Social, Moral, Spiritual & Cultural Development
At Hornsey School for Girls we focus strongly on students’ development of a sense of identity, self-worth, personal insight, meaning and purpose. We also focus on development of a student's ‘spirit’, ‘personality’ or ‘character’ through a variety of means.
By enabling students to build a framework of moral values aligned with law, which regulates their personal behaviour, we aim to develop students’ understanding of society’s shared and agreed values. We encourage them to understand that there are issues where there is disagreement but that also there needs to be understanding that society’s values change. Students are outstanding in developing and sharing an opinion about their different views.
Our young people work effectively with each other and participate successfully in the community as a whole. We encourage them in their development of the skills and personal qualities necessary for living and working together in harmony and making a positive contribution to the school community and wider society. Students at Hornsey School for Girls know this is about functioning effectively in a multi-racial, multi-cultural society and developing into a tolerant and helpful human being. We encourage the understanding that this involves growth in knowledge and understanding of society in all its aspects. This includes our students needs to understand people as well as understanding society’s institutions, structures and characteristics, economic and political principles and organisations, roles and responsibilities, and life as a citizen, parent or worker in a community. We actively encourage the development of the inter-personal skills necessary for successful relationships.
We help pupils to develop an understanding of their own culture and other cultures in their town, region and in the country as a whole. Students have an understanding of cultures represented in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Students know that this is about understanding and feeling comfortable in a variety of cultures and being able to operate in the emerging world culture of shared experiences provided by television, art, theatre, travel and the internet. Students realise that this is about understanding that cultures are always changing and are prepared to cope with change. Promoting pupils’ cultural development is intimately linked with schools’ attempts to value cultural diversity and prevent racism.
We actively encourage and have created a bespoke programme within our daily Core Learning Time and assemblies to address Social Moral Spiritual Cultural (SMSC) development. Assembly themes include the community, culture, personal qualities and skills, values, beliefs and appreciation. We have developed themes and an assembly thematic cycle to support this based around the Prepared ethos statement
