UNCRC Article 29: Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. It must encourage the child’s respect for human rights, as well as respect for their parents, their own and other cultures, and the environment.
SMSC and BV stands for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, and British Values. We see this crucial area of our provision working directly alongside our Rights Respecting values, and directly addressing Article 2 for the rights of the child to apply to every child without discrimination:
SMSC
Spiritual:
- Explore beliefs and experience;
- respect faiths, feeling and values;
- enjoy learning about oneself, others and the surrounding world;
- use imagination and creativity;
- reflect.
Moral:
- Recognise right and wrong;
- respect the law;
- understand consequences;
- investigate moral and ethical issues;
- offer reasoned views and have an appreciation of British values.
Social: Investigate and moral issues; - appreciate diverse viewpoints;
- participate, volunteer and cooperate; resolve conflict;
- engage with the fundamental values of British democracy.
Cultural:
- Appreciate cultural influences;
- appreciate the role of Britain’s parliamentary system;
- participate in cultural opportunities;
- understand, accept, respect and celebrate diversity.
British values:
- Rule of law;
- Democracy;
- Tolerance of those with different faith and beliefs, and of no faith;
- Mutual Respect;
- Individual liberty.
SMSC education and British values is firmly embedded in our curriculum. Each lesson, in all subjects across the curriculum, has an SMSC/BV learning objective, as well as a UNCRC focus. We are proud to be involved with a host of important awareness days and cultural celebrations across the year, and our curriculum reflects the value that we place on these. All our pupils are encouraged to take part in a wide range of activities and experiences across and beyond the curriculum, contributing fully to the life of the school and the wider community – locally, nationally and globally:
- We celebrate cultural events including World Book Day, UN International Day of Dance and British Science Week.
- We focus on awareness days such as Mealth Health Awareness Week, WWF Awareness Day, UN International Woman’s Day, UN FGM Elimination Day, Dementia Awareness Day and Pride Month to list but a few.
We embed these values through not just teaching our pupils about and celebrating the many awareness days and celebrations that SMSC/BV covers, but by our strong approach to Active Citizenship: our pupils are helped to use their knowledge and understanding of issues to become active in their response. On the back of learning about issues raised in our SMSC and BV curriculum, pupils have written to their local MPs, have signed petitions on the Government Website that they feel passionately about, have used social media to raise awareness, and have raised money for charities.
