By explicitly addressing values and values education schools can:

  1. Use Values in NSW public schools to inform planning and identify priority areas
  2. Consider conducting a Values Education Forum
  3. Evaluate

1. Incorporate values into school planning

This can be best done by:

  • reflecting on the core values during the planning process
  • being explicit about the values that underpin key aspects of planning
  • incorporating whole school values education strategies into planning.

In order to reflect on the core values during the planning process schools might ask the following questions:

Policies and procedures

  • Which policies and procedures are the most effective in supporting the core values? Why?
  • Which policies and procedures need to be reviewed to strengthen the core values and make them more explicit?

Relationships

  • What opportunities do members of the school community, including students, have to participate in decision making? Is participation representative of all groups in the school community?
  • How can relationships within the school be strengthened by a focus on the core values?
  • How might the enactment of the core values help teachers earn respect from students and parents?

Teaching

  • How might reflection on the core values influence pedagogy to improve teaching?
  • How do the core values underpin the work of teachers sharing practice in order to improve teaching?
  • What do teachers understand by the core values and how do they make them explicit within their practice?
  • Are teachers encouraged and supported in continually updating their knowledge about curriculum and pedagogy?

Being explicit about the values that underpin the key aspects of school planning

Having identified priority action areas, schools could develop strategies or processes with timelines and personnel. A focus on the core values can be provided by acknowledging which values are the bases of each strategy or process. This could be documented by identifying the focus values that are the basis of each strategy or process. In this way the core values should be both guiding principles for the strategy or process and criteria for judging effectiveness

Incorporating whole school values education strategies into school planning

Schools may include actions such as the following.

  • Include a session on the Values of NSW public schools (2004) in a school development day program.
  • Use the school’s newsletter to begin a discussion on values.
  • Use a staff meeting for teachers to discuss the meaning of the core values in the context of their school and teaching.
  • Encourage conversations within the school community about values and use the outcomes to inform planning.
  • Establish a school values education interest group. The group might explore how a focus on the core values can be used to improve values education
  • Encourage a student led initiative to consider the core values and how they could be strengthened within the school.
  • structured opportunities to facilitate discussion on teaching values and how they can be demonstrated in classrooms and their relationships with students.
  • Make professional reading available to staff.
  • Provide the school executive with an opportunity to reflect on how the core values are demonstrated in their leadership role and practices.

  • Provision might also be made for:
    • incorporating a focus on values within the initiatives of Quality Teaching particularly exploring the elements of Deep understanding, Problematic knowledge, Student background knowledge, Cultural knowledge
    • Stage and faculty meetings to highlight  and develop strategies for making core values more explicit within the content of teaching programs
    • access to resources to support teaching values


2. School Values Education Forums

School values education forums can raise the profile of values education and strengthen communication and understanding within the school community. It should assist school communities to enhance their approach to values and values education by enabling them to consider the place of values education in school policies and practices.

The Forum will be most effective if it engages a wide range of members of the school community.

The Forum should be built into school planning in such a way that it reinforces and extends other activities.

There is support for conducting values education forums under the National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools.

The focus and nature of the forums will vary and will be determined by the needs of the school community.

3. Evaluation

Identify indicators of success against which values focused strategies can be evaluated and use this evaluation to identify how the core values have been demonstrated.

Strategies and processes that monitor progress and evaluate outcomes must be developed. Schools should consider in advance, behavioural and other objective indicators that measure the success of values education strategies.

School community feedback and documentation of changes in practice will also be needed to complete an evaluation of a focus on values.