At School Postcards we have worked with schools for many years to effectively engage students. We do this by helping schools to communicate in an easy to understand, fun and unique way.
It is a requirement for schools in England to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC). A big part of this is teaching pupils about British values. We have found that many schools are able to develop SMSC by introducing individual school values in conjunction with British values.
It has been a privilege to have been able to work with so many schools and see the difference we are making across Yorkshire. We hope to extend the number of schools we work with and continue assisting with SMSC development.
Why have school values?
School values are a fantastic way of developing SMSC. However, even before SMSC was measured by Ofsted, many schools already had values in place.
Values help define the culture, ethos and morals for the whole school. They create a positive learning environment built upon the foundations of mutual respect and purpose. Values-based learning enhances academic achievement and develops pupils’ attitudes and social skills which will continue to benefit them throughout their lives. Many businesses these days put a lot of focus on company values and heavily advertise these when recruiting. Giving children values they can live their life by helps them prepare for adulthood and the world of work.
Values give pupils clear behaviours to follow and objectives to work to. They enforce a sense of community and are usually based on important common values such as kindness, respect, tolerance and empathy. Many schools share similar values although they may choose different wording. We have also come across a few unique values too. ‘Koinonia’ is one of the more unusual values we have encountered. It is used by one of the Church of England schools we work with and is a biblical word meaning “united together, belonging as one”.
We have worked with many Church of England schools to help them embed Christian values alongside British values. This is an integral part of their learning environment. However, schools aligned with other religions and non-religious schools also benefit substantially from having a clear set of values in place.
Whatever school values are chosen, it is vital that they are effectively communicated in a way that pupils, teachers and parents can engage with.
How to communicate your values effectively
School values work best when everyone understands them. We have found that involving the pupils in setting the school values is a fantastic way of engaging the children as well as embedding the values.
Each school is different so they need to develop individual school values based on what is important to them and what they want to achieve. Some schools attach a value to each letter of their school name to create an easy to remember acronym. Other schools create fun characters to help promote their values.
Values are something that the school should be proud of. Displaying them using bright, child friendly graphics really makes them stand out and shows visitors what the school is trying to achieve.
School values can be very effective when woven into the rewards and praise systems. By rewarding pupils who are sticking to school values you reinforce the importance and motivate children to live by these values.
The message should be cohesive and consistent throughout the whole school. You should keep the values at the core of everything but continue to develop fresh and new ways to engage the pupils.
How can School Postcards help?
We’ve worked with numerous schools to create and communicate school values in unique and original ways.
Our creative workshops have proven very popular with pupils and teachers. By getting children involved in the design process we can really motivate them and give them a deeper understanding of what their school values mean and why they are important. We have worked with children on designing characters or imagery to represent each value. This gives children a chance to explain their understanding of each value and think about how they can personally demonstrate them. Involving children in this process allows us to create designs that we know they will engage with.
We help schools create a consistent message using a number of different design elements. From reception displays to certificates to badges to roller banners to our special collecting card books; we have developed many great ways of promoting school values.
One example of our unique work is a fun, interactive star cube we designed to help a schoolengage the pupils with their new values. The inventive design is made up of star shapes that slot together to form a cube. The pieces are reversible and cubes can be slotted together so the values can be displayed in various different ways. This gives pupils chance to get creative and find inventive ways to display the values; we found this really captured their attention. To help teachers get the most from the cube we also produced a teaching sheet. This contains ideas of how to use the cube as a fun teaching aid in maths and science lessons to help integrate the school values into everyday learning.
Our bespoke postcards have also been highly praised by teachers and parents. It’s not just the fun designs on the front that make them so special. The reverse can be completely personalised to congratulate parents on their child’s achievement. Including tick boxes next to the school values allows the teacher to highlight which value the pupil is receiving praise for. This also acts as a reminder to parents what the values are and what the school is trying to achieve. The postcards really improve the home-school connection and the feedback from parents, teachers and pupils has been fantastic.
School Postcards have vast experience working with schools. We aren’t just a design company; we take time to understand the schools’ ethos and culture and help bring ideas to life with bespoke design. We want to help schools create a fun, creative and inspiring learning environment. Having something visual really does engage children and ensure they understand the message.
If you would like to learn more about what we do and how we can help you effectively engage pupils with school values then get in touch.
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