LIVING VALUES A Practical Guide to putting values at the heart of our Primary School INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Values:Deciding Which Ones Values:Deciding Which Ones Values: Building Your Team Values: Building Your Team Values: The School Environment Values: The School Environment Values:Guiding Principles For The Governing Body Values:Guiding Principles For The Governing Body Values: Informing Policy Values: Informing Policy Values: Collective Worship Values: Collective Worship Values: Spiritual Development Values: Spiritual Development Values: Across The Curriculum Values: Across The Curriculum Values: Home/School Links Values: Home/School Links Values: Inspection Values: Inspection Values: The Outside Space Values: The Outside Space Values: Secondary - Primary Links Values: Secondary - Primary Links Resources and Support Resources and Support
Values: The School Environment Primary Schools are vibrant, colourful and interactive learning environments where those things that are important in the life of the community are visualised and celebrated in displays and installations in and around the building. At St Andrew s School in Chedworth the staff team pays great attention to giving their core values a high visual profile. In this chapter Mrs Tina Buck, headteacher and Mrs Angharad Fitch, RE Co-ordinator, take us on a tour around their school.
4 The growing values display at Cam Hopton School This is our version of The Big Party, based on Jesus teaching in the Parable of The Great Feast (Luke 4) As every teacher knows the children in each class have a variety of different learning styles and many will be visual learners. At St Andrew s we, therefore, ensure that our displays are bold, well-designed and interactive to engage children and encourage them to reflect on how the value in focus can be lived out day by day. As soon as visitors enter our school we want them to be made aware of the particular values that are special to us as a Christian community. We have been inspired by a display at Cam Hopton Primary School that shows each value as a flower. The children there have done some research and discovered that different values have a flower associated with them. We have decided to base our new entrance display on this excellent idea. Our value for this term is Generosity, so we will plant gladioli!...ensure that our displays are bold, well-designed and interactive... The reverse side of The Big Party taken from Pause to Reflect on Values Jumping Fish Ltd In the shared area between the classrooms there is always a reflection station that is used by everyone children, staff, parents and governors as we take time to think about and pray for the people and events that are most important to us. We often use the Pause to Reflect on Values pack, published by Jumping Fish, as our inspiration for these stations. This one takes the story that Jesus told about a party to which everyone is invited. It helps us reflect on how inclusive we are both as individuals and as a school. As children make their way to the hall for collective worship there is a reminder of the particular aspect of the value which is the theme for the week. 5
6 Indira received the Courtesy Cup for showing generosity to others in the dining hall by helping the younger children with their lunch. Our lunchtime supervisors are very involved in promoting positive behaviour in the playground and reinforcing the current value in their informal and incidental conversations with the children. Each week they nominate a particular child who has demonstrated the value in an outstanding way. The Courtesy Cup is presented to that pupil during our celebration worship a Friday. value during the week. They do this by writing names on the laminated value sheets posted around the school. This very simple activity has really helped children to understand what the value means in practice. During our celebration worship, children are invited to come to the front and encourage us all by talking about the positive behaviour that they have seen and heard around the school. The child takes the cup home for the weekend and returns it on Monday to sit on the worship table until the following Friday. Throughout the term we encourage children and teachers to look out for both local and national newspaper reports of real life examples of people demonstrating the value of Generosity in the public domain. This helps us all to appreciate that Children are also invited to nominate other members of the school community that they have witnessed living out our special there is a lot of good news in the world and that there are many people trying to make the world a better place. When the fruit was flipped over the children had written an example of what life might be like in the class if we were all generous to each other. Mrs Fitch explains that in each classroom there is a display or reflection activity which interprets the value in a way that is appropriate to the year group. This term her class created a GenerosiTree. Everyone invented and made an exotic fruit to hang on the tree. When the fruit was flipped over the children had written an example of what life might be like in the class if we were all generous to each other. In another class they have been thinking about what it means to give time generously. Children make 5 minute pledges to lend a hand to family or friends. The pledge is then signed by both parties and the hands on the generosity clock are moved on a quarter of an hour. Each time a twelve hour cycle is completed the whole class has a fun treat! Some of the pledges have been very ingenious and really encouraged children to think about different types of generosity, like being patient when showing younger children how to play complicated games, sharing their own stationery with others or giving generously from their pocket money towards the work of our school charity. 7
8 Class 3 has responsibility for caring for part of our spiritual garden. They have been thinking about the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Your giving should be done in secret. Your Father will see what is done in secret, and he will reward you. (Matthew 6 v 4) Each child is invited to plant a tiny seed, as a symbol of a secret promise that they make before God to show generosity to someone in need. When the flowers bloom the children will be reminded that even the smallest act of kindness can grow into something beautiful. For the last two years our school has taken part in the Experience Easter journey, published by Jumping Fish Ltd. One of the stations is called The Servant King and tells the story of Jesus taking the towel and washing the disciples feet. At the end, the children are invited to dip their fingers in the water and make a sign of the cross on each palm as they promise to serve others in a special way during the Easter festival. We are a small school and it takes precious time and energy for staff to think of lots of creative ways to engage children visually. However, we have found that just talking about good behaviour is not enough. Learning is always multi-sensory and the school environment offers so many opportunities to make the values thought provoking, relevant, challenging and fun!