Change is threatening and those who survive it are those who can adapt.
I’ve been in teaching long enough to know that Darwin’s dictum is true. I’ve seen over the years that it wasn’t necessarily the best, most talented teachers who survived to make a successful career – I saw some brilliant inspirational teachers leave after only a couple of years.
The rapid pace of change simply defeated them.
Those who went on to thrive and succeed were those who could adapt to the new and often exacting demands of the environment – whether that was a change in government education policy, a change of head teacher, the unexpected outcome of an Ofsted inspection or the stresses and strains of teaching a new and challenging group of kids.
But for those teachers who did survive to make a difference, where and how did they get the faith and the belief to do it?
In my view, the teaching profession provides three fundamental sources that underpin the faith to manage change: our identity, our hope and our destination.
Our identity as a profession is to know who we are and why we are different from other jobs and professions. Get to know what it is that makes teachers different and special.
Our hope is that we have a moral purpose in what we do. We’re trying to make a difference and to do a moral good. Well, aren’t we?
And our destination is that place where the lives of those we teach are better and more fulfilled through education. That place is not reached by exam passes but as an end in itself. We’re trying to take others to a different, better place – even if we can only take them as far as glimpsing it.
Where we come from, where we’re going to and why. These are the fundamentals of a profession with a moral purpose – like teaching.
When we really know these things as a profession we will have more confidence to adapt to change and survive it.
How do I know that?
Because I’ve lived through ephemeral government policies, ambitious and bullying head teachers, arbitrary and superficial Ofsted inspections and transient classes of difficult kids.
But the fundamental values of a profession don’t change. They will sustain you through good times and bad.
For those of you thinking of leaving teaching this summer, I hope you’ll think again.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
When a terrorist atrocity takes place, such as the targeting of children at a pop concert or young people enjoying a night out, one wonders what questions will be going through the minds of children going into school and how teachers can even begin to respond to their fears.
But respond we must.
The role of a teacher at such a time is absolutely fundamental to the well-being and security children have a right to expect. They will need to ask questions, express fear and even anger.
But that will only be their immediate and initial response. Like grief, this part of the process will soon pass, though teachers need to allow for this and accommodate it as part of their role as pastoral mentors.
Schools, teachers and children will quickly get back to teaching their subjects.
What is to be done then?
Teachers must also respond in the long term – and that means teach values that promote and support the understanding and acceptance of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance.
How is this to be done?
Well, not by doing it in a ‘moral panic’ or with a series of ‘shoot-from-the-hip’ reactions to a single terrorist incident or by staging tokenistic gestures to try and convince Ofsted inspectors that the school is promoting ‘fundamental British values’.
We do it by embedding – every day and every week – a wide range of good quality spiritual, moral, social and cultural education experiences throughout the school.
For example (and these are all questions posed positively by a group of teacher trainees I met this week):
Do the children in your school democratically elect a school council or have some responsibility for some real decisions that can affect their school lives?
Do the children in your school have the opportunity to inform and shape the class and school rules that protect us all?
Do children in your school appreciate and understand their individual freedoms – such as their right to own property, choose what to eat or wear, choose their own friends, travel freely or have the right to an education irrespective of their race or gender?
Do the children in your school have the opportunity to learn and practice mutual respect, like learning to debate difficult issues where they have to listen respectfully to challenging arguments – tolerate different opinions even if they fundamentally disagree with them – and then learn how to respectfully challenge them in return?
Not only is this what every school and every teacher is expected to provide as part of the National Curriculum, but it is the moral and ethical purpose of every person that can proudly call them self a teacher.
It is also the way that we will all – in school and in society – overcome fear with hope, defeat terror with peace and security and ultimately transform hatred into love.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
The Conservatives will do away with free school lunches for many primary school children in England (except for the poorest) and provide breakfasts instead, if (and when) they are re-elected.
I agree with Jamie Oliver about this –school lunches are often the main and sometimes the only nutritious and balanced meal of the day for some children. They also provide an opportunity for children to engage socially with their peers.
