I must admit, when British Values came on the scene, I let out a little sigh! Purely for the fact that I saw it as something else I had to do. I held onto this mindset for some time. I attended training on it, held in-house in my FE College, and my opinion changed. Once it was clarified that it was essentially a code of conduct for lessons I was off and running. I began using a stock template, here is a bit of an example.
Tolerance and mutual respect when discussing ideas. Promoting inclusion through targeted questioning.
I thought I had it cracked! My observers thought I was hitting it and I was never really asked to look at it again. Reflecting after, a half term, I let out a little sigh again. This time I was sighing at the fact I was including the same thing on my next set of planning. It was boring. But my mind got distracted and I never re-did it. Fast forward to the next half term and I was joined by a new PGCE student. Instantly I knew she would be brilliant, I wasn’t wrong! She blew me away in many areas but especially in British Values. She looked for democracy examples in Parliament that would bring her lessons to life, like when she taught fractions the number of elected MP’s vs non-elected Lords and their positions in the law-making process. It was a pleasure to mentor her. Unsurprisingly we employed her once she qualified and together we co-planned the following year. It was a joy! My British Values were on point and I enjoyed the challenge of planning for them. It gave my planning purpose rather than being an added extra.
Let me give you an example of how planning would work. Take compound area and perimeter. Queue screams of excitement at a lesson on compound area! Remember my students are re-sitters and have probably been taught how to calculate compound area and perimeter, they need it bringing to life!
I assemble a series of T and L shapes of desks. Room size dependant!
We then, as a class, put chairs around the shapes, counting how many places are around the outside of the shape.
Then we imagine (or actually do if it is appropriate) putting the chairs on top of the desks and seeing how many chairs could fit inside the shapes.
Then we have a discussion about what we have done, hopefully concluding a difference between area and perimeter. (I always sing “round the outside round the outside” to remind them!)
Then I ask them to tell me if they think the area is large enough for a bedroom and how would they position the furniture if it were their bedroom.
Generally the students struggle to fit everything they want in their bedroom in, so I ask them to make a larger area using the desks so that they can accommodate their design.
I then bring up the “technical housing standards” from the government, 2015. Then we look at the government bedroom standards from the 2018 tenancies document. The minimum size is 6.51 m2. One of the L shapes I set up before class generates an area of 6.5m2.
I then ask the learners to imagine two 15 year old girls sharing the 6.5m2 room.
I then explain the bedroom tax and that any room 6.51m2 is classed as a bedroom and children of the same sex inder 16 are to share. I give a scenario of a double bedroom, and two single bedrooms of 6.51m2. A family of 2 parents and 2 daughters aged 15 live in the house. They receive housing benefit and have had a 14% reduction in their benefit as the girls are expected to share and therefore they have a spare room. We then explore the rule of law, democracy and mutual respect and tolerance.
My re-sitters sometimes share their own personal experience with this scenario and it requires delicate handling. I have felt uncomfortable in these conversations but I am comfortable with the experience I am giving the learners. British values and understanding the world we live in are of equal importance to me. Anything I can do to prepare my learners for the world outside the classroom holds as much value as course content as it develops them as young people and hopefully I encourage them to become active members of society.
This is just one example of where I integrate British values into my lesson, I have more but the joy of finding the opportunities yourself is really powerful and I encourage you to look again at your planning.
