British Values Statement
Promoting British values
Expanse Learning Wigan School is committed to serving its community and all stakeholders.
We strive to recognise the multi-cultural, multi faith and ever-changing nature of the United Kingdom. We also understand our role in ensuring that groups or individuals within the school are not subjected to intimidation or radicalisation by those wishing to unduly, or illegally, influence them.
We follow Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance alongside other equal opportunities legislation to support our staff teams in ensuring there will be no discrimination against any individual or group, regardless of faith, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, political or financial status, or similar.
ELWS is dedicated to preparing students for their adult life beyond school and ensuring that it promotes and reinforces British values to all its students.
The Government emphasises that schools are required to ensure that key ‘British Values’ are taught in all UK schools. The government set out its definition of British values in the 2011 Prevent Strategy.
The five British Values are:
- Democracy
- The rule of law
- Individual liberty
- Mutual respect
- Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs
Through the delivery of our Personal, Social, Health Education (PSHE) programme we work hard to ensure our students have a good understanding of what it means to be British and ways in which they can uphold British Values.
Some examples of how we do this are:
Democracy
The principle of democracy is consistently being reinforced at ELWS, with democracy processes being used for important decisions within the school community, for instance, we hold a half termly school council, we hold elections for student and staff representatives on the school council with a transparent application process for each seat on the council.
We explain to our students why it’s important to vote for school council representatives and the value of having a vote as a British citizen.
The principle of democracy is also explored in the History and Humanities curriculum as well as in form time, assemblies, and through whole school events such as our recent Equality Day.
The rule of law
The importance of laws, whether they be those that govern the class, the school, or the country, are consistently reinforced at ELWS. Recently, our students developed a number of school values, these values form the basis of our behaviour policy and are now used as our positive behaviour support system. They detail how each student at school is expected to behave and students earn points to spend on rewards if they follow the rules.
Students are taught the value and the reasons behind laws that govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken. Visits from authorities such as the Police and Fire Service reinforce this message and we also hold an annual trip for KS4 students to Minshull Street Courts in Manchester, where students have the opportunity to act out real cases and be part of the prosecution, defence, or act as the judge.
Individual liberty
ELWS students are actively encouraged to make independent choices, with the knowledge that they are in a safe, secure, and supportive environment. ELWS staff educate and provide boundaries for students to make informed choices, and Students are encouraged to know, understand, and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and how to exercise these safely, for example through e-safety and 1.1 work.
The relationships dimension of our RSE curriculum supports students to recognise the difference between making good and bad choices when interacting with friends, family and others and how to respect others’ beliefs.
Recently, all students took part in a project that celebrates the LGBTQ+ Community, the project helped our students to gain a better understanding of different relationships in society and many students recently visited the International Slavery museum as part of a project on human rights.
Mutual Respect
Respect is a strong part of Expanse School. Students learn that their behaviours have an effect on their own rights and those of others.
We strive to ensure that all members of the school community treat each other with respect, and this is reiterated throughout our curriculum, staff training, teaching and learning, expectations for behaviour, how visitors to the school are treated and ensuring our facilities and premises are positive environments to be in.
ELWS has a robust anti-bullying culture, and our students recently took part in a project that enabled them to become anti-bullying ambassadors, our ambassadors support other students in the school. In addition we have developed very robust systems for dealing with any instances of prejudiced behaviour, negative perceptions, stereotypical views and racist incidents, through the use of ‘on the spot challenges’ to any student displaying such views.
Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs
This is achieved through equipping students with the ability to understand their place in a culturally diverse society and by giving the opportunities to experience such diversity within the school community. Students benefit from a number of visitors such as our recent visit from Masjid Tooba Mosque members, and a school trip to the Manchester Jewish Museum. Additionally, students are actively encouraged to share their faith and beliefs within the school and celebrate festivities throughout the calendar year either through assemblies, as part of our humanities curriculum or special themed days .
ELWS strives endlessly to ensure that its students leave with the strongest foundation of values upon which to build a successful life and a successful contribution to our society, we recognise that our staff teams from our teachers through to our school cook all have a role to play in the education of our students. We place great importance on the training and development of our staff in relation to teaching children the importance of British Values.
Thank you for reading this section of our website, we have placed below a link that takes you to the national government guidance on promoting British Values in Schools. If you have any comments about our school related to this or any other topic then please do not hesitate to get in touch.
