Values Education : Good Practice Schools project
The third Student Forum of the Manningham Values Education cluster met in early December. The six schools involved have worked in Student Action Teams and came together to celebrate the Student Voice and its Effects.
As well as reporting on their actions at each school, students also participated in an activitity 'Finding the Evidence'. Students had been asked to prepare information on what difference values education had made to themselves, to other students and to their school – and more importantly how did they know they had made a difference. Their evidence included data from surveys and interviews, structured or casual observation, self reflection, comments from others, comparing earlier work with what is happening at present.
About 100 Grade five and six students were involved in the day and the powerful influence of Student Action Teams (SAT) in each school was most evident. Together with their teacher leader, students planned their approach to values education for the following year and developed what they needed to do this year to support those aims.
This cluster has been one of the most successful of the Good Practice Schools projects which have been funded nationally. Their findings will be included in Phase 2 of the final report which will be available on the Values Education website.
New curriculum material is available for teachers to use on this website. It is accessed through a key code sent to each school.
Below are some of the ideas and actions that schools in the cluster have taken up in their delivery of values education.
St. Charles Borromeo
- Values newsletter to tell all members of the community what is going on in Values
- 'Danny the Duck' where kids write their problems and we try to help them solve them
- Values certificates are given to students to show that other students appreciate what they do
- Lots of values displays e.g. Values SAT notice board, values trees, value of the month board in each classroom
- Role plays at assembly to help teach the value
- Survey every second family to see what we can do to improve our values education
- SAT members responsible for each classroom to help students understand what values are
- Parent forum run by SAT
St. Kevins
- Surveying students, staff and parents to see if they know what we are doing in Values
- Writing a Values newsletter
- Ran two parent forums
- Collecting data on student concentration
- Current grade 5s will train up grade 4s to be part of the SAT
St. Clement of Rome
- Parent forum run by SAT
- Values posters around the school
- Discuss values at assembly
- Helping each class with some feedback on responsible behaviour. The best class was able to have a free dress day
St. Gregory the Great
- Saved 10,000 litres of water at the school through the value of responsibility
- Improved the eating area and recycling
- Students taking care of the gardens
Our Lady of the Pines
- All grade 5 students in SAT
- Rubbish free days
- Friendship Fridays
- Values posters all around the school
- Values information in the school newsletter
Ss Peter and Pauls
- P.A. announcements before lunch time to remind everyone to show respect and honesty
- Role plays created to show different scenarios to rest of school
- Parent forum run by SAT
- Parents discussed different values and decided honesty and respect were the most important