My issue about this is not a political one – it’s a professional one. In my view, teachers should be involved – they should sit and have lunch in the school dining room with the children and senior teachers should be involved in all aspects of how that service is delivered.
I know many teachers will say they haven’t got the time to do that (and they are right of course) or that they don’t want to eat school lunches (and why would they, when too many meals are so unappetizing and children can be noisy and sometimes ill-mannered).
But just let me tell you how it used to be…
First, when I was at school in the 1960s and 1970s (and don’t think that nothing worked in those days, school dinners certainly did) – I sat with five of my peers around a table – this is both at primary and secondary school) that had a space reserved for a teacher.
Every day we would beg teachers to come and sit on our table, we enjoyed their company so much. It wasn’t seen as anything other than a social pleasure.
Children laid the tables. They volunteered to do it, week by week, during playtimes. They were paid ‘pocket money’ by the kitchen staff. We all took turns and loved it, the pocket money was just a bonus.
In those days, it was always meat and two veg everyday (vegetarianism was still unknown, or at best slightly cranky) and plenty of pudding – everything made fresh on-site. There was never chips or pizza on the menu. I particularly remember the tender beef slices served up with huge roast potatoes, greens and lashings of rich, brown gravy. ‘Cheese pie” was another of my favourites – that came with fresh mashed potatoes and baked beans.
There was no choice of course – you got what you were given.
But not only were the tables laid by children, two children would go up to the serving hatches to bring trays of ceramic plates and bowls and steel knives, forks and spoons to the table – real dishes and cutlery, not plastic ones.
Then they’d go back for tureens of hot food and hot jugs of gravy or sauce. I remember the occasional dropped one – but I can’t remember any dramas – it was cleared up and replaced with no crisis about ‘health and safety’.
We passed the tureens of food from one to the other – learning not to take too much, learning not to eat too much, learning the manners of dining with others. We poured each other water into glass beakers. ‘Seconds’ were usually available to those who asked politely.
As we finished, those children who had brought the food to the table were relieved of their duties and two others took responsibility for tidying up the dishes and the table.
Of course, there are people reading this who remember school dinners as nothing but disgusting – offal, boiled spuds and lumpy custard. I can’t say that every school cook in the country was as good as the ones I had. But this was true in every primary and secondary school I went to.
But I realized when I became a teacher that this was not an issue of ‘council policy’ but about ‘school policy’ and a very much a professional one that teachers could do something about – if they wanted to.
When I first entered teaching in 1979, school meals services were still very much like I’d experienced in my school days. But by the late 1980s, things had begun to change.
The ‘free’ meal that teachers received for sitting with children during lunchtime had gone. Government cuts meant teachers now had to pay for the privilege. They usually chose not to.
Children were allowed to bring in packed lunches – which were of course ‘cold’ and usually not balanced or often even healthy – sandwiches, crisps, snack bars and sweet, fizzy drinks were the norm. Apart from the poor nutritional value, this fatally undermined the School Meals Service – fewer children buying school meals meant more cutbacks on staff and food quality.
‘Health and Safety’ meant all the things I’d described about sharing food that teach children fundamental social values had more or less gone. Food was served up on plastic trays with plastic knives and forks that looked like those you find in prisons.
I saw deteriorating behaviour and attitudes towards food generally and lunchtime in particular. I began to notice highly overweight and obese children for the first time in my life.
When I became a head teacher (twenty years ago), I did something to reverse the trend. I banned packed lunches. If you stayed in school for lunch, you ate a school dinner (now of course, with a range of vegetarian and multi-cultural choices). I banned fizzy drinks and re-introduced water at the tables and drinking fountains in the playground. The ‘dinner ladies’ wouldn’t let anyone out to play until they had eaten most of their meal. They certainly didn’t get seconds if they were discourteous, ill-mannered or wasted food. We were a faith school, so we said ‘Grace’ at every meal.
Just in that last paragraph alone, I’m describing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural education that every school and every teacher should be providing – not just as part of promoting so-called ‘British values’ – but in providing a proper education.
