SMSC at Stretford High School

A School with Soul

At Stretford High School, we want to see the promotion of Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural topics in EVERY lesson as we believe that SMSC is a necessity for every child and their personal development.

SMSC stands for the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development of every student. Its overall purpose is to ensure that students are encouraged to respect all faiths, races and cultures and to understand views and opinions that are not their own. SMSC is about knowing what is right and what is wrong. It is learning how to behave in society. It is about showing respect, having manners and appreciating the world in which we live.

The first ‘S’ stands for SPIRITUAL development. It is not just about religion and faith but is about all of the non-material elements of our existence. Spiritual development is encouraging students to develop a strong personality and character. It is learning about ourselves and appreciating who we are. At Stretford High, we encourage our students to search for meaning and purpose in their lives. We also want them to experience the WOW factor and be amazed throughout their learning and through the opportunities that we provide. We want our students to experience this a lot and encourage this through imagination and creativity. We believe that spiritual development is about having experiences that you will never forget.

The ‘M’ stands for MORAL development. As educators, part of our role is to teach students how be a responsible member of society. We model this behaviour ourselves in our classrooms and around school and encourage our students to demonstrate these shared values.  Moral development also focusses on opinions and views. We share with out students that as people and professionals, we don’t always agree with each other but should respect the views of others and we teach the skill of compromise to our students.

Through our expectations we teach honesty and how to play fair, which are key to success in every students future. Students are also taught to respect and understand the feelings of others and how to support their peers/family/friends when necessary. We encourage our students to understand that there are different faiths and that faith can mean different things to different people. And finally, we believe that students MUST be made aware of legislation and the laws that they need to abide to keep themselves and others safe.

The second ‘S’ stands for SOCIAL development. It involves all social aspects inside and outside of the classroom. It is about teaching students how to work together. We do not assume that students know how to do this, we aim to teach them this skill. To us, social development is about encouraging students to participate in activities/clubs within their own community. It is about teaching students how to live and work with others, how and why we should help others even if there is minimal personal gain. We also believe that our students need to be shown or to see the skills required to interact to with their peers, with their teachers, with everyone they may meet in daily life. At Stretford High School, we work to encourage our students to develop an understanding of a wide variety of people from all walks of life.

The final aspect of SMSC is CULTURAL development. This involves our ability to understand and appreciate not only our own cultures but other cultures that exist throughout the world. We teach our students that this type of understanding and appreciation will help them to feel comfortable in a variety of cultures and enable them to respect the faith and values of others. Throughout our lessons, we engage in conversations with students about the effects of the media and social media. We use these conversations to guide and develop student’s thinking and promote reflection on the issues that may arise. Finally, at Stretford High School, we teach our students about the dangers of discrimination  and hate towards others. We challenge their thinking and ideas and encourage productive and enlightening discussions.

 

For more information and evidence of SMS in Stretford High School, please click the links below: