Promoting British Values at Old Buckenham High School
Old Buckenham High School is committed to ensuring that we provide all our students with an inspiring and challenging learning experience based around excellent teaching, traditional student standards and values as well as high quality pastoral care, guidance and support. Our school is firmly built upon a strong and positive community ethos of mutual respect and high standards for all.
At Old Buckenham High School every student will be well educated, well rounded with the ability to be resilient, confident and ambitious to positively take up his or her place in society. The school is dedicated to meeting our statutory obligation to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all our students by:
- enabling students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence;
- enabling students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England;
- encouraging students 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;
- enabling students to acquire a broad general knowledge of, and respect for, public institutions and services in England;
- furthering tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures;
- encouraging respect for other people;
- encouraging 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.
The school will use the curriculum, pastoral support programme, wider life of the school and local and wider community to comprehensively and positively promote the key fundamental British values of:
- Democracy;
- The Rule of Law;
- Individual Liberty;
- Mutual Respect;
- Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs.
At Old Buckenham High School these values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways:
Democracy
Democracy plays a very important role in the life of Old Buckenham High School. The school has a very active and well-supported School Council with every House and year group equally represented. In addition, the House system fully supports democracy with all Houses electing House representatives from each year group, House Captains and House Sports Captains are all chosen by the students themselves. The school Prefects, Senior Senate and Head Boy/Girl are also elected through a democratic process that involves both students and staff.
The school curriculum equally promotes democracy, particularly through citizenship lessons, as well as the humanities curriculum. The school encourages all students to voice their opinions and thoughts in a positive, supportive and fair manner fostering a school environment that is safe, respectful and responsible to the differing views and opinions of others.
The Rule of Law
The Old Buckenham High School ethos is firmly based around mutual ‘Respect and Responsibility’. All students in the school are fully aware and regularly reminded of our expectations in order for them to be safe and responsible members of our school as well as the local and wider community. The importance of laws, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced throughout the school day both in the classroom and at social times. Students are taught the value and the reasons behind rules and the law, they fully understand why they are in place (to govern and protect us) as well as understanding their responsibilities as British citizens; this includes the potential consequences when rules and laws are broken.
The school has positive and on-going relationships with a range of external agencies and providers that positively promote and reinforce the law; these include the police and ambulance service.
Individual Liberty
The strong pastoral structure in the school actively encourages all students to make informed choices in a safe and supportive environment. The school provides clear guidance to all students on the boundaries within the school and those enforced in the community by the law. Students are informed of and encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms in a positive and safe manner. They are also encouraged to be respectful and understanding of others and their views on individual liberty.
Students are given the freedom to make choices at Old Buckenham High School on a daily basis and frequently have an opportunity to exercise their individual liberty. These opportunities include voting for House Captains/ School Council representatives, choosing their GCSE options, taking up extra curricular opportunities or running charity events in the school.
The curriculum offers all students the opportunity to learn and fully understand the importance of liberty e.g. in history they learn about civil rights, slavery and the Suffragette Movement whilst in RE students learn about religious freedoms in the UK.
Mutual Respect
Through our ‘Respect and Responsibility’ ethos all students and staff work collectively to achieve ‘mutual respect’ in every aspect of our work together across the school. Clear expectations are in place that outline how students and adults in the school are expected to behave towards one another both in the classroom and at social times. This ethos is promoted through both the school pastoral structure and the classroom and learning environment. Students are expected to accept, tolerate and celebrate difference and diversity in the school population and wider community. The school provides all students with a broad range of opportunities and experiences inside and outside of the school curriculum to develop mutual respect, empathy and acceptance of others.
Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs
The school curriculum and wider curriculum actively promote our students’ understanding of their community, both in a regional context as well as nationally and internationally. The PSHE/citizenship and RE curriculum across Year 7 to Year 11 looks in detail at the importance of tolerance of people from different faiths and beliefs both in the UK and further afield. Weekly school assemblies delivered by both staff and students are used to deliver a range of key messages around the tolerance and acceptance of others.