British Values

Promoting British Values

The Department for Education has introduced a statutory duty for schools to promote British Values more actively from September 2014, and to ensure they are taught in schools.

The government have defined British Values as;

Democracy

Rule of Law

Individual Liberty

Mutual Respect

Tolerance

At Highfields Primary School, we take very seriously our responsibility to prepare children for life in modern Britain. We value the ethnic backgrounds of all pupils and families and undertake a variety of events and lessons to celebrate and explore these alongside other cultures in our country.

At the start of each year, each class learns about how we can promote British Values in our school and produce their own British Values class display.  In addition to this, assemblies take place each day to ensure that the fundamental British Values are introduced, discussed and lived out through the ethos and work of the school.   This includes a Picture News assembly every two weeks, where children learn about how British Values influences their day-to-day lives.  There are also one-off assemblies carried out to celebrate local successes (Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022) and national achievements (Women’s Football Euros victory 2022) to help inspire the next generation.

All curriculum areas provide a vehicle for furthering the understanding of these concepts. Our cross-curricular approach provides excellent opportunities to deepen and develop understanding by developing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education of our children.

The school makes considerable efforts to ensure children have exposure to a broad experience beyond their local community, during which these concepts are shown, through, for example, sporting events, a range of visits and the use of educational residential centres. Their strong rooted values-based understanding gives them an excellent platform for embracing difference.

At Highfields, we value the voice of the child and promote democratic processes, such as our school council whose members are voted for by the children. Ideas and events are planned and discussed with a chance for debate and to put forward points of view.

We expect all our children to be good role models for each other, which is encouraged through high expectations of behaviour.