Every Student Matters at Orion: Personal Development

Every Student Matters at Orion
We believe that if every student can have their voice heard, understood and responded to, they will become active participants in their communities. School Councils UK welcomed the Every Child Matters priorities and we have adopted these principles to inform our practice at Orion.
Every Child Matters and School Council Outcomes Six Areas of Character Development
Being Healthy
 Developing confidence, communication skills and being happier as a result of being involved with the school development and class councils and personal development help our students  develop emotional resilience. Self-Awareness Self-awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation and emotions. Self-Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.
Students also help make their peers healthier by improving food in the dining room and promoting and participating in sport activities and competitions. Team Worker Team workers work confidently with others, adapting to different contexts and taking responsibility for their own role. They listen and take account of others’ views. They also form collaborative relationships, resolving issues and reaching agreed outcomes.
Staying Safe
 Effective school councils engender peer leadership, openness and awareness. At Orion we also have peer mentors and ambassadors that are being developed to support younger peers keep safe.
Being Resilient
A person with good resilience has the ability to bounce back more quickly and with less stress than someone whose resilience is less developed. Like any human skill, learning greater resilience is something that you can do at any age, from any background, no matter your education or family relationships.
Our student council will support the anti-bullying agenda at Orion to ensure student voice.
Enjoying and Achieving
 By taking the opportunity to become involved in the school community, essential life skills such as listening, diplomacy, compromise and communication are developed.
Showing Commitment
Commitment is a value: it means being dedicated, not quitting. In order to teach children, the value of commitment, we have to allow them to see that failure is okay. They need to learn to have a ‘stick-with-it’ attitude, and that commitment is something to be honoured, respected, and upheld. We need to teach children to keep going when things get hard, to stick it out and persevere.
Effective participation structures in school help raise attainment by improving the learning environment
Making a positive contribution
 Through our school councils and community projects/learning we want our students to believe in their ability to make a difference develops.
Being a Problem Solver
Children will face many challenges as they grow, whether it is starting school, joining a sporting team or going to their first sleepover. The ability to make decisions and solve problems develops as children learn to cope with daily challenges. Young children are not expected to sort through every issue on their own, and it is likely that they will require lots of guidance form the adults around them. The good news is that encouraging children to take part in problem solving will help them develop this skill over time.
Life skills learnt through active participation enable students to contribute to their community and wider society.
Economic Well Being Our school council will be given a budget to manage. The responsibility of running a budget helps our students develop economic and financial awareness Showing Empathy Empathy is, at its simplest, awareness of the feelings and emotions of other people. It is a key element of emotional intelligence, the link between self and others, because it is how we as individuals understand what others are experiencing as if we were feeling it ourselves. When you have empathy, it means you can understand what a person is feeling in a given moment, and understand why other people’s actions made sense to them. Empathy helps us to communicate our ideas in a way that makes sense to them. Empathy helps us to communicate our ideas in a way that makes sense to others, and it helps us understand others when they communicate with us.

Modern British Values

The fundamental British values have been classified as “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect for, and tolerance of, those with different religions or faiths.”
Orion Academy sets out in the day to day running of the school and within its long term strategic planning to promote Modern British Values. This is to enable our students to become valuable and fully rounded members of society who treat others with respect and tolerance, regardless of background and diversity.
Orion Academy embeds and reinforces British Values across the curriculum, through tutor time, during ‘Thought for the Day’, during day trips and residential trips, through specialist interventions, and by inviting a wide range of different guest speakers, professionals, and visitors from the local community into the school to meet with students.
Many curriculum areas contribute to the teaching of British Values and the school has audited all subjects and key stages in which a student may expect to come across these values being embedded. Most subject areas contribute directly and explicitly to the teaching of British Values, including English, Humanities, Religious Studies, PSHE, Physical Education, Cookery and Art.

Democracy

We aim to provide students with a broad general knowledge of, and promote respect for, public institutions and services. We have an active Student Council with students being asked their opinions about important school issues and this ensures our students are aware of the principles of democracy. The elections of the Student Council representatives each year are based solely on student votes. Members of the Student Council regularly play a dynamic role in taking the voice of the students to their meetings and feeding back to their tutor groups. Students are encouraged to take ownership and leadership of this, with staff to facilitate and provide guidance.

The Rule of Law

Processes are in place at school for students to identify and exhibit appropriate behaviours; we promote positive behaviour management strategies and encourage Orion Academy students to take ownership for their own behaviour.  We have a robust behaviour policy which clearly states our school standards. We work closely with parents/carers and outside agencies to ensure that standards are followed, and believe consistent communication with students and their families is crucial to promoting an appropriate learning environment. A ‘Restorative Approach’ is often used to help enable those who have been harmed to convey the impact of the harm to those responsible, and for those responsible to acknowledge this impact, and take steps to put it right. This approach empowers students to take ownership of their behaviour. Specialist one to one interventions allow for a safe space where students feel supported and guided to reflect on their actions and given tools to help them act differently in the future.

Individual Liberty

The right to believe, act, and express oneself freely is a fundamental British Value and one that we work hard to promote. The staff at Orion Academy play an important role in this by acting as appropriate role models for students. We aim to actively support students in increasing their own self-knowledge, self-esteem and confidence so that they have the skills and abilities to express their own individual and diverse views and opinions in a safe environment. We welcome and encourage freedom of speech through student participation in lessons, class discussions and in school council meetings.

Mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith

Students are encouraged to respect each other, staff and visitors to the school. We enable students to appreciate different cultures and traditions, including their own, within curriculum areas such as history, geography and religious studies as well as in group talks during tutor time and within the PSHE programme. Students are given the opportunity to visit and meet with a range of different people from different backgrounds through guest speakers at the school and educational trips outside of school.  We hold weekly SEMH assemblies to develop our students understanding of the world around them.  Restorative Approaches allows time for students to reflect upon their actions and demonstrate tolerance and understanding for those from different backgrounds or with different needs to themselves.