the Learning Centre for education and values

Examples of policy statements incorporating school's values

A selection of extracts from policy documents which illustrate ways of incorporating a school's values into its policy statements. These examples show a range of 'embeddedness' from simple reference to the school's values to policy strategies which draw upon the values. We will add more examples in the future.

Diagram illustrating Core Values at the centre of school culture

This is a diagram that may be useful in presenting the ideas of this step. The diagram illustrates core values at the centre of the 'onion' with the 'layers of skin' made up of the layers of school organisation and planning. Click here to open the diagram.

Diagram illustrating the Process of School Policy-Making

This diagram presents a form of 'process model' view of school organisation and planning. It illustrates the links between vision and community in practice. Click here to open the diagram.

Developing a citizenship policy using a whole school approach - DFES

The teachers section includes advice on creating a school policy for citizenship based on a whole school approach.

Vision and core values energise all aspects of school life

The school's vision, mission and core values are at the heart of a whole school framework for citizenship and the spiritual, moral social and cultural development of pupils. A schools' vision and core values should be evident in all its key policies, and thus inform and influence all school practices. (Two diagrams in the Resources section to the left illustrate this key point.)

The development of an explicitly shared, robust vision, with its associated core values, will facilitiate:

• a specific and focused approach to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils and all aspects of citizenship
• the expression of ‘grass roots’ ideas and opinions
• open and respectful debate as an important means of developing trust within the community
• the ownership, growth and management of the school development plan
• healthy critical self-evaluation and professional learning
• secure leadership
• the management of difference within teams.

Core values are integral to the development and evaluation of all key policies

Core values can be explicitly used to develop and evaluate all key policies and indeed, all aspects of school development. Each core value has implications for practice in relation to each policy area. These implications can be used as 'benchmarks' when evaluating any particular policy. Living by different core values leads to different outcomes in practice.

Ethical educational leadership means being explicit about vision and values

Ethical educational leadership requires an open, explicit and coherent approach to the ways in which policy and practice are informed and shaped by beliefs and values of all sorts. An explicit and shared vision provides a community with a ‘third’ voice, which helps to mediate between individual, internal and ideological and political external pressures. Members of the community can resort to their shared vision and values when difference leads to conflict. This also contributes significantly to citizenship education.

Experiencing positive values - leading by example

However logical or coherent a development plan may be, it cannot replace the primary importance of positive interpersonal relationships. Values are modelled, taught and ‘caught’ through the quality of life within the community. Pupils cannot learn values until they have experienced them. To promote healthy and growthful relationships, Carl Rogers (1967) argues that we need three things:

• unconditional positive regard
• empathy
• authenticity (i.e. honesty).

Positive interpersonal relationships are a crucial part of the context in which personal development takes place. People who do not feel safe, however old they are, are unlikely to learn, grow and reach their full potential.

A positive relationship with a teacher, according to one group of pupils consulted from Hackney, is one in which:

• teachers respect pupils
• teachers value the pupil for who they are
• teachers are prepared to listen to their pupils.

Poor relationships and lack of trust will undermine any schools attempt to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and learning at all levels. Young people accurately discern those teachers and others, who do not live the values they espouse.

Core values are a vehicle for integrating spiritual, moral, social and cultural development across the curriculum and organisation of the school

A whole school approach to citizenship and the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of learners, means addressing:

• leadership and management
• the vision and mission statement
• strategic aims and objectives and development planning
• policy development
• leadership styles and management structures and processes
• deployment of resources
• learning and teaching
• teaching and learning strategies
• assessment practices
• the curriculum
• schemes of work and lesson planning
• breadth and range of study
• ethos
• the staff induction / student induction
• the quality of relationships within the community
• the experienced ethos of the school
• the rituals, customs, symbols, imagery and structure of school life
• pastoral care
• community links
• the breadth of interaction between the school and its wider community
• what the school says in its prospectus and publicity.

A whole school approach enables all aspects of school life to be informed and influenced by the school’s particular vision and core values. These provide a link between theory and practice because they require the community to ask critical questions about its practice.

Tracking core values through policies

A school's policies are an opportunity to show how the school's core values affect the way things are done right across the school. For example, many schools will embrace valuing self and valuing others as core values. So, when such a school formulates, say, its Teaching and Learning Policy, one of the questions to be asked is: how does our approach to teaching and learning reflect what we value?

To take another example - if we say we value all pupils equally, and yet our teaching and learning strategies favour only the more able pupils, then there is a credibility gap which needs attention. Again, if we say we value learning and yet we don't promote postive staff development, then there is a credibility gap. Similarly we can ask of our Assessment Policy: do our assessment policies value what we assess or assess what we value?

Activity 1

EXPRESSING OUR VALUES IN OUR POLICIES

Focus on your own school's core values. Use the template here to record your initial thoughts. Write down two or three important values in the boxes in the left hand column. Then, in the remaining columns, write down one or two examples of the implications of these values or how they might be expressed, in your school, in as many of the key policy areas as you can. You could write some behaviours which would indicate that a particular value was not being lived out !

For examples see this table.

Key value questions when formulating policies.

As part of your improvement cycle, the following 'value questions' can help you unpack the meaning of your school's vision and core values for each major school policy.

• Whose interests are being served by this policy? (Name the key stakeholders i.e. teachers, pupils, parents, others?)
• What is the key purpose of this policy?
• What will be the outcomes of this policy?
• For each outcome ask: what core value does this outcome express?

Including all stakeholders in policy formulation

Living out shared values happens through community ownership of and dialogue about those values. So, involving all stakeholders in the process of school development planning is a key to a positive ethos. Dialogue entails listening to other people's points of view. Listening requires accepting difference, imagining where the other person is coming from and affirming their thoughts and feelings, even if you disagree about a decision. You could consider these ideas as follows:

• identify one policy or development task for which you are responsible
• name the core values this policy or development task seeks to express
• list the key stakeholders and what is most important to each
• ask whether the core values of the policy/development task shared by the stakeholders

This template may be helpful to make notes as you consider these ideas.

Dealing with the credibility gap

Noone and no community is ever perfect. Part of our common humanity is the gap between the values we espouse and the values we practice. This is as likely to be the case with each of us as individuals (though we may be unaware of it) as it is with teams, groups and communities. School ethos is made up of many small interactions, actions, behaviours and practices. As the saying goes, the thousand mile journey begins with a small step. Lots of individuals making small changes eventually have an effect on the whole.

You can explore the credibility gaps in your own school using a group 'brainstorm'. Choose one that you think is most important because it undermines the vision and values of the school. What core value needs to be experienced and practised to close the gap? Identify three things that you can do to practice that value and to close the gap. This template may be a useful way to record the group's work.