It's so important that a school sets the right values, the right tone and the
right ethos. Peter Holyk and Kamal Hanif share their stories of how the values and
ethos set in their schools build children's social and emotional
well-being and their resilience to the risks that exists in our
society today, such as; bullying, exploitation or extremism.
My name is Kamal Hanif and I'm Executive Headteacher at Waverley school.
When I first came into the school the community was insular and did not
engage very much with the school. The school is in a very deprived area,
serving a largely Muslim community. What the school had not realised is that
actually some of its approach had made it insular and they had become insular
themselves so they weren't working with local primary schools or feeder schools,
they weren't doing much collaboration in the community. It was about coming up with
a school ethos that everybody would be really happy in promoting, that the
community would feel a part of and drawing them in.
My name is Peter Holyk and I'm the Principal at Nottingham Girls Academy.
Nottingham Girls Academy is an inner-city school and in one of the most challenging
areas of Nottingham. We are committed to making sure that no student feels
isolated or feels segregated in any way. Characteristics like social or
cultural backgrounds should not be a barrier to learning.
There's no better example than seeing that in the school production of
The Lion King where you can see maybe over a hundred girls taking part,
of all different religions, of all different cultures.
My name is Rhiannon Price, I'm in Year 11 and I play Simba in The Lion King.
My name is Rani, I'm in Year 11 and I play Scar in The Lion King.
[ACTING] Oh dear, I've said too much. Well I suppose you would have
figured it out anyway, you being so clever and all.
I have learnt how to be a team player because we have got such a big cast of
different ages and it has taught me how to speak to them, speak to people a lot
younger than me.
What I really like about this school is that there are so many
different cultures and religions and we get to know more about different people and
the school get involved by putting on different religious occasions and parties.
Within our school we actually don't believe in tolerance.
What we believe in is acceptance and that actually what we should do, as a school,
is teach everyone about learning about different faiths, different religions and
that you accept everybody for who they are, that we don't tolerate somebody just
because they are lesbian or gay or because they're black or Chinese or Asian.
What we say is that it is about learning about the excellence in all cultures and
all religions and what can we take from that in terms of improving ourselves.
For us assemblies are very much about developing our values, our vision,
our ethos but then also around character-building.
Respect is underlying everything we do at Waverley here.
The respect that you show each other in your daily lives, by dressing correctly,
by listening in assembly, by listening in lessons. Those are three really
important ways for us to be happy. Trust, valued and be supported.
We also look at key events that happen internationally, bringing those in and
having the focus through assemblies which are then embedded throughout
lessons and provides that talking point that instigates the debate and the
discussion that we want happening within our school.
Quite often when you see radicalisation it is like those individuals have not
learnt to debate and argue very well and they might get drawn in quite easily.
[SIGNING]
The senior leadership team here has a key, key role to play.
Fundamentally we need to role model the correct behaviour and attitude.
The values that we adopted, right from the start, was that of mutual respect.
We believe in those values and those values happen to be the British values and I have
always felt that those are our values in any case and this is what we have
always believed in. We have believed in mutual respect,
we have believed in tolerance, we have believed in resilience and
high aspirations. It is an integral part of the curriculum for us.
We have not had to go out there and find it.
In terms of character, we strongly believe that character is built up of
your beliefs but also you're strong values.
For us, the key one is that they leave this school with a strong value of
humanity but that is what they show in their character when they go out,
in terms of how they support other individuals and how they
interact with individuals.
I want the girls, when they leave Nottingham Girls Academy, to leave as
articulate and confidence young ladies that are ready for life in modern Britain.
That is so important to me.