Learning about Similarities and Differences

At St Marys part of our ethos is our St Marys Values, taken from the British Values promoted by Ofsted. We have been carrying out some activities at group time to explore similarities and differences in the world. This supports our St Marys Value of mutual tolerance and respect. In an ever changing multi cutural society it is vital that children grow to live in peace and harmony with one another. You can further support this at home, here are some ideas:

Top ways of promoting mutual respect and tolerance –

• Talk about all festivals – Use TV footage, books and magazines and local events to discuss different celebrations and how people celebrate them.
• Take trips into the community and discuss various things that can be seen such as a mosque or a Polish food shop
• Dressing up clothes – Discuss what is worn in various cultures and why.
• Multicultural resources such as books, puppets and CD’s in other languages.
• Food Tasting – A fun way to introduce culture to the children trying different foods
• Question negative attitudes
• Promote Positive behaviour  – remind children to respect others opinions, beliefs and to be kind and share with everyone
• Emotions – Discuss how it makes other people and children feel when narrow views are displayed.
• All about me discussions – So the children can learn what makes them different to others and what makes them similar to others.

St Marys Values should be promoted every day through the actions displayed by practitioners in the setting. Giving all children equal opportunities and encouraging other children to treat everyone equally. Ofsted will not consider making small tokenistic gestures such as just multicultural resources as proof that all of the British values are being promoted. Children need to be respectful of one another, and all children should feel respected for who they are. Children should be tolerant of others, and this comes from having an understanding that everyone has a different background with different cultures and religions.