Core British values
The responsibilities of staff regarding the promotion of British values
The Department for Education in 2014 published guidance on promoting British values in schools to ensure young people leave school prepared for life in modern Britain. The guidance aims to help schools understand their responsibilities in this area.
All staff have a duty to ‘actively promote’ the fundamental British values of:
- Democracy
- The rule of law
- Individual liberty
- Mutual respect for and the tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith
Responsibilities
Teachers are expected to:
- Enable students to develop their self knowledge, self esteem and self confidence.
- Enable students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of Jersey.
- Encourage 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.
- Enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in Jersey.
- Further tolerance and harmony between different culture traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation for and respect for their own and other cultures.
- Encourage respect for other people.
- Encourage 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 Jersey.
Examples of how to promote British values
- Include in suitable parts of lesson content, as appropriate for the age of the students – material on the strengths, advantages, disadvantages of democracy, and how democracy and the law works in Britain, in contrast to other forms of government in other countries.
- Ensure all students within the school have a voice that is listened to and demonstrate how democracy works by actively promoting democratic processes.
- Use opportunities such as general or local elections to hold mock elections to promote fundamental British values and provide pupils with the opportunity to learn how to argue and defend points of view.
- Consider the role of extra-curricular activity, including any run directly by students, in promoting British values.
