taught the value and reasons behind our school rules, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when rules are broken. Each class agrees its own class rules at the beginning of the academic year.

Individual Liberty

At Crawley Green Infants’ School, pupils are actively encouraged to make choices, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school we educate and provide boundaries for young pupils to make informed choices, through a safe environment and an empowering education. Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and advised how to exercise these safely, for example through our eSafety and PSHCE work. We have a robust anti-bullying culture with behaviour and safety policies in place.

Mutual Respect and Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs

Mutual respect is at the heart of our values. Children learn that their behaviours have an effect on their own rights and those of others. All members of the school community treat each other with respect. The equality action plan is updated annually.

In order to promote positive behaviours among the children, we use the values education approach, resources and materials. Assemblies reinforce the key values.

In our R.E curriculum, we provide opportunities for the children to visit places of worship and we actively encourage visitors from a range of communities into school during R.E week.

The school supports a variety of charities each year and plans fundraising and awareness-raising activities to support those charities. These include local, national and global charities and appeals. Last year we supported The Keech Hospice (local,) Marie Curie, World book day & Children In Need (National) and The Napal appeal, Ebola crisis and Coco foundation- Africa project (global.)

Through our wider curriculum, children are taught values that support the development of tolerance and respect. These include working together in teams in P.E and sport, respecting another’s point of view in circle time (PSHE) & listening to one another at all times.