Good, nutritious, well-balanced schools meals eaten together – children and teachers together – is not an education or government policy issue, it’s not a political issue either (or shouldn’t be) – but it is a professional issue – and just as important as ‘what’ and ‘how’ we teach a ‘curriculum’ with ‘subjects’ in it.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
A head and deputy head teacher of a Hampshire primary school have resigned because of government education policy saying in their resignation letter to parents: “Recent developments in education have brought our position to a point of personal, professional and ethical crisis.”
They cite: “the narrow focus on… an increasingly bland and joyless educational diet… mental health issues resulting from pressure on children by testing… and cuts to school budgets resulting in redundancies…”
To be honest, and with respect to these two well-respected teachers, I’ve been hearing this kind of thing for the last twenty-five years.
Teaching has been a profession with an increasingly high churn rate both with newly and recently qualified teachers and with senior teachers too. Studies from Liverpool University, the NUT and Professor Alan Smithers over the last twenty years have revealed churn and drop-out rates of between 20% and 40% in some sections of the profession.
But what is interesting to me in this case is the use of the phrase: “personal, professional and ethical crisis.”
I think we can all imagine scenarios where ‘a personal crisis’ might result in resigning from our job – a bereavement of a close family member; a serious health breakdown; a divorce.
I think it’s also quite easy to think of resigning over a ‘professional’ issue – a ‘poor’ Ofsted report; the culture of a particular school or a department; a so-called ‘personality clash’ with the head teacher; missing out on a promotion.
But resigning for ‘ethical’ reasons is a lot less common and brings forth a moral dimension to the issue.
While the Romans taught us to distinguish between legal, moral and ethical issues, even they found an overlap between these categories – especially moral and ethical – and it is interesting to consider – and pause over – the ethical reasons they cite for their decision.
These two highly respected teachers have a combined experience of fifty years and lead an ‘outstanding’ school and while their resignation has been greeted with some dismay, there is also widespread sympathy from many parents, one of who was quoted as saying: “The education system in this country should not be without people of this caliber.”
What issues would you be prepared to resign over? Whether personal, professional or ethical?
What issues would you be prepared to resign over?
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
There is moral outrage that French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron married a woman who is twenty five years older than him. Worse. She left her husband and children for him and… horror of horrors… she was his teacher!
There is shock and outrage – at least at the offices of the Daily Mail.
To be fair and accurate, although Macron told his teacher Brigitte Trogneaux that she would one day be his wife when he was just 15 years old, the couple apparently waited until he was 18 and both had left the Jesuit school he attended before starting the relationship proper.
Yeah right…
For obvious professional and ethical reasons, students and teachers should not have relationships, let alone sexual ones while one is the ‘client’ of the other. Doctors, lawyers and nurses would probably get struck off for it.
In the case of teachers, it’s not just a professional and ethical issue, since the 2003 Sexual Offences Act it is a legal issue as well where they would also risk a criminal record and a prison sentence.
Is that fair?
Shouldn’t students be allowed to have relationships with their teachers and vice versa without fear of breaking the law? In this country, if an 18 year old – an adult – has a relationship with a teacher in their school it is not only a sack able and barring offence, it is also a criminal offence.
Why a criminal offence?
Contrast this to the fact that if a student and teacher at separate schools have a relationship, even a sexual one where a teacher might be substantially older than the student – as in the case of Monsieur Macron and Madam Trogneaux – it is considered neither a professional, ethical or indeed a legal matter.
As long as the student is over 16 of course and the student and teacher are at separate schools – it is considered a private, in other words a moral matter.
The case of Monsieur Macron and Madam Trogneaux obliges us to reflect on our values – both ethical, legal and moral.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
A new government commissioned report on integration and ‘British’ values is out, making criticisms of public institutions as well as some ethnic groups in the UK.
But could you say whether your values as a teacher are British values?
You might find Ofsted asking that question one day.
