Pinpointing Christian values at the heart of great schools

New web resource to help schools explore how to build and nurture a Christian ethos

08/05/09

A new website launched by the Church of England today marks a groundbreaking initiative to identify the distinctive values that make Christian schools popular with parents and students, and promote ways of living out those values in the day-to-day activities of a busy school environment.

The new website, www.christianvalues4schools.co.uk, identifies 15 core values – including Service, Trust and Forgiveness – which are introduced with brief theological reflections and examples of how schools have brought these values to life, through everything from collective worship to garden design and architecture. The website also contains questions and ideas for how staff and governors might engage with these values, including:

• discussing the themes at ‘circle time’ and school councils, and recording the responses on a ‘value tree’ to create a permanent display at the heart of the school building;
• presenting award cups to individuals during school acts of worship, as a recognition of how students have demonstrated individual values (e.g. generosity to others);
• staff going on a ‘learning walk’ around the school, to look for evidence of how individual values are demonstrated in the classroom.

The project, commissioned by the Church of England’s National Society, is designed to enable the nation’s 5,000 Church of England schools – as well as schools without formal church links – to explore these themes as an aid to strategic planning that can help make a school distinctively Christian, while remaining inclusive, as Church of England schools have been since they first began almost 200 years ago.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, features in an introductory video on the website, explaining that the ethos of church schools runs deep:

"A Christian school is one in which the atmosphere has that kind of openness about it, that sense that people are worth spending time with, that people need time to grow, need loving attention. The Christian Gospel says that every person has a unique task to do, with God, and for God, whether they know it or not.

"It doesn’t necessarily mean than everyone involved has to share the same theology or philosophy. It doesn’t mean that everyone knows that they have this relationship with God, and is consciously working at it. But a Christian school is one in which the entire atmosphere is pervaded by the conviction that there is something mysterious, and potentially wonderful, in everybody."

The vivid demonstration of what really makes church schools special also seeks to undermine some commentators’ claims that many church schools’ achievements are the result of ‘social selection’ in the small proportion of oversubscribed voluntary aided schools who allocate some places on the basis of a family’s faith commitment.

The Revd Jan Ainsworth, the Church of England’s Chief Education Officer, comments:

"The website meets the demand from schools for resources that help them articulate what their foundation means today. As well as being rooted in the Christian vision, the values we’ve identified are appreciated by people of other faiths and none, reflecting the fact that most Church of England schools have an inclusive intake across a range of faiths and backgounds. Building a truly distinctive ethos is something that involves the whole school, led by governors and staff, and this resource will help them begin to explore these themes in a profound way, and in a way that can be lived out across the school."

www.christianvalues4schools.co.uk includes an initial collection of case studies and good practice gathered from schools across England and Wales, which will grow as schools contribute their own ideas and experiences.