British Values

Our SMSVC & British Values spiral curriculum is a planned, developmental programme of learning where pupils acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to manage their lives now and in the future. It equips pupils with the knowledge, understanding, skills and strategies required to live healthy, safe, productive, capable, responsible and balanced lives.

Our sessions aim to help reduce or remove many of the barriers to learning experienced by pupils, therefore significantly improving their capacity to learn and achieve. The SMSVC & British Values education programme contributes to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, vocational and cultural development.

Our curriculum aims to:

• Provide pupils with accurate and relevant knowledge
• Offer opportunities to turn knowledge into personal understanding
• Give opportunities to explore, clarify and if necessary, challenge, their own and others’ values, attitudes, beliefs, rights and responsibilities
• Support pupils with skills, language and strategies they need in order to live healthy, safe, fulfilling, responsible and balanced lives
• Enable pupils to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Allow pupils to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England.
• Encourage pupils to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely.
• Facilitate learning to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England; further develop tolerance and harmony between our country’s different cultural traditions by enabling pupils to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures.
• Promote respect for other people; and encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England

As a result of taking part in SMSVC pupils will have:

• A knowledge of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process.
• An appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety.
• An understanding that there is a separation of power between the executive and the judiciary.
• An awareness of the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law.
• An acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour.
• An insight into the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.

We will do this through:

• Including suitable parts of the curriculum, as appropriate for the age of pupils, 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 pupils 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 pupils.
• Providing pupils with the opportunity to learn how to argue and defend points of view.
• Using resources from a wide variety of sources to help pupils understand a range of faiths.
• Consider the role of extra-curricular activity, including any run directly by pupils e.g., sports leaders.

SMSVC and British Values Overview

Michaelmas Term

Lent Term

 Trinity Term