Visions and Values

At Maldon Primary School we uphold and teach pupils about the British Values which are defined as:

• Democracy
• Rule of law
• Individual liberty
• Mutual respect
• Acceptance of those of different faiths and beliefs

We are an Educate and Celebrate best practice school, for more information on this, click here. 

Our school welcomes everyone from all walks of life. Everyone must welcome and celebrate all others in our school and treat everybody equally and fairly irrespective of age, disabilities, gender, race and nationality, religion or belief, pregnancy, marriage, transgender identity and sexual orientation in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

Check our Educate and Celebrate page in Events.

These values are taught explicitly through Personal, Social, Health and Emotional (PSHE), and Religious Education (RE).  We also teach the British Values through planning and delivering a broad and balanced curriculum.

The school takes opportunities to actively promote British Values through our daily assemblies and whole school systems and structures such as electing and running a successful School Council. We also actively promote the British values through ensuring that our curriculum planning and delivery includes real opportunities for exploring these values. Actively promoting British Values also means challenging pupils, staff or parents expressing opinions contrary to fundamental British Values, including ‘extremist’ views.

These values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways:

Democracy:

Democracy is an important value at our school. Pupils have the opportunity to have their voices heard through our School Council. The elections of members of the School Council are based on pupil votes. Children also have opportunities to nominate and elect Eco Committee representatives, Sports Ambassadors, Playground leaders and House Captains.

The Rule of Law:

The importance of laws and rules, whether they are those that govern the class, the school or the country, are consistently reinforced throughout the school. In order to ensure consistency of approach, we have three School Rules of Safety, Learning and Respect and children reflect on what this means in daily practice throughout the year. Our ‘Traffic Light System’ for behavior is aligned to an agreed set of codes. Celebration assemblies reinforce and reward these values each week. A further level has been introduced recently to reward children for always being on ‘green’ and living their life by the chosen set of rules. Pupils are taught the value and reasons behind laws, that they govern and protect us, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken. Visits from authorities such as the police, fire service, lifeguards etc. are regular parts of our calendar and help reinforce this message.

Individual Liberty

Pupils are actively encouraged to make choices at our school, knowing that they are in a safe and supportive environment. As a school we provide boundaries for our children to make choices safely, through the provision of a safe environment and planned curriculum. Pupils are encouraged to know, understand and exercise their rights and personal freedoms and are advised how to exercise these safely, for example through our e-Safety teaching and PSHE lessons. Pupils are given the freedom to make choices, e.g. signing up for extra-curricular clubs, choose the level of challenge in some lessons and are becoming increasingly more involved in child–led learning.

Mutual Respect

This is reinforced throughout the school based on our ethos of Safety, Learning and Respect. It is an expectation that both staff and children treat each other and visitors with respect.

Acceptance of Those of Different Faiths and Beliefs:

This is achieved through enhancing pupils’ understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society and by giving them opportunities to experience such diversity in our local community which is by large white British. Assemblies and discussions involving prejudices and prejudice-based bullying have been followed and supported by learning in RE and PSHE. We use opportunities such as the Olympics and World Cup to study and learn about life and culture in other countries.