It’s a contentious issue. Lots of people, even if they are able to articulate their own personal values struggle to articulate what ‘British values’ are. Some will challenge outright the notion of ‘British values’ at all, (though personally, I think it’s a distinctly British value that the British are uncomfortable even talking about British values. I don’t think you’d see Americans or even the French expressing such reticence).
Be that as it may, I was doing a training session with some trainee teachers on ‘fundamental British values’ a few weeks ago in the north of England. I was asking the trainees to reflect on how their own personal values cohere or contrast with the ‘fundamental British values’ as defined by the Department for Education as “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs”.
One trainee, a young hijab-wearing Muslim woman training at a predominantly Muslim school in Bradford, said to me: “I was doing Romeo and Juliet with my Year 9s last week. I was really hammering on about the concept of individual liberty as understood in Shakespeare’s time and in modern times and how concepts around the individual liberty have changed. I wanted to get across to my students how it is their right and their individual liberty to choose their own marriage partner. We discussed dating sites, Tinder, arranged marriage, forced marriage, divorce, bigamy and related the relevant issues to the drama being played out by Romeo and Juliet and their warring families. I realise now that I was teaching my own values. I really wanted to get across to the students, the girls especially, what their individual liberties are. Now I think I was teaching British values as well.”
The following week I was in Bath with a similar group of trainees asking similar questions about how easy or hard it is to integrate personal, professional (and even political) values.
One student said that he wanted to be an art teacher because he truly believed that the pursuit of art could only be achieved when one understood that art was a fundamental expression of oneself to others. He said that true art could not be achieved without understanding the primacy of one’s individual right and liberty to express oneself in whatever way one chose, even if that caused offence and shock.
At first he didn’t think this had anything at all to do with so called ‘fundamental British values’. Indeed he thought at first, that his understanding of artistic expression ran counter to any idea of so-called ‘British values’.
But then he stopped and reflected, thought for a moment and concluded by saying that he realised that he wouldn’t have had the right to express his art or teach his students they had a right to artistic expression had he been a teacher in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, let alone the so-called Islamic State.
What are your values? Are they British values too?
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on professionalism in teaching including ‘British’ values and the ‘Prevent’ strategy. He runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
I was in Bath recently talking to an excellent group of trainees about fundamental British values.
What are they?
It’s not easy to say is it?
The government have told us that they are: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.
Got a problem with that?
Going by the reaction at my talks a lot of people have.
So I ask: What are yours then?
Battle of Britain? Getting rotten drunk? BBC? Misbehaving at football? Dickens, Austen, Rowling? Strictly Come Dancing? Fish and chips? Nice cuppa tea? Newton, Darwin, Faraday? Black taxi cabs?
I don’t mean to trivialise but sometimes I make up a list of things that derive from ‘British’ behaviours, history, culture and customs just to wind-up my audience. I can see some of them getting annoyed. I don’t stop… James Bond films… the Dunkirk Spirit… stiff upper lip… always saying sorry, talking about weather…
The funny thing is, I actually believe some of them, though I don’t tell my audience which ones.
British values, especially fundamental British values are hard to summarise aren’t they?
That’s because of course, we all have our own personal values and our own ways of relating them to be being British.
Discussing this issue with student teachers and trainees, they often question how fundamental British values can even be encapsulated into a sentence like “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs” – and they challenge even the notion of trying to do it in a diverse and multi-cultural society such as ours.
They’re right to say it’s hard. They’re right to say it’s challenging. Just because it’s hard and challenging doesn’t mean that fundamental British values don’t exist.
Go on… Have a go yourself…
Try and get fundamental British values into a single sentence…
The French manage it with theirs and they do it in better than a sentence – they manage it in just three words: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Three words that say who and what they want their society to be. That’s quite an achievement I think – and they did it two hundred years before the invention of advertising strap lines and PR jargon – though not, of course, before the Greeks gave us an understanding of how the rhetorical tri-colon plays a fundamental role in how we understand philosophical and political messages.
What are your three fundamental values?
What’s the message of yourself as a teacher?
