Last Updated 26/06/2022
It is a legal requirement for childminders to ACTIVELY promote British values with childminded children.
These fundamental British values are:
- Democracy
- Rule of law
- Individual liberty
- Mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths.
Many childminders do lip service to British values and the Prevent Duty by putting up a poster with these four words on it. Unfortunately, that isn’t good enough and childminders and nurseries have been marked down at inspections for not promoting British values in a more active way.
Promoting ‘democracy’ with EYFS children is all about making sure that children are learning to share and to take turns. This requires an understanding of concepts like fairness and ‘golden rule’. So you can help to teach democracy to the very young by putting in place the basic concepts of equality, that you must share a toy, share an adult’s attention and take your turn.
Promoting ‘rule of law’ is about learning respect for authority. You can help by making a set of house rules that everyone has agreed upon. And then enforcing them. Your house rules should emphasise kindness, sharing and working together.
Teach children about ‘individual liberty’ by helping to give children the language they need to discuss feelings and to think about their place in their families, their communities, and our world. Do ‘all about me’ activities to help children to see themselves as individuals and to start to recognise the similarities and differences between themselves and others.
Promote ‘mutual respect and tolerance’ by teaching children about different religions, disabilities and other differences between people like languages we speak, different food we eat, different genders and ages. Celebrate some multicultural holidays like St. Patrick’s Day or Diwali or Eid that are important in the UK, and these will help the children to learn about different cultures.
If you need some help getting started, the activities in our Diversity Awareness Mega pack are all activities that will promote different aspects of British values.
Products that can help you to actively teach British Values in your setting:
Childminding Best Practice Club – themed packs
Join the Childminding Best Practice Club and get monthly toolkits containing themed activities emailed to you.
The Childminding Best Practice Club is basically what it says it is. It is designed to encourage you to be the best childminder you can be, no matter what your starting point. Lots of the hard work is done for you as members receive a monthly toolkit bursting with resources and bite-sized ideas to help improve and reinforce your skills. Each pack also contains a multicultural holiday to celebrate or other way to promote British values and diversity awareness. You also receive a certificate to advertise your commitment to excellence to parents and visitors, a CPR log-book to use if you wish and a 25% discount off lots of other Kids To Go products helping you achieve best practice in every element of your work.
Diversity Awareness Mega Pack
Our Diversity Pack Mega Pack is a collection of 20 mini printable packs with resources to help childminders teach 20 different diversity and British Values topics.
Each mini pack is designed to offer clear messages on 20 important diversity and British values themes for 2-5 year old children giving you all the tools you need to explore many ‘difficult’ topics at a level that is right for very young children. Altogether the Mega Pack contains 50 original art projects with templates plus over 100 suggested activities including printable activity sheets and cooking projects.
