British Values

The Government set out this definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy, and these values were reiterated in 2014.  “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”

This was not something new at Nacton Church of England Primary School. British values are promoted in so much of what we do, not least during our school assemblies, Religious Education and Personal, Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. We have thought carefully about how British Values and our Christian Values are entwined.

The term ‘British values’ might be slightly misleading in that these values are integral to so many countries throughout the world – they differ in no way from the values of most western European countries, for example.

Being part of Britain

As a school, we value and celebrate the diverse heritages of everybody at Nacton. Alongside this, we value and celebrate being part of Britain. In general terms, this means that we celebrate traditions, such as customs in the course of the year; for example, our Autumn celebration about the harvest & bonfire night, Easter egg hunting and our Summer Fair and of course our Christmas celebrations! We also value and celebrate national, charity and sporting events such as the FIFA world cup, Children In Need and the WW1 Centenary. The children take great pleasure in raising money for a wide range of charities, with the school council involved choosing which charities will benefit from our church service collections.

Further, children learn about being part of Britain from different specific perspectives. We ensure that the children have a better understanding of what Britain is, learning more about:

• its capital cities and counties, its rivers and mountains
• the local area, specifically the farming background of the village and the river
• how ‘Great Britain’ differs from ‘England’ and ‘the United Kingdom’ where Britain is in relation to the rest of Europe and other countries in the world
• British history, Monarchs, rulers and significant events that defined society