Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman said recently the education system has a vital role in upholding the principles that “make us a beacon of liberalism, tolerance and fairness to the rest of the world”.
In a speech to the Birmingham Education Partnership conference, she argued British values should be at “the very heart of the curriculum”.
“We know that even in the UK some children are being brought up in an environment that is actively hostile to some of these values,” she said. “So the education system has a vital role in inculcating and upholding them.”
“Most children spend less than a fifth of their childhood hours in schools and most of the rest with their family. And so if children aren’t being taught these values at home, or worse, are being encouraged to resist them, then schools are our main opportunity to fill that gap.”
Spielman said she was not talking about “superficial displays” of British values, using the example of a child asked to craft a picture of the Queen out of sequins. But she instead spoke of giving young people a “real civic education”, including “a rich and deep curriculum in subjects such as “history, English and geography”.
Quoted from The Guardian, 22nd September 2017
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