Maybe you should come up with one, or one day you might find a politician asking you to take an oath…
When I go around the country talking to teacher trainees we get talking about the definition of a profession and the characteristics of professionalism. I love it. I always get a wide ranging discussion going into which people brainstorm things like education, training, qualifications, cpd, specialist skills and knowledge and then develop thinking around dedication, being a role model, responsibility, trust, probity, accountability.
I am always interested in their understanding of the concept of accountability. To whom do they feel they ‘owe’ it?
Willingly, the trainees will recognise that they are accountable to a wide range of ‘stakeholders’ (horrible phrase I know) such as:
their employers (like the local authority or school governors who appoint them to their job);
their line-managers (like head of department or headteacher, who will ask them what they are planning to teach every day);
the wider public and government (through things like Ofsted, who come round and inspect the quality of our teaching);
the parents (who turn up at parents evenings or accost you first thing in the morning to ask how ‘Little Johnny’ is getting on with his reading);
and even ‘Little Johnny’ himself (who will walk through the classroom door and ask “What are we going to do today Sir?” or complain: “Miss, you haven’t marked my homework!”)
I have rarely met a single student or trainee who doesn’t accept that wide ranging accountability comes with accepting the complex and weighty responsibilities we take on from the first day we enter a classroom as a qualified teacher.
Then I usually tell them this story:
Some years ago I was at a party in the area where I live in north London. I was standing around drinking wine, being introduced to neighbours I hardly knew (that’s what it’s like living in London…) and the guy standing next to me said: “What do you do for a living Alan?”
I said pleasantly: “By profession, I’m a teacher.”
“Well, teaching’s not a profession,” he said rather bluntly (that’s what they’re like in Muswell Hill…!)
“Isn’t it?” I said. “Why do you say that?”
“Teachers go on strike,” he said. “Professions don’t go on strike. Professions put the interests of their clients first. If you go on strike for better pay or pensions or conditions, you’re not putting the interests of your clients’ first. You’re putting your own interests before theirs.”
I must admit I was rather challenged by that remark. We had a rather animated discussion for the next ten minutes that ended with me throwing my glass of wine over his… no, I’m only joking.
So I turn back to ask trainees the question: “What do you think? Do professions go on strike?” and what follows is always a fascinating response.
One such response came recently at the King Edward’s Consortium PGCE in Birmingham (an excellent place to train as a teacher by the way) and one of their brilliant trainees said (I’m paraphrasing her but it’s pretty close):
“Yes, I think professions do go on strike and I reserve my right to do so if in my judgment and that of my colleagues we think that, for example, my employers or the government needs to be held accountable for their actions. Because their actions can directly affect me as a teacher and my students. I accept my accountability to a wide range of people including my employers and the government. But accountability cuts both ways. My right to strike is a way I can hold my employers or the government to account as well.”
What do you think?
Do professions go on strike?
Does accountability cut both ways?
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching professionalism and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014.
About ten years ago I remember being shocked when I heard that an independent school local to me in north London (and not a famous one either) organized rugby tours for its 15-18 year olds – to Fiji and Tonga of all places. I thought it was a bit extravagant (to say the least). After all, we do have perfectly lovely places to play rugby in a variety of nations across the UK and even in Europe.
But we live in a free society and people can spend their hard earned cash on whatever they want – if people can afford £30,000 a year and more on school fees they can probably afford to fork out a few extra thousand to send their offspring on a rugby tour to the south Pacific.
Recently Horsforth Academy in Leeds got in on a similar act.
They usually organise trips to Spain and Italy but last year apparently met with “some shortcomings in arrangements” so they decided to organize a trip to Barbados – for the princely sum of £1,650 per student. It included three fixtures with local teams to play football, netball and girls’ football and the students would benefit from “traditional evening entertainment”, a catamaran cruise, a special sports tour kit and the option of going to a water park – so the school wrote in a letter to parents advertising the trip.
Some parents were up in arms, complaining that it was divisive and extravagant.
These are issues for the school and the parents to resolve themselves, but I was interested in how this incident impacted on the professional reputation of teachers.
