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Worplesdon Primary School

Worplesdon Primary School

The Federated Schools of Wood Street Infant School and Worplesdon Primary School

Wood Street School

Values Based Education

What is Values Based Education?

Values Based Education encompasses our teaching of: PSHE; Spiritual, Social, Moral and Cultural Education; and British Values. We teach these both discretely in our Learning for Life lessons and throughout the curriculum, seizing opportunities to live by our values.

In November 2020 we achieved Outstanding in the Quality Mark as a Values-based school.

You can read more about Values Based Education at the organisation's website:  www.valuesbasededucation.com

Our Values Based Ethos 

At Worplesdon we give pupils opportunities to develop the skills needed to become well-rounded, articulate, independent and confident members of a constantly evolving society, valuing themselves and others and feeling inspired by the world around them. 

At Worplesdon we aspire to promote a love for learning and life and we achieve this with the following four drivers at the core of our delivery of the National Curriculum (2014):

  • Building resilience
  • Inspiring curiosity
  • Promoting teamwork and independence
  • Instilling empathy.

What do Staff do to Promote this Ethos 

  • Create a supportive and caring ethos where children have a high regard for themselves and others; where mistakes are seen as a process of learning and where every child’s work is valued and there is shared understanding of learning behaviours.
  • Plan and structure the learning and teaching in a meaningful and purposeful way so that every child achieves and develops skills and knowledge appropriate to their level of ability and understanding.  To plan for and ensure equality of opportunity.
  • Organise an enjoyable and creative learning environment so that children develop the skills necessary for current and future learning.

Values Based Assemblies 

Collective Worship at Worplesdon Primary School is planned and meets the needs of the children.  Collective Worship is a time when the whole school, or groups within the school meet together in order to consider and reflect on common concerns, issues and interests.  It offers all pupils an opportunity to worship through engaging in relevant, meaningful experiences and provides opportunities for the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

We also intend that Collective Worship contributes to the development of the pupil as a ‘whole’ person by providing opportunities to:

  • Consider spiritual and moral issues
  • Explore their own beliefs
  • Develop their own spirituality
  • Reinforce positive attitudes
  • Participate and respond
  • Reflect on what it means to be a positive member of society.

Monthly Values 

To enable children to master a deep understanding of our school values, we focus on one value per month (as shown below).

Month Value
September 2023 Belonging
October 2023 Friendship
November 2023 Understanding
December 2023 Care & Compassion
January 2024 Creativity
February 2024 Independence
March 2024 Positivity
April 2024 Courage
May 2024 Tolerance
June 2024 Individual Liberty (British Value)
July 2024 Confidence

Each value has a visual symbol to help children and staff to memorise and live by our school values. Every month we:

  • Define the value
  • Explore examples of the value being lived through stories, cartoon clips, poems, real life stories
  • Explore the benefits of the values and what happens when we do not live by the value
  • Celebrate children and staff being role models of the value.

The Inner Curriculum 

We have recently developed our Values Based Education by considering how we can support our children to be more resilient and thus less susceptible to mental illness.  Our Inner Curriculum teaches our children to be aware and in control of their internal world of thoughts, feelings and emotions, enabling them to respond appropriately to others without hurting them or damaging their own sense of self.  PAUSE powers is a strategy we use with our children daily to help them build their resilience:

Pause Learning to breathe and find an inner calmness
Attention Once calm, paying attention to how we feel
Understanding Once we have paid attention to our feelings, understand how we feel
Self-leadership Once we understand our feelings, consider what we can take control of, what value will help
Energy Knowing what we can do, consider the energy we can find

British Values 

Our government believes that:

British society is founded on fundamental values and principles, which all those living in the UK should respect and support.  These values are reflected in the responsibilities, rights and privileges of being a British citizen or permanent resident of the UK. They are based on history and traditions and are protected by law, customs and expectations. There is no place in British society for extremism or intolerance.’

We actively promote the British values across our curriculum by ensuring that our children show:

  • Understanding and 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, and that while some public bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account through parliament, others such as the courts maintain independence;
  • An understanding that 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; and
  • An understanding of the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.

Envis Way, Worplesdon, Guildford , Surrey GU3 3NL

01483 232126