Our School Vision and Values
The Florence Nightingale Academy Core Values
The children at The Florence Nightingale Academy lie at the heart of everything we do. Our motto ‘Laugh often, dream big and reach for the stars’ alongside our growth mindset stars work alongside these values to support and guide them during their time at The Florence Nightingale Academy. We believe that instilling these core values will help prepare the children to be life-long learners.
The core values are:
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Resilience – To persevere with a challenge. Children will take risks and understand the value of making mistakes. Mistakes are an opportunity to learn. |
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Creativity – Children can think for themselves and find creative solutions to problems. They know there are many answers to a question, and they enjoy exploring this. |
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Aspiration – All children will challenge themselves to aim high. They will have the ambition to achieve excellence. |
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Independence – To develop skills to work alone or as part of a group. Taking ownership of their learning. |
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Integrity – Be able to do the right thing for the right reason. Children to be honest to themselves and others. |
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Tolerance – Accepting others and respecting the views of everyone appreciating others’ wishes, feelings and rights. The school is a welcoming environment that celebrates diversity. |
How do we reward the core values?
A different core value will be focused on each half term. Assemblies will be held for the whole school and in class.
| Autumn 1 | Autumn 2 | Spring 1 | Spring 2 | Summer 1 | Summer 2 |
| Resilience | Integrity | Creativity | Tolerance | Aspiration | Independence |
At the end of each half term, each class teacher will nominate a child in their class for a special core values certificate.
Staff will praise the children and give our house points.
How will we promote and teach the core values?
The language of the core values will be displayed around school and in every classroom, in a prominent position.
We will develop their understanding by putting the values into context and use a variety of resources and stories to promote this.
Our growth mindset stars work alongside our core value principles and therefore this will be linked where appropriate.
British Values
The definition of British Values was set out in the Government’s Prevent Strategy (2011), and since then they have reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.”
At The Florence Nightingale Academy these values are reinforced regularly and in the following ways:
Democracy
Democracy is promoted within all aspects of school life. Our children have their voices heard through our Junior Leadership Team and through Pupil Voice Surveys conducted by all subject leaders throughout the year. The elections of our JLT are based on the democratic process with nominees persuading their class why they should vote for them and elections then occurring. Additionally, each week, every class votes for its Children’s Champion (a child who has been a great role model) and is recognised in our celebration assembly. Finally, within lessons, our children are given the freedom to choose which learning challenge they want to take on. They are then free to change depending on whether they need more support or more of a challenge.
The Rule of Law
As a result of PSHE lessons, as well as whole school assemblies, the importance of laws are consistently reinforced throughout the school. Our children learn about why laws are important and what the consequences are when these are broken. We are regularly visited by the Police, Fire Service, St John Ambulance, ChildLine and DARE officers who help reinforce this message. Our children are involved in deciding their own class rules which they sign up to at the start of the school year.
Individual Liberty
We make it a priority to ensure that our children feel safe when making decisions by creating a supportive school environment. We teach our children what their rights are and how to exercise these safely, for example through our anti-bullying week and via e-safety lessons. Whether it is through which challenge they are going to attempt in lessons or through which skill they are going to learn during STAR Time, our children are given the freedom to make choices and to respect the decisions and choices of others.
Mutual Respect
We strive to ensure that our children show respect to each other. We often have lessons where children work and learn with others from other year groups with the aim of building relationships and respect across year groups. Displays around the school as well as our school rules and behaviour policy reiterate this. We encourage our children not only to be respectful at all times, but to also challenge each other if someone is not following this rule.
Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs
Through our RE and PSHE curriculum, we promote tolerance of the beliefs of others. Assemblies, talks from visitors and discussions regarding prejudices consolidate this learning. Finally, our curriculum incorporates teaching and learning opportunities for children to explore aspects of the wider world and an appreciation of cultural diversity as in for example – Festivals, Divali and Chinese New Year.