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SMSC

Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural Development

At Woodlands Primary School, our pastoral aim for all of our policies and systems are always the same – we want our children to be WELL INFORMED to make SENSIBLE CHOICES and become INCLUSIVE CITIZENS.

Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development features through every part of our school, both within our Personal Development offer and through our well-planned ‘equalities’ curriculum. Outlined below are some of the ways do we this, however this list is not exhaustive. Please refer to the Woodlands Wellbeing documentation for any further detail and the policies linked to this. Our vision for children who attend Woodlands Primary is strong. We understand their context, we get to know them, but most importantly we provide a world class education and pastoral programme, as we truly believe that every child can be successful in school.

Spiritual

  • Children are given opportunities to reflect on their own beliefs through much of our curriculum. Through our Knowledge of the World curriculum, we link our curriculum subjects to an area of the protected characteristics, and key influencers. Children are given opportunities within each lesson to reflect on their current beliefs, and challenge what they think they already know. Teachers ask challenging questions to promote children thinking outside of their own views.
  • At the end of each Wellbeing session, children are asked ‘So what’ – this gives children a chance to think about how their new learning can change what they do and believe in.
  • RE sessions in school promote much discussion around people’s faith, feelings and values, and asks them to challenge their own belief systems.
  • ‘Creativity’ sits within one of our fundamentally important school values, explicitly teaching these to children throughout their journey in our school.
  • Assemblies have lots of reflection times, focusing on many spiritual aspects of becoming an inclusive citizen.

Moral

  • Through our wellbeing curriculum, and our behaviour systems in school, we explicitly teach the Zones of Regulation. This is a system where children are taught about their feelings and how to manage them through 4 different “states.”
  • All staff use ‘therapeutic language’ to help children identify how they feel, and respond to their actions. This explicitly spells out to children what they did, and how to respond.
  • British Values are explicitly taught within our curriculum (See Curriculum statements and British Values Policy).
  • Woodlands Primary School uses Philosophy for Children, and all of our staff are Level 1 P4C trained (with some being level 2 trained). This offers opportunities for children to offer reasoned views about moral and ethical issues and understand and appreciate the viewpoints of others on these issues.

Social

  • The Nurture room provides a base to develop social and emotional communication within school.
  • More specialist interventions are also available, such as play and art therapy to support the most in need.
  • Woodlands Enrichment allows children to participate with local community projects, including enterprise and charity work.
  • The teaching of British Values and the Protected Characteristics is at the heart of everything we do.
  • All Children across school engage in Forest School sessions, teaching them the core life skills through our school values. We also offer more specialist Forest Schools sessions for the most vulnerable, and additional yoga and meditation.

Cultural

  • Much of our curriculum focuses on who we are, and why we live in the world as modern Britain today.  For example, year 2 learn about monarchy, and the rule of law. Year 5 learn about the Mayan civilisation and their influences on Britain today.
  • Early years develop their cultural capital through the “Mighty Trees Award.” This gives children planned opportunities to develop their understanding of the world they live in, and win awards for their achievements.
  • Our school vision is focused around the ancient woodlands of Gleadless, explicitly teaching the children where we live and how we thrive in our local area. We teach children about these woodlands, and visit the locations.
  • Our Geography curriculum includes fieldwork trips within the local area, allowing children to explore Sheffield and the Peak District.
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