Teachers have always benefited from ex-gratia places on school trips and (though I never had a free skiing trip in my life), I always looked forward to taking kids away on school journeys and residentials as often as I could – I tried to do it every year to places like the Lake District, Wales and Devon. Kids love going on not only geography field and foreign language trips, but also outward bound and adventure holidays too.
They learn so much from them – about being sociable and flexible, sharing meals and rooms, learning routines like cleaning rooms and making beds and the discipline of team work, being challenged physically, emotionally and mentally, meeting other children often from different backgrounds and even cultures. It almost always changes your working relationship with them too – in ways that have a positive residual effect – often with the really challenging kids who in my experience somehow turn into little angels when they’re away from their habitual expectations of home, family and the school environment for a week. No, I love them – and I’m a firm advocate for them. Take kids away as much as you can.
But Barbados? Fiji? Tonga?
I think parents might start to wonder whether such trips have been organized for the benefit of the teachers rather than the benefit of the students. When they start thinking that, the bond of trust between teachers and parents – that precious commodity that exists between a professional person and their client – is at risk of very serious damage. And as we all know, when trust is damaged, it is not easily repaired.
Alan Newland worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for a decade with the DfE and the GTC. He now lectures on teaching and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk. You can follow him on Twitter at @newteacherstalk and book him for a talk. His new book “Working in Teaching” (Crimson Publishing) was published in March 2014. He also makes videos for teacher training centres and schools.
I lead a lot of sessions with NQT and trainee teachers up and down the country about how to “promote fundamental British values’.
We go through a variety of interesting discussions and activities related to the concept of ‘values’ – both personal and universal – and how to promote ‘British values’ through practical activities embedded within the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) curriculum. Then we look at the Teachers’ Standards. Invariably, at least one person will ask: “What are fundamental British values?” So I put question back to the audience.
Most of the teachers I come across have not the faintest idea.
Even when I prompt them a bit with a helpful reference to the actual section of the Teachers’ Standards where it says: “Democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs” – many will even contest that these are exclusively British values, and say things like: “Surely these are universal? They’re found in most countries, not just Britain?”
I sometimes reply – respectfully of course – that they should get out a bit more. If they were to travel the world, they would soon find out that most people in most countries do not necessarily assume ownership of such values nor take for granted the rights associated with them.
So I’ll prompt a little further with my audience… “How about trial by jury… the presumption of innocence… Habeas Corpus… surely these are principles that the British played a founding role influencing legal systems around the world?”
But I can see my audiences are not yet convinced.
I continue: “Then what about things like fair play… cricket and all that… our apparent enthusiasm for queuing… saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ a lot… cheering for the underdog… starting conversations with the weather… being the first to apologize when someone steps on your toe…? Doesn’t that show how nice we are?” But then people think I’m being trivial. I’m not.
But some reply: “They may be British but they’re hardly fundamental values.”
So I try again and suggest some things that have been fundamental to shaping our history – “How about Magna Carta… the defeat of the Spanish Armada… the Battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo… the British Empire, for both good and bad… slavery and its abolition… the Industrial Revolution… Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain… the establishment of the National Health Service?” I ask: “Doesn’t our history reflect various aspects of British values?”
But still people argue with me. “Every country has proud and shameful events in their history. Why should Britain think it’s any different?”
I say “It doesn’t mean we are necessarily better, but we are different.” So I press on (being ever the optimist) and suggest that perhaps our values are reflected in our unique artistic and cultural heritage? “What about the novels of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Tolkien or even JK Rowling, the paintings of Turner and Hockney, the plays of Shakespeare, the music of The Beatles, the mission of the BBC, the Edinburgh Fringe, Glastonbury…?”
I’m fighting a losing battle, I can see. I continue to try to convince my confused audiences how the British global reputation for science is surely a reflection of fundamental values: “The Laws of Newton… Darwin’s Origin of Species… the discovery of penicillin and DNA…?”
Now I sound like I’m pleading with them.
