'Prevent' and Promoting British Values

According to Ofsted, the following British Values must be incorporated and demonstrated through the Early Years Foundation Stage learning and play:

• Democracy
• The rule of law
• Individual liberty
• Mutual respect and tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs

To elaborate, in order to incorporate democracy, we must showcase everyone being treated equally and having equal rights. In the early years it is all about teaching children that their opinions are important and that each child’s thoughts and feelings should be listened to and valued.

It’s also important to teach children that sometimes they will be given the power to choose and will make decisions on their own and in groups.

How we achieve this at Nursery:

• The prepared environment – giving children the option to choose which activities they are going to do during the day.  Our classrooms are set up with exciting activities that children are free to choose and use at their own pace throughout the day.  Children learn to wait and take turns if an activity is being used that they would like.  This encourages respect for each other.
• Snack table – our snack table in pre-school is set out so that children can choose if and when they would like to eat.  They go and wash their hands, sanitise them and then choose their snack and serve themselves.  
• Turn taking – this is done in a variety of ways through games, letters and sounds activities and times when there are limited resources.
• Emotions – we help children to identify their emotions and talk about reasons for these emotions. Identifying emotions is an important step in children being able to manage their emotions.  For our younger children, we have emotions cards and group discussions about what these mean.

Mutual respect and tolerance is about being a part of a community where not everyone is the same and forming relationships within community without discrimination.  We have golden rules that we reinforce and follow each day.  Our environment is inclusive, respectful and values faiths, cultures and races.

To help promote mutual respect it is important that practitioners focus on behaviour such as sharing and respecting others opinions, in early years there are many opportunities for practitioners to encourage sharing, this can be achieved with most activities.  We promote respect and tolerance in our setting by:

• Encouraging children to share stories of their home that reflect the values and the diversity of their experiences.
• Provide resources and activities that challenge gender, cultural and racial stereotyping.
• Try and take the children on visits that engage with the wider community, such as to an elderly peoples home or religious festival.

It’s not just about having different diverse resources in your setting, it’s about actively promoting respect and tolerance.

We ensure that children understand their own and others’ behaviour and its consequences and help them to distinguish right from wrong by promoting ‘the rule of law’.

At Little Adventurers, we promote the rule of law daily by:

• Working with the children to reinforce our golden rules  and ensuring children understand that the rules apply to everyone.
• Where we can, we will Invite a policeman to visit and learn about ‘people who help us’ and the laws and rules that we need to follow.
• Try and help children to understand their actions and the consequences. For example, by explaining to them how something they have done might have made another child feel instead of just asking them to say ‘sorry’

• Individual liberty requires children to understand and value their own self and to gain confidence in making choices. Self-esteem, self-confidence and self-awareness are key.

At Nursery we promote individual liberty daily by:

• Providing opportunities for risk taking such as obstacle courses for children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and increase their confidence in their own abilities.
• Encouraging a range of experiences that allow children to explore the language of feelings and responsibility, reflect on their differences and understand everyone is free to have different opinions.
• Providing activities and opportunities such as mixing their own colours for leaf painting and taking part in races on the setting’s sports day. This helps children to develop a positive sense of themselves and increases their confidence and own abilities.
• Having group discussions about how the children may feel about the activities they did today or the story at story time. Allow them to voice their own feelings and understand that they are free to have different opinions.

We celebrate British Values in practice and ensure that we embrace our citizenship and the diverse culture we are so lucky to be a part of.