1.2 An overview of primary education today
In each UK nation – England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales – children aged three to four years old are entitled to free early education from the school term after they turn three years old. This might be part of a primary school, which has provision for younger children, or it may be in a private, voluntary or independent (PVI) setting, for example, a nursery or preschool. The number of hours children can attend ranges from 10–22.5 hours per week, depending on the nation’s offer. Hours may be extended, and the starting age lowered for children living in low-income families. Unlike primary schools, attendance in an early years setting is not compulsory and is a parental choice.
Throughout the UK there are over 20,000 primary schools (Statista, no date). Every primary school is different depending on where it is located and who attends. The smallest primary schools may have fewer than 10 pupils, and the largest providing education for over 1,000 pupils. Each school’s characteristics will also vary based on the pupils attending and the characteristics of the pupils, i.e. their age, sex, languages spoken, ethnicity and whether pupils are identified as living in poverty (socio-economic disadvantage).
The vision and values of the school, crafted by the Senior Leadership Team, often in collaboration with the children and parents, reflect a school’s unique characteristics.
Activity 2
Task 1
First watch the following video in which two Headteachers outline a vision statement and a set of values that have been developed in their individual primary schools.
Transcript: Video 1 Visions and values
NIK FOSTER: My name is Nik Foster. I’m the head teacher at Mellor Community Primary School in Leicester. I’ve been the head teacher here for the last seven years. So the school vision statement is be the best that you can be. And I think the kind of really big takeaway here is that we look to develop the whole child. So it’s not just about academic ability. You know, the importance of just really laying that strong foundation so that all of our children can go on to be the very best that they can be, and that they can lead successful lives as active, successful members of the communities that they go on to live in, but also that they’re happy, that they’ve got emotional and mental and physical wellbeing as well.
Pupil voice is critical. Really important that our children know that they have a voice within our school, and that they’ve got ownership, that it's their school as well, but also that they can advocate for change where change is needed. We’ve got nine really active pupil voice groups within the school.
SPEAKER: We are the student council at Mellor.
SPEAKER: When you become a school council member, you have to share your ideas to make the school a better place.
SPEAKER: The creativity council is an opportunity for pupils to do like projects and artwork. And it’s like promoting creativity throughout the school.
SPEAKER: We are the reading champions, and we help younger children read at Mellor.
SPEAKER: We raise money to help have more books in the school.
SPEAKER: Because we’ve got diverse background, so what we wanted to do is spend that money on things that people can relate to.
SANDRA CLARKE: I’m Sandra Clarke and I’m the head teacher at Infinity Primary School. We’re categorised as very rural. And we have on average around 70 pupils. Our values are kindness, cooperation, perseverance, and enjoyment. Your values are your absolute core, so that if you’re a stick of rock and you are cutting your self in half, you would have those as your core that you would see every day in your practice and your classroom and how you behave.
SPEAKER: We have perseverance, kindness.
SPEAKER: Cooperation and enjoyment.
SPEAKER: Good manners.
SANDRA CLARKE: I think the purpose and your values and your curriculum are all interconnected. So your curriculum will reflect your values in terms of what your priorities are and what your goals are to be able to be maintained. So the children will talk on a regular basis about kindness and how that looks for them every day in the playground, outside of school, inside of school.
And we’ve talked about perseverance and what they do when they find out your learning pretty tough and learning should be difficult at times. But how they build that resilience and perseverance is really, really important.
SPEAKER: (SINGING) Bring me sunshine in your eyes Bring me rainbows.
SANDRA CLARKE: The other value you have is really, really important is enjoyment. And I think happy children learn. If you have children that are dysregulated, they’re unhappy, they’re not going to be able to learn those knowledge, skills and attitudes that we’ve looked at.
Write a vision statement or a set of school values for a primary school.
Using your knowledge of a school in which you work/volunteer or you know well for different reasons, think about the core characteristics of the school – location, size, family backgrounds of those attending. Use these sticky notes to capture these thoughts and other ideas.
Task 2
Using your notes from Task 1, now write your vision statement and school values.
| Vision: ‘Be the best that you can be’ | Values: ‘Enjoyment, kindness, perseverance, cooperation’ |
|---|---|
How does your vision statement/values reflect the values of the local community of the school?
How would you want your vision statement/values to influence the way in which the school community (children, staff, parents) interacts?
Schools can attune their vision and values to the needs of their children, families and communities. Making connections with home experiences is an important way of supporting learning, as you will see in Section 1.3.