BRITISH VALUES STATEMENT

The UK Government has 5 values that they, and we at Westfield Academy, believe are fundamental to
British society, building cohesion and helping to create a safe and secure community. The embedding of these 5 values helps students to become active and valuable citizens of both the local and national community after leaving us at Westfield Academy. These are the values that we aim to develop within students:

• Individual liberty
• Mutual respect
• Tolerance
• Democracy
• The rule of law

At Westfield Academy, we create opportunities within our curriculum and additional activities to teach and support the development of all the British Values. This includes:

• Helping students to understand the importance of voting, including voter registration in the Sixth Form.
• Actively encouraging students to participate in democratic activities as part of the Student Council.
• Teaching about the value of democracy through learning about societies where democracy has failed or been removed.
• Embedding a strong and consistent behaviour policy that places an emphasis on respect of others and has a zero tolerance for bullying.
• Working with external organisations and building a PSHE programme that encourages students to engage with people who are different to themselves to foster a tolerant attitude towards difference. This includes a specific focus on LGBTQ+.
• Allowing students to understand through PSHE, form time and assemblies the importance of protecting the freedoms of themselves and others. This includes the study of Civil Rights, Black History Month, Holocaust Memorial Day and PRIDE.
• Embedding within students high expectations through behaviour that helps them to see the value of laws and the role that they play in keeping each other safe.
• Through a strong sporting ethos, we help students to respect and understand the role of laws within society and to respect authority figures.

Our aim as an Academy when developing British Values is to:

• Enable students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Give students the critical thinking skills to understand the complexities of living in modern communities and how to differentiate between right and wrong.
• Foster a culture of responsibility within the academy that means that students own up to their mistakes and work to rebuild the relationships that have become damaged through their actions.
• Encourage students to be active participants in the local and national community and understand how to engage with communities in a positive and pragmatic way.
• Help students to understand the institutions that make up the UK, the history of these institutions and how they fit in the community.
• Create a tolerance of those who are different to themselves and ensure students understand the Equality Act (2010) and how this piece of legislation underpins work, family and community relationships.
• Encourage students to respect each other and to report incidents where respect and tolerance are not shown to their peers.

There are opportunities in lessons for students to focus on these values, including within Humanities, when looking at Nazi Germany in History, religious beliefs in RE or developing economies in Geography. The choice of literature in English has been developed to support students' understanding of these values, including literature reflecting LGBTQ+ and BAME themes. In Science, students engage with the law through questioning the morality and legality of cloning and stem cell research. The PSHE programme helps to embed all the values through alignment with the Statutory RSE Framework. Other school activities such as assemblies and our broad and varied extracurricular programme support the development of British Values. Finally, our Form Time programme helps students to engage with key events going on in the world and directs students towards key times in the local and national community.