British Values
There are four fundamental British Values that we are required to uphold and promote.
Democracy
The Rule of Law
Individual Liberty
Mutual Respect for and Tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.
Democracy
Our work on Democracy focuses on supporting children to make decisions together.
- We use circle time and our daily welcome to talk about children's feelings and use the visual feelings board to help children understand and communicate how they feel.
- Our Philosophy for Children (P4C) work encourages children to develop enquiring minds and value questions, know their views count and value each other’s views and values.
- We encourage independence and aim to help children identify when they do or do not need help through communication symbols such as helping hands the children are able to access independently.
- We try to find everyday ways to demonstrate democracy in action, for example, children sharing views and voting on what the theme of their role play or the story time book could be that day,
- We provide activities that involve turn-taking, sharing and collaboration and use systems to support children in being successful, such as the use of sand timers to fairly share resources.
- We are developing a daily choice board to help children choose and plan their daily activities.
- We are also developing simple roles and responsibilities for the children, such as snack monitors.
Rule of law:
Our work on Rule of Law focuses on helping children understand rules matter.
- We help children understand their own and others’ behaviour and the consequences through our approach to managing and supporting behaviour.
- We help children learn to distinguish right from wrong through stories and questions and choices in P4C in addition to specific incidences we discuss with children as they arise.
- Children collaborate to agree what our core behaviours of "ready, respectful and safe" look like in different situations. We use pre agreed cues to continually remind children of the expectations and support them in understanding how to be successful. This is coupled with giving our first attention to best conduct; catching and praising children who are demonstrating those behaviours,
- We help them understand the rules apply to everyone by using the language of “everyone” and "anyone" to count children in.
- We explore actions and consequences after the event once the child is calm.
- We have clear consequences that are known by the children in advance to ensure consistency and prevent children from receiving mixed messages.
Individual Liberty: freedom for all
Our work on individual liberty focuses on helping children develop a positive sense of themselves
- We provide opportunities for children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and increase their confidence in their own abilities, for example through allowing children to take risks on an obstacle course, mixing colours and through talking about their experiences and learning.
- We use P4C to explore the language of feelings and responsibility, reflect on our differences and understand we are free to have different opinions and respectfully disagree.
- We provide planned opportunities for risk taking and varied experiences.
Mutual respect and tolerance:
Our work on mutual respect and tolerance focuses on teaching children to treat others as you want to be treated
- We strive to develop an ethos of inclusivity and tolerance where views, faiths, cultures and races are valued and children are engaged with the wider community.
- We aim to help children to acquire a tolerance and appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures.
- We use circle times and special times to help children learn about similarities and differences between themselves and others and among families, faiths, communities, cultures and traditions and share and discuss practices, celebrations and experiences.
- Children have many opportunities to share their own stories and experiences.
- Our P4C sessions enable us to listen to each other and our different opinions. Staff encourage, explain and model the importance of tolerant behaviours such as sharing and respecting others' opinions during P4C and group times.
- We use snack times and key festivals to explore food from other cultures and use initiatives such as snack of the week to encourage children to explore these foods.
- We use a range of different music from other cultures and countries within the setting.
- We explore different celebrations and traditions, including key festivals as part of the curriculum.
- Staff promote diverse attitudes and challenge stereotypes, for example, we share stories that reflect and value the diversity of children’s experiences and are always looking to provide resources and activities that challenge gender, cultural and racial stereotyping.