Finally, in sheer desperation, I reel off my personal favourites: “Then what about fish and chips, a nice cup of tea, a pint in the pub…!” but all to no avail.
It is very striking how most British people in my audiences offer much of an answer as to what fundamental British values are or how they are reflected in our history, law, science, artistic heritage or even our popular culture.
When there are foreigners in the audience. It’s a different story.
Recently, I was in Liverpool and a Bulgarian student there was the first to pipe up when I asked the question. “I have lived in nearly all the countries of Europe” she said, “but it is only in Britain where I feel most respected as a woman.”
I was in St Albans, a trainee from Holland said: “Britain is incredibly tolerant of other religions. That’s not true everywhere in Europe. Even where I come from in Holland if you’re not a Christian of a protestant denomination, you are a little bit suspect. Here in Britain nobody seems to mind what religion you believe in.”
In east London, a Nigerian man said: “In my country there is so much corruption. If you want to avoid a fine, get a visa or planning permission you just pay a police officer or a government official. British people think the MPs expenses scandal was big corruption. That was nothing compared to what happens in many countries.”
Reflecting on the observations of foreigners makes an interesting contrast, but we need to feel to feel confident that we are teaching the values society expects us to promote, not just the skills and knowledge needed by industry and commerce.
Make a list of all the activities your school does under the umbrella of the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural (SMSC) curriculum – it will include a whole range of things like: recognizing and celebrating religious and cultural festivals, local, national and international events and anniversaries; visits to places of worship, museums, art galleries, concert halls, theatres, castles, town halls, courts, Parliament, the local fire station; arranging visits by local councilors, MPs, lawyers, religious leaders; involving pupils and students in array of school activities, clubs and societies like formulating the school’s Behaviour policy, Golden Rules, ‘Anti-Bullying Week’, playground buddies, staff selection, elections for school councils; organizing a Circle Time, a debating society and myriad other social, sports and cultural clubs. Even if you’re a small primary school, the list will probably include forty or fifty such activities.
You will realise that many if not all of the activities you have identified that are currently being done in your school already contribute to promoting fundamental ‘British’ values – such as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance. You will also see where you have gaps both in your SMSC curriculum and in the promotion of ‘fundamental British values’.
It will inspire you to take forward new ideas for your class and your school. Best of all, it will give you the confidence that you actually know what ‘fundamental British values’ are after all. And best of all, that you can go in to school tomorrow and teach them!
Alan Newland leads a session on “Can you teach British values? Yes – and here’s how…” at ITT training centres and schools around the country.
Tollgate TSA rated it “excellent” in June 2015; LDBS SCITT rated it “excellent” in October 2015; If you would like to book this highly interactive and well-received three-hour training session, contact him either through this blog, through Twitter at @newteacherstalk or at alan.newland29a@gmail.com
If you would like to develop your knowledge and skills around teaching values, British or otherwise, you can get help at:
Parliament Education Service parliament.uk Includes tours of Parliament and resources for all key stages
The Citizenship Foundation citizenshipfoundation.org.uk
Lawyers in Schools lawyersinschools.org.uk Free school visits from lawyers and resources to promote legal and justice issues – mainly KS2 up
Giving Nation g-nation.org.uk Resources for volunteering
Go Givers gogivers.org Resources for volunteering
Paying for it payingforit.org.uk Resources for financial budgeting
National Centre for Citizenship and the Law nccl.org.uk Aims to increase understanding of career opportunities in the legal profession, different types of courts and how they work, stage ‘mock’ trials and encourage an interest in the law.
Teachit Citizenship teachitcitizenship.co.uk
The Philosophy Foundation philosophy-foundation.org
Youth for Human Rights youthforhumanrights.org
Amnesty International amnesty.org
The British Library – Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy bl.uk/magna-carta Free workshops and resources
Alan Newland has worked as a teacher, teacher-trainer and headteacher in London for over 20 years and then for over a decade with the DfE and the General Teaching Council. He now lectures on teaching and runs the award-winning social media network newteacherstalk.
newteachersblog 