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Here at Bere Regis School we are giving high status to the teaching of Virtues to our children. Virtues are those qualities of character which help to nurture worthy and responsible citizens.

“The ultimate aim of character education is the development of good sense or practical wisdom: the capacity to choose intelligently between alternatives…

This capacity involves knowing how to choose the right course of action in difficult situations and it arises gradually out of the experience of making choices and the growth of ethical insight.” – The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham

• Responsibility

• Courage

• Unity

• Kindness

• Respect

• Honesty

• Cleanliness

• Resilience

• Patience

• Forgiveness

• Gentleness

• Trustworthiness

Each Monday, Mrs Brown or Miss Gibbs lead an assembly for the whole school looking at various aspects of each virtue theme. Themes run for three weeks at a time and we explore personal, social and community aspects and invite the children to consider how each virtue applies to them.

Class Teachers follow on the themes with a weekly class-based assembly, recording the children’s responses in special books – for our Responsibility theme, the Year 3 and 4 class created an acrostic poem, the Year 1 and 2 children wrote about class-mates they thought had shown responsibility whilst the Year 5 and 6s had an interactive online discussion on the theme.

Virtues education is extended to our youngest children, too. The Reception class used the Responsibility in agreeing their Class Charter, and the Pre-school children had lots of ‘circle time’ on the theme.

Reverend Sandra links each virtue to a Bible story or aspect of Christianity in their Wednesday assemblies.

At the end of each three-week cycle we have a celebration assembly where one child from each class is chosen to have a special badge and certificate honouring them for showing the virtue in their behaviour.

It is so rewarding to hear the children in school using the language of the virtues, helping each other to understand the expectations and demonstrating their understanding in their actions.